How to Check CPU Temperature and Why Is It Important?
Have you ever encountered a situation in which opening a folder takes a decade, your computer freezes when you do anything, your PC shuts down for no reason, and the only way to get the computer to work is to hit reset? Perhaps a possible explanation is that your CPU overheated and has stopped processing all of your work. These issues are commonly seen in old computers because hardware lacks maintenance or needs improvement.
What happens if my CPU overheats?
If the CPU overheats, terrible things happen. In the worst case, your processor, motherboard, and surrounding parts will be damaged, and this will be an irreversible change. Common signs that signal your CPU has overheated are regular system freezes, strange graphics pop-ups, sudden shutdowns, and… the blue screen of death. If your computer fails to reduce the CPU utilization rate to lower temperatures. CPU temperatures might skyrocket, damaging other internal components, possibly to the point of creating smoke! . So it’s critical to make sure your CPU stays within a safe temperature range.
How do I check my CPU’s temperature?
In general, there are two ways to monitor CPU heat: Windows built-in system tools and 3rd party software.
Windows built-in system tools
You can check the CPU temperature in the BIOS settings (or UEFI after Windows 10), but this method doesn’t provide much value as we don’t have access to the BIOS when we play video games. So 3rd party monitoring software is more useful.
3rd party system monitoring software
There are many monitoring programs, such as HWiNFO, Core Temp, NZXT's CAM, and many others. HWiNFO is believed to be the easiest to operate and can track CPU/GPU temperature over time (even while you are gaming)
Step 1
Visit HWiNFO website download page: https://www.hwinfo.com/download/
Step 2
Download an installer version (or portable version if you like) for your computer and install it
Step 3
Open it with Sensors-only
Step 4
A list of sensor data will show up
Step 5
Locate “CPU Package”, as it represents your CPU’s temperature readings. You can see current, minimum, maximum, and average of CPU temperature here
Step 6
If you double click “CPU Package”, a real-time temperature graph will be generated
What is the ideal temperature for my CPU?
First of all, it’s normal that CPU temperatures rise, especially when doing work because it means the CPU is working. Certain work, by nature, consumes more CPU power (e.g. video editing or heavy gaming). When your computer is idle, a good temperature range is 40~55 degrees Celsius, depending on your other components. While under stress, a range of 65~80 degrees is also not something that you should worry about.
However, if you observe CPU temperatures of 95 degrees when you’re just watching YouTube videos, that would be a big warning sign. Watching YouTube videos typically doesn’t consume that much CPU power and 95 degrees Celsius is just way too high. In this circumstance, you would consider CPU temperature abnormally high.
How to lower CPU temperature?
Technically speaking, what we try to do is not to lower CPU temperature, but to improve heat dissipation efficiency for the entire cooling system. CPUs generate heat when processing your work (which is what it’s supposed to do), so what we should focus on is to allow more heat to be transferred out from the CPU in a short time, thus reducing temperatures as a biproduct.
A more expensive way is to replace your old components such as your fans or heatsink with new and more powerful model. However, not everyone has the budget or the time to replace everything, especially when there’s a much cheaper way to potentially solve this problem.
A cheaper but very useful way is to reapply thermal paste. A very common reason that CPUs overheat is that old thermal paste degrades or cracks, inhibiting external heat transfer and causing temperatures to rise. By simply reapplying thermal paste, it’s easy to see not only CPU temperature drops, but also increases in CPU utilization rates.