IS YOUR PROCESSOR ABOUT TO OVERHEAT?
How to check in real time
Whether you want to keep an eye on your PC’S performance, diagnose a specific problem or simply peek at what your PC hardware is up to, Open Hardware Monitor (OHM) is the perfect tool. You can use it to check everything from the temperature of your processor’s r’s cores to how much memory your PC is using and the amount of free space on your hard drive. Here, we explain how.
STEP 1 Download OHM from www.snipca. com/37319 (click the grey Download Now button), then open the ZIP file that downloads. Click ‘Extract all’ in the toolbar 1 , Browse 2 , then choose where to extract the files to. Make a note of which folder you choose because you’ll need to access this later – we chose C:\program Files (x86). Leave the ‘Show extracted files when complete’ box ticked 3 , then click Extract. Your new folder will now open. Double-click the Openhardwaremonitor folder, then double-click the ‘Openhardware Monitor. exe’ file. To make it easier to launch in future, right-click this file, select ‘Send to’, then click ‘Desktop (create shortcut)’.
STEP 2 The OHM window will now open, showing a selection of hardware categories, with individual components in them. The Value column shows the current status of each one (such as its temperature or speed), while the Max column shows the highest value recorded since you opened OHM. Open the Options menu, then select Minimize To Tray and Minimize On Close 1 – this means OHM will continue to run in the background when you close the window. To re-open it, double-click the OHM icon 2 in the system tray (you may need to click the up arrow to reveal the icon). To set OHM to run when you start your PC, select Options, then Run On Windows Startup 3 .
STEP 3 You can monitor an individual component by right3 clicking it, then selecting ‘Show in Tray’ 1 . Whenever you do this, an icon will appear in the system tray showing the component’s current status (here it’s showing the processor temperature 2 . As before, you may need to click the up arrow to reveal it (you can drag the icon to the main system tray to make it always visible). To change the colour of the icon’s text, right-click it and select ‘Change color…’ 3 . You can now repeat this process, adding system-tray icons for as many components as you like. To remove one, return to the main OHM window, right-click it and untick the ‘Show in Tray’ option.
STEP 4 Another way to keep an eye on the status of a component is by adding it to a small window (which OHM calls a gadget) on your desktop. First, click the View menu and click Show Gadget 1 . Next, right-click the component and tick ‘Show in Gadget’ 2 . You can repeat this process to add more components to the gadget – we’ve opted to add our processor, memory and hard drive. When you’ve finished, you can view the gadget by minimising all windows on your desktop (press the Windows key+m).
STEP 5 Right-click the gadget to tweak its appearance. The default text size is fairly small, so we recommend clicking Font Size and increasing it (we prefer the Very Large setting 1 ). To keep a more constant eye on your hardware’s performance you can set the gadget to appear on top of all other open windows – tick ‘Always on Top’ 2 to enable this. Click the Opacity option 3 and you can make the gadget semi-transparent. To hide the gadget, return to the main OHM window and untick Show Gadget in the View menu.
STEP 6 OHM also lets you look back over past measurements. Open the main OHM window, select Show Plot 1 and a chart will appear in a separate window. To add the elements you want measured (sensors) to the chart, tick the relevant boxes 2 in the main window. Next, right-click the chart, select Time Window, then choose how far back you want the chart to go 3 . If you add a lot of sensors, it’s best to view the chart in full-screen mode - double-click the chart’s title bar to switch this mode on and off.
STEP 7 You can record all data to a spreadsheet. To start, click Options, then Log Sensors 1 . OHM saves all sensor information to the log, so you don’t need to specify which ones you want to monitor. By default, OHM will update the log every second, but when logging for an extended period it’s best to increase this time interval to keep the spreadsheet manageable. To change this, open the Options menu, click Logging Interval then select an option between 1 second and 6 hours 2 . The log is saved as a CSV file 3 in the same folder as the OHM program and you can open it in any spreadsheet tool. To stop logging, return to the Options menu and click Log Sensors.