Why is CPU temperature monitoring important?

Without CPU temperature monitoring, you may be unaware your devices are at risk of overheating. By continuously monitoring CPU temperature on all your devices, you can better ensure your business doesn't experience unexpected interruptions. Temperature monitoring is an important part of broader CPU monitoring, which also includes monitoring CPU load. Excessive CPU usage can lead to overheating and serious slowdowns. With the number of viruses and worms networks can be exposed to, it's easy for the CPU load on your routers to increase even if you aren't increasing operations. By monitoring your CPU load, you can keep tabs on how the current CPU load compares to the maximum and take steps to reduce the load if it gets too close to the maximum temperature limit.

What is CPU temperature monitoring software?

CPU temperature monitoring software is designed to constantly monitor the temperature of the central processing unit in each of your devices, and it can alert you when the CPU temperature on any of those devices reaches a critical threshold. Though it's possible to get a basic Mac CPU temperature monitor, Linux CPU temperature monitor, or Windows temperature monitor program, these applications typically don't monitor CPU temperature automatically. Instead, they may just give you access to the current temperature when you enter the app. Sometimes these apps need to be installed on each device, and they typically don't offer a centralized view from which you can see all your devices and their CPU temperature. When CPU temperature monitoring is part of a larger CPU monitoring software solution, you get automated, continuous temperature monitoring and alerting. This helps inform the larger context of managing your overall CPU health by giving you insight into key metrics like CPU load and memory usage. Some CPU monitoring solutions also offer visualizations of the collected data to help you understand how the current temperatures and loads compare to the maximums. By collecting and maintaining historical temperature data, you can more easily see how current CPU temperatures and loads on devices align with historical records and better understand their significance.

More tools from Engineer's Toolset

SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset offers much more than CPU monitoring and includes more than 60 tools designed to help with network management and troubleshooting. Some of the tools included in ETS are as follows: Port Scanner Interface Monitor IP Network Browser Network Traffic Generator Subnet List Memory Monitor Ping Sweep Network Sonar TraceRoute Network Discovery Tool SNMP Sweep Switch Port Mapper And Many More For more information about ETS tools, check out the product page .

CPU Temperature Monitoring

Monitor your CPU temperature to maintain device performance

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Automated CPU temperature monitoring for every device on your network

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When the CPU in any of your devices overheats, the whole device can slow down or even shut down. This is why it’s so important to constantly monitor CPU temperature across your network. By monitoring temperature, you can identify high temperatures before a slowdown occurs.

SolarWinds^® Engineer’s Toolset™ (ETS) is designed with an auto-discovery feature capable of automatically finding all the devices on your network. This allows you to monitor important metrics related to performance, including CPU temperature, CPU load, memory, and more.

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Put CPU temperature into the larger context of CPU health with a complete CPU monitoring solution

What types of tools do network engineers need?

CPU temperature monitoring is just one important element of broader CPU monitoring, which is critical for maintaining device performance. With SolarWinds Engineer’s Toolset, you get a complete CPU monitoring solution built to monitor temperature and load. This can help make it easier to see the root cause of temperature increases to quickly determine if they’re correlated with an increased load.

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Use intelligent alerting and clear graphs to manage your CPU temperature monitoring

What is SolarWinds Engineer’s Toolset (ETS)?

When you use a CPU temperature monitoring tool, you want to be able to trust it to do the heavy lifting of constant monitoring; you want to be sure it’ll tell you when a problem arises. SolarWinds Engineer’s Toolset can automate CPU temperature monitoring and notify you whenever a device’s CPU reaches a preset threshold. You can even generate graphs showing how the current CPU temperature and load compare to the maximums.

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Do you find yourself asking…

How does CPU temperature monitoring work?
Why is CPU temperature monitoring important?
What is CPU temperature monitoring software?
How does CPU temperature monitoring work in SolarWinds ETS?
More tools from Engineer's Toolset

Any physical device you use, whether it’s a car, a fridge, or a computer, needs to be monitored and managed to stay operational. When it comes to your central processing units (CPUs), one of the most important tasks is temperature monitoring. Without it, you might find your devices slowing down, locking up, or even shutting down.

Unfortunately, there may not be a built-in Mac CPU temperature monitor, Linux CPU temperature monitor, or Windows CPU temperature monitor for some devices. To effectively manage processor temperature, you’ll need to install CPU temperature monitoring software.

Once you’ve installed CPU temperature monitoring software, the process is quite easy, whether you want to monitor the CPU temperature of a Windows 10 system, a Linux system, or any other system. With basic monitoring programs, you may need to enter the application to locate the current CPU temperature. With more advanced CPU temperature monitoring software, tracking can be automated so you can see current temperature in addition to historical temperature trends over time.

When it comes to CPU temperature, there’s no set maximum temperature. Every processor has a different maximum temperature known as the “Tj Max.” If your CPU temperature is anywhere near the Tj Max, this may mean the CPU is overheating, which can lead to a shutdown. Generally, it’s good to try to keep your CPU temperature around 10 to 20 degrees below the maximum temperature.

With SolarWinds^® Engineer’s Toolset™, you can stop monitoring your device CPUs manually. If a switch, server, or router provides CPU temperature via SNMP, the SNMP real-time graph tool in ETS can help monitor CPU temperature in addition to load and other metrics.

However, many network devices don’t include native methods to monitor CPU temperature, so a CPU monitor relying on capturing these existing temperature metrics won’t work.

By monitoring the usage of elements in network devices prone to overheating, SolarWinds ETS is built to provide an alternative way for you to monitor potential CPU temperature spikes, even when the router, switch, or server doesn’t natively provide temperature metrics.

Since heat is usually generated by overworked or overloaded electronic elements, ETS includes a CPU Monitor tool you can use to track interface statistics and memory utilization on multiple Cisco routers concurrently to more easily identify when an increase in traffic and CPU load on routers may be a warning sign of cybersecurity threats. With Advanced CPU Load, you can also record when peak load levels occur.

ETS also comes with intelligent alerting, which allows you to set warning and critical thresholds for each of your devices independently, since different processors have different maximum temperatures. Whenever your predetermined alert thresholds are breached in terms of load, temperature, or another metric, you’ll receive an alert. This alert can be an audible alarm, an SMS message, or an email.

The intuitive interface and graphic features in ETS can help make visualizing your CPU function and health easier. Once you receive an alert, you can immediately turn to the interface and see a graph of the current CPU load in relation to the maximum load. If the temperature has reached a user-defined threshold for a warning, the load bar turns yellow. If a critical level is reached, the bar turns red. These visual indicators can help you immediately pinpoint exactly where a problem is so you can begin taking steps to address it.

Any physical device you use, whether it’s a car, a fridge, or a computer, needs to be monitored and managed to stay operational. When it comes to your central processing units (CPUs), one of the most important tasks is temperature monitoring. Without it, you might find your devices slowing down, locking up, or even shutting down.
Unfortunately, there may not be a built-in Mac CPU temperature monitor, Linux CPU temperature monitor, or Windows CPU temperature monitor for some devices. To effectively manage processor temperature, you’ll need to install CPU temperature monitoring software.
Once you’ve installed CPU temperature monitoring software, the process is quite easy, whether you want to monitor the CPU temperature of a Windows 10 system, a Linux system, or any other system. With basic monitoring programs, you may need to enter the application to locate the current CPU temperature. With more advanced CPU temperature monitoring software, tracking can be automated so you can see current temperature in addition to historical temperature trends over time.
When it comes to CPU temperature, there’s no set maximum temperature. Every processor has a different maximum temperature known as the “Tj Max.” If your CPU temperature is anywhere near the Tj Max, this may mean the CPU is overheating, which can lead to a shutdown. Generally, it’s good to try to keep your CPU temperature around 10 to 20 degrees below the maximum temperature.
SolarWinds Engineer’s Toolset offers much more than CPU monitoring and includes more than 60 tools designed to help with network management and troubleshooting.
Some of the tools included in ETS are as follows:
Port Scanner
Interface Monitor
IP Network Browser
Network Traffic Generator
Subnet List
Memory Monitor
Ping Sweep
Network Sonar
TraceRoute
Network Discovery Tool
SNMP Sweep
Switch Port Mapper
And Many More
For more information about ETS tools, check out the product page.

"It helps us with day-to-day network administration tasks as far as troubleshooting and diagnosis of problems to get us back up and running as quickly as possible."

Robert Andrew

CIO

Vaughn & Melton