I have been trying for quite a while now, HardwareMonitor gives me a totally different temperature than the LCD poster. I am inclined to believe the LCD poster because it is part of the BIOS. HardwareMonitor jumps from an idle 38C to 60C as soon as P95 starts, while the lcd poster idles at about 26C and slowly makes its way up to 55C, so I dont know which to believe. I have heard that software applications can improperly calculate the TJmax leading to incorrect readings, but I dont know, so if anyone could shed some light on this that would be very helpful. By the way my room temperature is about 18C at most.
IMO i think you should always trust the hardware. i have to recommend SWI for viewing temps and what not. (its a free download, just google it). it basically reports all of your system information, just go under sensors and it should tell you your CPU temp, HDD temp, GPU temp, and so on (as well as voltages and other things that are good to know). i have a NZXT sentury fan controller
[ http://www.nzxt.com/products/sentry_lx/ ]. SWI and the fan controller only report a difference of 1-3C so its fairly accurate.
Thanks for the help, but if that is the most accurate then I guess the LCD Poster is not accurate.
well, there are sensors in most computer components, so SWI and programs like it read those... most temperature / fan control moduels have their own points for reading temps, so they will always be slightly less, although they are good for seeing temps while in game (plus the give a nice professional look to your tower)
Don't always trust hardware or bios.
EVERY single software Ive tried shows same temps on cpu (35-40c), but the bios shows 22c..
E8400.
I just think 22c seems a tad bit low for a 4.0 ghz processor.