As submitted to http://acanac.org/blogs/geek/

In my last post, I talked a little about how I overclocked my video card and gave a brief overview on the steps to do that.  In this post, I will attempt to explain the frustration I have endured trying to take that to a new level for all of the hardcore modders out there.  While testing my mods, especially the overclocks, it is important to keep an eye on system temperatures.  After all, if something in the PC gets too hot, it's probably done.  I often use 3rd party monitoring tools, like nVidia Monitor for things of that nature, however there are some pain points that one has to endure when using these tools.  For example, I have to alt-tab out of my game to check the temp while playing.  That's just a pain.  I've tired some other software, but I find that nothing has what I really want in it.  So, I set out to write my own.  I just happen to be a Microsoft Certified Application Developer.  Woot.  = )

The specific reason that I chose to write my own was that I have a Logitech G15 gaming keyboard that has the LCD on the front of it.  I wanted to display various pieces of system information there.  Things like GPU temperature, CPU temperature, hard drive temperature, system temperature, driver versions, and anything else that seemed useful while modding.  Something that can do this may exist, but the developer in me was just itching to do it.  I figured it couldn't be too hard.

I'm a C# guy, I can do most of the others, but C# is my comfort zone.  I tackled this project from a multitude of angles.  WMI looked like the best way to get at the information I wanted.  The obvious answer was the Win32_TemperatureProbe class.  It only took me two weeks to figure out that this class is not implemented yet - it's just there for future use.  I hit a bunch of other road blocks on my way to that discovery.  First and foremost, I had the pleasure of meeting the new User Access Control (UAC) in Vista.  Before I could even see what data WMI would return to me, I kept getting access denied messages.  Access system data, even if it doesn't actually exist, requires elevated privileges.  This MSDN post helped me understand how to tackle that problem.

As I mentioned before, that was just the start.  It seems that hardware manufacturers are inconsistent with what data they will allow you to access and how they make it available.  WMI does not appear to be the answer.  Many have APIs that you can tap into, but I had no luck with that at all.  nVidia offers a temperature API in their nVidia Control Panel library, but I was unable to get it to return any data.  No errors, but no information either. 

Don't let my complaining deter you, WMI does return a lot of useful information outside of the temperature.  Here is a sample of some of the stuff I can get from it:

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
Ram:  256MB
Status:  Ok
Driver:  7.15.11.6932

I haven't given up entirely, but I have put it aside for the time being.  When I get some more ambition, I will tackle the temperature pieces again.  If I am successful, I'll make the application and source code available for download to anyone who is interested.  I'll keep you posted.