PC Alert 4 with Cooler XP

[DavidP]

Lately I have been having some heating problems with my computer.

I have a MSI K7T Turbo2 motherboard (its nice ), and it came with a program called PC Alert 4 (some of you might have heard of it).

This program is very nice. It tells me my CPU Temp, System temp, voltages, and fan speeds at the current point in time.

Well, for some reason my computer has been having heating problems (not exactly sure of the reason)...but the CPU temp has been getting as hot as 70 C (not good at all).

Well today I noticed this button on the left hand side of PC Alert 4 that said, "Cooler XP", so I clicked the button. A window popped up showing my CPU Temp, and it said, "Cooling".

Within 2 minutes my CPU temp went from 45 C to 26 C.

I was amazed, to say the least. I had NEVER seen my CPU temp this low before. I am still amazed.

So now I have been searching the internet for more information on PC Alert 4 and Cooler XP, but unfortunately I have found very little. MSI, the makers of it, have no information about it, as far as I know, on their website.

I did find a thread on one discussion board about this same program however. One person in the thread said that it basically just ended/cancelled/terminated unneeded processes currently going on in the computer in order to cool it down.

So I was wondering if anyone else has had experience with this program and could shed some light on it. Is the above case how it cools down the computer, or something else? I find it amazing it cooled my computer so much so easily.

It also makes me wonder whether I should have this program constantly running or whether I should only have this program running when I start getting to peak hot temperatures.

What are your thoughts?

[confuted]

DID it cool your computer? Think about it. The cooling program is built into the temperature monitoring program. If it appears to cool down your CPU, people will give good reviews, etc. It might not be doing anything. I'd suggest verifying the data with a hardware temperature monitor, if possible.

[DavidP]

>I'd suggest verifying the data with a hardware temperature monitor, if possible.

Well considering the program was made by MSI and specifically distributed with my motherboard, I would hope that it would work.

Plus the temps shown in PC Alert 4 (also made by MSI and distributed specifically with my motherboard) corresponded with the temps shown by Cooler XP as Cooler XP cooled down my system.

So since those 2 programs both showed the same numbers, and we distributed by the people who made my motherboard, I will believe them.

Of course I could also check the temperatures shown by my BIOS, but that would require rebooting my computer.

[TravisS]

I think that it works by somewhat putting your CPU into a "sleep" mode when it's not in use. Even when your CPU is at idle it's still getting full voltage, still being used. I think the coolerXP just limits that, makes it work less hard.

But I have a feeling that under load, the CPU temp would be the same regadless of the program.