How to get CPU temperature?

Question

I need to gather some system's information for the application I'm developing. The memory available and the CPU load are easy to get using C#. Unfortunately, the CPU temperature it's not that easy. I have tried using WMI but I couldn't get anything using

Win32_TemperatureProbe

or

MSAcpi_ThermalZoneTemperature

Has anybody already dealt with this issue? I'm wondering how monitoring programs, as SiSoftware Sandra, can get that information...

Just in case anybody is interested, here is the code of the class:

public class SystemInformation
{
    private System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounter m_memoryCounter;
    private System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounter m_CPUCounter;

    public SystemInformation()
    {
        m_memoryCounter = new System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounter();
        m_memoryCounter.CategoryName = "Memory";
        m_memoryCounter.CounterName = "Available MBytes";

        m_CPUCounter = new System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounter();
        m_CPUCounter.CategoryName = "Processor";
        m_CPUCounter.CounterName = "% Processor Time";
        m_CPUCounter.InstanceName = "_Total"; 
    }

    public float GetAvailableMemory()
    {
        return m_memoryCounter.NextValue();
    }

    public float GetCPULoad()
    {
        return m_CPUCounter.NextValue();
    }

    public float GetCPUTemperature()
    {
        //...
        return 0;
    }
}

Answer 1

I know this post is old, but just wanted to add a comment if somebody should be looking at this post and trying to find a solution for this problem.

You can indeed read the CPU temperature very easily in C# by using a WMI approach.

To get a Celsius value, I have created a wrapper that converts the value returned by WMI and wraps it into an easy to use object.

Please remember to add a reference to the System.Management.dll in Visual Studio.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Management;

namespace RCoding.Common.Diagnostics.SystemInfo
{
    public class Temperature
    {
        public double CurrentValue { get; set; }
        public string InstanceName { get; set; }
        public static List<Temperature> Temperatures
        {
            get
            {
                List<Temperature> result = new List<Temperature>();
                ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(@"root\WMI", "SELECT * FROM MSAcpi_ThermalZoneTemperature");
                foreach (ManagementObject obj in searcher.Get())
                {
                    Double temp = Convert.ToDouble(obj["CurrentTemperature"].ToString());
                    temp = (temp - 2732) / 10.0;
                    result.Add(new Temperature { CurrentValue = temp, InstanceName = obj["InstanceName"].ToString() });
                }
                return result;

            }
        }
    }
}

Update 25.06.2010:

(Just saw that a link was posted to the same kind of solution above... Anyway, I will leave this piece of code if somebody should want to use it :-) )

Answer 2

There is a blog post with some C# sample code on how to do it here.

Answer 3

I extracted the CPU part from Open Hardware Monitor into a separated library, exposing sensors and members normally hidden into OHM. It also includes many updates (like the support for Ryzen and Xeon) because on OHM they don't accept pull requests since 2015.

https://www.nuget.org/packages/HardwareProviders.CPU.Standard/

Let know your opinion :)

Answer 4

It can be done in your code via WMI. I've found a tool from Microsoft that creates code for it.

The WMI Code Creator tool allows you to generate VBScript, C#, and VB .NET code that uses WMI to complete a management task such as querying for management data, executing a method from a WMI class, or receiving event notifications using WMI.

You can download it here.

Answer 5

You can give the Open Hardware Monitor a go, although it lacks support for the latest processors.

internal sealed class CpuTemperatureReader : IDisposable
{
    private readonly Computer _computer;

    public CpuTemperatureReader()
    {
        _computer = new Computer { CPUEnabled = true };
        _computer.Open();
    }

    public IReadOnlyDictionary<string, float> GetTemperaturesInCelsius()
    {
        var coreAndTemperature = new Dictionary<string, float>();

        foreach (var hardware in _computer.Hardware)
        {
            hardware.Update(); //use hardware.Name to get CPU model
            foreach (var sensor in hardware.Sensors)
            {
                if (sensor.SensorType == SensorType.Temperature && sensor.Value.HasValue)
                    coreAndTemperature.Add(sensor.Name, sensor.Value.Value);
            }
        }

        return coreAndTemperature;
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        try
        {
            _computer.Close();
        }
        catch (Exception)
        {
            //ignore closing errors
        }
    }
}

Download the zip from the official source, extract and add a reference to OpenHardwareMonitorLib.dll in your project.

Answer 6

For others who may come by here, maybe take a look at : http://openhardwaremonitor.org/

Follow that link and at first you might think, "hey that's an Application, that is why it was removed, the question was how to do this from C# code, not to find an application that can tell me the temperature..." This is where it shows you are not willing to invest enough time in reading what "Open Hardware Monitor" also is.

They also include a Data Interface, here is the description:

Data Interface The Open Hardware Monitor publishes all sensor data to WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation). This allows other applications to read and use the sensor information as well. A preliminary documentation of the interface can be found here(click).

When you download it, it contains the OpenHardwareMonitor.exe application, you're not looking for that one. It also contains the OpenHardwareMonitorLib.dll, you're looking for that one.

It is mostly, if not 100%, just a wrapper around the WinRing0 API, which you could choose to wrap your self if you feel like it.

I have tried this out from a C# app myself, and it works. Although it is still in beta, it seemed rather stable. It is also open source so it could be a good starting point instead.

At the end of the day I find it hard to believe that is not on topic of this question.