How to Read CPU Temperature from C#?

Its going to be one of two things ... either they gave you an unmanaged DLL you have to call somewhere (which would kind of suck) or its just sitting in WMI which is more likely ... Have you gone to WMI and looked around to see if there is a counter already existing for it? As suggested http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/10/21/245652.aspx give SELECT * from Win32_BIOS and a few others whirl and I think you will be happy. SELECT * FROM Win32_TemperatureProbe looks promising as well ;-)

If its in WMI its a pretty easy task to read the value.

Thanks gregoryyoung for your reply,
I am not really experienced with WMI. Do I have to create a WMI application and try to query?
I will try to re-read the article again, everything seems to be done in scripts and C nothing in C#

Try this:
- add reference to System.Management.dll
- add using System.Management;

            ManagementClass processClass = new ManagementClass(@"root\cimv2:Win32_TemperatureProbe");
            foreach(ManagementObject service in processClass.GetInstances()) {
                Console.WriteLine("Service = " + service.GetPropertyValue("CurrentReading.Description"));
            }

Select allOpen in new window

wackym: I added your code to a button click command but it doesn't return anything:
it doesn't go into the foreach loop, it exists rightaway

any idea?
thanks,

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            ManagementClass processClass = new ManagementClass(@"root\cimv2:Win32_TemperatureProbe");
            foreach (ManagementObject service in processClass.GetInstances())
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Service = " + service.GetPropertyValue("CurrentReading.Description"));
            }
 
        }

Select allOpen in new window

its not as simple as that usually as the hardware vendors have not exactly standardized this ... some do it in different ways (actually some commentary on this in the link I sent see comment from xtmouse) as such you will probably have to poke around a bit ... its probably there but its probably manufacturer specific.

wackym, I downloaded the software and its showing me alot of objects but can't for some reason call one of them, for example, i modified the code you posted like the following so i can see all instances of Win32_ComputerSystem, but its giving me an error Bot Found!

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            ManagementClass processClass = new ManagementClass(@"root\cimv2:Win32_ComputerSystem");
            foreach (ManagementObject service in processClass.GetInstances())
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Service = " + service.GetPropertyValue("CurrentReading.Description"));
            }

        }
now it goes into the loop but it throws an error not found. any idea why?
thanks again

Hmm, you're requesting to read a non-existing property CurrentReading.Description from Win32_ComputerSystem...you'll have to find the right property with info about CPU temperature.

Thanks wackym, I got some variables to show their values just fine. Just one question though:
Does looking up WMI parameters/variables slow down your computer? because my computer has slowed down big time, and i am thinking if i should have a timer to check the status of my CPU Temperature or not if its this slow?

thanks

It shouldn't be significantly slower ... I have code that reads <> 50 WMI values a second without any real performance cost ... I wouldn't imagine that you would want to check temperature more than every few seconds though unless you are planning to flash freeze etc the machine in testing ... its extremely rare that you change more than a 1/5 of a degree within even say a 15 or 30 second period. Even with that though I would imagine that even once every 5 seconds would give you reasonable results ...

Thank you guys