Re: CPU temp -268 degrees!

On Fri, 09 Nov 2007, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.misc, in article
<Fd5Zi.15450$h57.10866@edtnps89>, johnny bobby bee wrote:

ksensors does show the CPU temp ... -268 degrees (F). Gkrellm's built-in
sensors show CPU temp at -470 (F). WTF? How can this be?

There are four temperature ranges used in the world. You are probably
familiar with Fahrenheit, where water freezes at +32F and boils at
+212F, and Celsius (formerly Centigrade) where water freezes at 0, and
boils at +100C. These are measured at "sea level" barometric pressures.
There are also two scientific temperature scales, called Kelvin and
Rankine based on "absolute zero" (the temperature where all electron
movement ceases). Kelvin uses the same size degrees as Celsius, while
Rankine uses the same size as Fahrenheit.

Rankine Kelvin Celsius Fahrenheit
Absolute Zero 0 0 -273.18 -459.72
Water Freezes 491.72 273.18 0 +32
Computer Toasted 600 333 60 +140
Water Boils 671.72 373.18 +100 +212
Silicon melts +3062 1683 1410 +2570

The temperature measurement of your CPU is a function of Boltzmann
Constant and the temperature measured in degrees Kelvin. The temperature
readings of the sensors on motherboards and hard drives are also a
function of the temperature measured in Kelvins.

1. Your system either doesn't have sensors, or they are not using a
supported chipset.

2. You may want to recheck Gkrellm verses ksensors use of degrees.
It looks like ksensors is using Kelvin/Celsius, while Gkrellm is
using Rankine/Fahrenheit.

3. Gkrellm and ksensors are merely GUI front-ends for lm-sensors.
If lm-sensors isn't working, then the crap eye-candy won't work either.

What am I missing?

Functioning sensors

Should I be worried?

Dunno - how hot is it in your room? How hot is the computer?

Any suggestions how I can get an accurate reading?

You can't. If you read the specification sheets for the sensors, or
for the CPU, you will find these are only crude estimates. Really.

Old guy
.