Draclvr was over here yesterday and she and after telling her some of the weird things that my computer has done, she downloaded Specy. My mohterboard registered 127 degrees C. I used Windows Easy Transfer and backed up my hard drive to my external drive. She suggested we take the cover off the CPU and clean it out good and check to see if all the fans were working. Have not had time to do this yet. Is there anything else that we can check out if this is all done and it still reads 127 C. It is a Dell Studio XPS 8100.

Bets

Good... I was going to suggest you post something here! She's also running Windows 7 Home.

It's not impossible that the sensor on the motherboard is faulty. But the things you described suggested possible overheating which is why we checked it. The thing that makes me think the sensor might be faulty is that it is constantly pegged at 127°C immediately and never changes up or down. The air coming from the back of the computer didn't feel overly hot to me either.

Have Bill see if he thinks that motherboard is over 200°F while he's in there cleaning out dust bunnies. Of course, the computer should be turned off while he's doing that. But I always reconnect everything after I clean the inside of my computers and boot it up just to check all the fans.

After all this, if it still is pegging at 127°C, I'm out of suggestions.

If you're talking about the CPU temperature (processor temperature), this message suggests the problem could be caused by a loose heatsink not conducting heat away from the processor.

http://superuser.com/questions/55632/cpu-temperature-sensor-wrong

No, this is the actual motherboard temperature. Her CPU and GPU temperatures are nice and cool.

First,dont pour water on it to cool it.Second the only things I can think of that could cause that kind of heat would be the cpu and gpu,I cant think of anything else on the mother board. It wouldn't be the ram so I would suspect a bad sensor.I would put/add a fan anywhere on the case where there is a place for a fan but there isn't a fan.I would have the computer out in the open not in a cubby-hole under the desk like my neighbor.It drives me nuts because no air can circulate.

Just as a reference, my motherboard temps run about 31°C at idle.

Get a baking thermometer and place it inside the case where it can't touch anything. Close the case, let the computer run, see what the software says the temp is, I assume it's software, then check the temp on the thermometer. If they match then it isn't a sensor. If they differ, perhaps reinstalling the software first might solve the problem. If not then perhaps the sensor has gone south.

That would only measure the ambient temperature inside the case. What we're concerned about is the individual component temps. My CPU temp runs about 30°C at idle, the motherboard about 31°C at idle and the GPU about 34°C at idle. My three drives are running around 25°C.

I asked here one time how software can measure temps and they told me there usually are built in sensors that the software is able to tap in to. Still sort of a mystery to me! All my research on the net says this temperature is extremely high for a motherboard and she is having some hinky behavior. I just don't know what to think.

I'm wondering about Bets using different temperature monitor software. I've also used SpeedFan in the past - does anyone know of any other reputable temp monitor software?

Where are these built in sensors located? Have the fans been checked to see if all are running? Even checking ambient temperature would be helpful in determining if something is giving off excess heat. But on second thought, if there wasn't a base line taken then there's be nothing to compare it to.

Well there's this one
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

I don't know that it would show anything different from Speedfan though.

Google found some forums where people thought the "motherboard sensor" was near the northbridge chip. Could the heatsink have come loose from that?

I'm hoping we hear from Bets about what happened when Bill opened the case and cleaned it out. Hopefully, they booted it up to check to see if all the fans were running and if the motherboard seemed extremely hot.

I Googled some forums where they said the motherboard sensor was near the northbridge too.

Motherboard cool, fans working. Temp still 127 C. All cleaned out.

Good to hear - that has got to be a faulty sensor on the motherboard then.

For the issue of your weather app suddenly minimizing when you try to put it in motion, try using another app and see if the same thing happens. Try intellicast.com and see what happens. I wonder too if eliminating all the extra stuff you had loading at startup will help.

I haven't seen anything drop down to the desktop since I ran CCleaner the other day, before you came over. It did it on games occasionally also. Hasn't done it recently.

Well, that's good news. Maybe keep running CCleaner and Malwarebytes for a week or so and see what happens.

Speedfan is well known to report incorrect temps - Does you BIOS report temps as well? I'd rely on the BIOS rather than Speedfan.

These readings were from Speccy. I'm not a big fan of Speedfan for the reason you mention, so I was wondering if there were any other ones out there. But Bets reports that the actual motherboard itself feels cool to the touch, so it's got to be a faulty sensor.

Sounds like it to me as well. I saw Speedfan mentioned, so I thought I'd chime in. I'd still check if the BIOS reports the sensors, just to see what it says.

I'm glad to hear someone else say that Speedfan has been known to report false temperatures... I thought it was just me!

So is it going to hurt if I don't replace the sensor? What is involved in replacing it?

You probably can't replace it and it's nothing to worry about. You didn't even know you had one until last week! They are itty, bitty little things and are an integral part of the motherboard - nothing that can be replaced. Google motherboard temperature sensors and you'll see what I mean!

I'd forget the whole thing and keep using CCleaner and Malwarebytes regularly for awhile and see what happens.