CPU Temperature Monitor

Background Info

My Lenovo T430 laptop heats up alot to the point where it shuts down without warning. Alot means 105 °C. It doesn't always heat up that much, but when it does, it does so without warning, and I have lost data because of it.

It heats up because it is connected to 3 monitors via a docking station which obstructs much of the cooling ports. Silly design if you ask me, but alas laptops also were not designed to be used as desktops the way I am using it.

EDIT: I recently drilled ALOT of holes into my docking station, to allow for better airflow of hot air out of the laptop. There's still some obstruction of air due to the dock mechanism that ejects my laptop. It seemed to help slightly, because I can stay on Zoom calls for longer, BUT eventually it still reached the 95C temperature that triggers the sirens.

What this applet does

This applet reads my CPU temperatures every 2 seconds, and displays them. If the largest of the two temperatures exceeds a "High" temperature threshold, it blares a siren and generates a desktop notification.

The siren stops when the highest of the two core temperatures drops below a "Low" temperature threshold.

Cool! How to install it?

This was a silly project I made to familiarize myself with PyQt so don't expect this to work if you don't have a non-linux laptop that isn't a Lenovo T430. But be my guest and try it, and tell me if it works :)

To use this, make sure you have python3 installed, as well as pip (use your package manager to obtain these if you don't have them).

Clone this repository, cd into it, and run the following commands (without the '$'):

$ python -m venv _venv  # This is only required ONCE
$ . _venv/bin/activate
$ pip install -r requirements.txt

This will create a python virtual environment, and install all necessary packages using the requirements.txt file.

If you close your terminal window and want to resume work on this project, reactivate the virtual environment as follows:

$ . _venv/bin/activate

To run the project, do:

$ python main.py

Why this applet is useful

My computer doesn't always heat up obnoxiously to the point where it shuts down. It usually does so if I'm gaming, or if I'm doing heavy media rendering like using CAD software or watching cat videos during boring zoom meetings online classes.

When the siren activates, I use my can of compressed air to rapidly cool down my computer to a nominal level. Is it the smartest solution? Probably not. But using a laptop cooler and keeping the laptop lid open all the time actually isn't as helpful as one would expect, and I need my laptop to work as a desktop because I also need it to work as a laptop when I go to school. So this is currently the best solution ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

F.A.Q.

105 Degrees?! That's alot!

True, 105 is very hot. I haven't directly measured my CPU reaching such temperatures. My guestimation of 105 degrees comes from these two facts:

1. 105 degrees is what the sensors command lists as my CPU's "critical" temperature. Thus I assume that is the point where it automatically shuts down with no warning
2. When I'm gaming, I easily record temperatures of 95 degrees. It's wild.

Why don't you keep the laptop lid open?

I do.

Laptop Cooler?

Check.

Maybe your fan has lint and s**t stuck in there that you can clean out.

My fan is clean. I opened my laptop up and blew compressed air at it. I wish this was the problem.

You could make a liquid cooling system?

That's alot of effort and I'm not feeling it. Also I might get a new laptop soon that heats less or has a better docking station that allows for better ventilation.

This is a nonsense F.A.Q.

I know. I was bored when I wrote it. I should be doing physics homework right now.