New new laptop laptop!!

Hi there mystery imaginary audience! I’m making this entry from my brand new HP NC 8430 Core Duo laptop! T2500 (sounds like a killer robot from the future, doesn’t it?) 2GHz dual core Yonah CPU, 2 GBytes 667 MHz DDR memory, 100 GB SATA 5400 RPM disk (budget budget), ATI Radeon X1600 with 256MB of video memory, gooorgeous 15.4″ 1680×1050 screen. Oh thank you kind and generous TU Delft!

After having zapped across gigabytes of data over gigabit ethernet from my trusty HP NC6000, I’ve been setting things up. As part of this, I’ve been searching around for tools with which I can keep an eye on the CPU temperature (yeah, I’m one of those control freaks).

Interestingly, it turns out that the Yonah has three temperature sensors on the CPU: one thermal diode for legacy support measuring the temperature of the CPU, and two high accuracy digital sensors, one for each core. Click here for more details.

So far I’ve only found one free Windows program that can read the new digital sensors reliably: Core Temp. Yes, I know about Everest, but that’s shareware. If you have any other tips, I’d appreciate it!