SpeedFan is a freeware program that monitors fan speeds, temperatures and voltages in computers with hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T. info for those hard disks that support this feature and show hard disk temperatures too, if supported. SpeedFan supports EIDE, SATA and SCSI drives. SpeedFan can even change the FSB on some...

SpeedFan is a program that monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in computers with hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can access S.M.A.R.T. info and show hard disk temperatures, and it can access digital temperature sensors and can change fan speeds accordingly, thus reducing noise. SpeedFan can find almost any hardware monitor chip connected to the 2-wire SMBus (System Management Bus (trademark belonging to SMIF, Inc.), a subset of the I2C protocol) and is compatible with Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000, 2003, XP and Windows Vista, as well as 64-bit Windows.

Let’s talk about SCSI for a moment. The disk interface which was once ubiquitous with high-end workstations and servers is now on the verge of obsolescence. With the influx of inexpensive and reliable Serial ATA hard disks and hardware SATA RAID controllers (which can provide excellent performance at a fraction of a SCSI’s price), it’s not surprising to see why legacy SCSI doesn’t even enter the mind of enterprise server and workstation platform buyers, even those diehards of the past. However,

HWMonitor is a hardware monitoring program that reads PC systems main health sensors : voltages, temperatures, fans speed. The program handles the most common sensor chips, like ITE® IT87 series, most Winbond® ICs, and others. In addition, it can read modern CPUs on-die core thermal sensors, as well has hard drives temperature via S.M.A.R.T, and video card GPU temperature. Special hardware monitors such as abit® uGuru and Gigabyte® ODIN™ power supplies serie are supported too.

You can't predict every hard-drive failure. But when a drive goes down because certain hardware components are slowly degrading, then Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology, aka S.M.A.R.T., can help warn you of an impending crash so you have time to run a backup.

Sherman Black, a senior vice president at Seagate Technology, the leader in hard disk drives, lies awake at night worrying that his teenagers are part of a new generation of computer users who don't care if their data is stored locally or on the Web.

It matters to Black's industry because a growing number of consumers are eagerly eyeing a new wave of solid-state disk drives. Made from arrays of flash memory chips, these new drives are smaller and many times faster than the traditional hard disk disks that read and write magnetic ones and zeroes on a rotating platter.

Many of our new Radeon HD 4800 series card owners are not happy with their GPU temperatures. Seeing it from a computer hardware enthusiast view, it is hard not to think the same. Whether or not idle GPU temperatures of 80°C are dangerous, us enthusiasts want that heat out of our cases. We show you how to easily do that.

Micron announced Tuesday that it will soon begin delivering 256GB solid-state drives for notebooks and servers. SSDs have quicker access times and consume less power than standard SATA or SCSI hard drives.

The 256GB drives could begin showing up in laptops and notebooks this winter along with 32GB and 128GB versions. But Micron spokesperson Beth Gregg said that due to demand, "The next crop of sample drives will not be available for seven to eight weeks."