How to access CPU's heat sensors?

Question

I am working on software in which I need to access the temperature sensors in the CPU and get control over them.

I don't know much hardware interfacing; I just know how to interface with the mouse. I have googled a lot about it but failed to find any relevant information or piece of code.

I really need to add this in my software. Please guide me how to have the control over the sensors using C or C++ or ASM.

Answer 1

Without a specific kernel driver, it's difficult to query the temperature, other than through WMI. Here is a piece of C code that does it, based on WMI's MSAcpi_ThermalZoneTemperature class:

HRESULT GetCpuTemperature(LPLONG pTemperature)
{
    if (pTemperature == NULL)
        return E_INVALIDARG;

    *pTemperature = -1;
    HRESULT ci = CoInitialize(NULL); // needs comdef.h
    HRESULT hr = CoInitializeSecurity(NULL, -1, NULL, NULL, RPC_C_AUTHN_LEVEL_DEFAULT, RPC_C_IMP_LEVEL_IMPERSONATE, NULL, EOAC_NONE, NULL);
    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
    {
        IWbemLocator *pLocator; // needs Wbemidl.h & Wbemuuid.lib
        hr = CoCreateInstance(CLSID_WbemAdministrativeLocator, NULL, CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER, IID_IWbemLocator, (LPVOID*)&pLocator);
        if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
        {
            IWbemServices *pServices;
            BSTR ns = SysAllocString(L"root\\WMI");
            hr = pLocator->ConnectServer(ns, NULL, NULL, NULL, 0, NULL, NULL, &pServices);
            pLocator->Release();
            SysFreeString(ns);
            if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
            {
                BSTR query = SysAllocString(L"SELECT * FROM MSAcpi_ThermalZoneTemperature");
                BSTR wql = SysAllocString(L"WQL");
                IEnumWbemClassObject *pEnum;
                hr = pServices->ExecQuery(wql, query, WBEM_FLAG_RETURN_IMMEDIATELY | WBEM_FLAG_FORWARD_ONLY, NULL, &pEnum);
                SysFreeString(wql);
                SysFreeString(query);
                pServices->Release();
                if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
                {
                    IWbemClassObject *pObject;
                    ULONG returned;
                    hr = pEnum->Next(WBEM_INFINITE, 1, &pObject, &returned);
                    pEnum->Release();
                    if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
                    {
                        BSTR temp = SysAllocString(L"CurrentTemperature");
                        VARIANT v;
                        VariantInit(&v);
                        hr = pObject->Get(temp, 0, &v, NULL, NULL);
                        pObject->Release();
                        SysFreeString(temp);
                        if (SUCCEEDED(hr))
                        {
                            *pTemperature = V_I4(&v);
                        }
                        VariantClear(&v);
                    }
                }
            }
            if (ci == S_OK)
            {
                CoUninitialize();
            }
        }
    }
    return hr;
}

and some test code:

HRESULT GetCpuTemperature(LPLONG pTemperature);

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
    LONG temp;
    HRESULT hr = GetCpuTemperature(&temp);
    printf("hr=0x%08x temp=%i\n", hr, temp);
}