Summer's coming up, and considering my last two PCs have died due to overheating (or so we assume), I would like some way to keep track of it. I know there's a thermal guage inside my tower, as it very briefly gives the temperature as it boots up. Would anybody have any recommendations how to handle this?

I've heard HW Monitor is good for checking the temp and such. Maybe that'll help you figure out if they did die by overheating, or if it was something else.

The gauge you are talking about is viewable in the BIOS but not while you are running your actual computer. Using Windows 7, there are some pretty awesome temp gauges you can use. I recommend this one:

http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail. ... db7c47183c
(This one requires another program called Core Temp to run properly)

They also made the CPU usage meter I've been using on my computer. I usually set the opacity to as low as possible and just mouse over it when I want to look at how things are acting. I don't actually use this gadget as I have a temperature gauge with a digital readout build into my actual tower, but I still trust that the one I linked to will suit your needs nicely.

Thanks for the help, Lantis. I figured you'd have something in mind, since you're all techy with computers and such. The fact it also mentions CPU usage will also be helpful, as lately I've been getting a lot of messages about such-and-such doing high CPU usage.

Okay, next question. How do I make it so that Core Temp starts up as soon as my computer boots up?

If it doesn't do it automatically, you can put a shortcut in the startup folder in Start > All Programs > Startup. Anything in there will launch when you start your computer.

I tried that, and it didn't seem to work. I wonder if it's because it's one of those "do you want to allow this program to make changes to your computer yes/no" programs.

If it's the box I'm thinking of, you should be able to select a box that says something along the lines of "Yes, and don't ask me again." If not, it's probably the User Account Control program which you can disable by going to Start and typing "UAC" in the search bar and just setting it to never notify.

And you might want to check and see in Core Temp if there is a start on computer startup option as well.