A System Monitor

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A System Monitor is either a hardware or software based environment measuring device.

The environments popularly includes, but is not limited to critical components temperature, component loads, component usage, media details. In a computer it's displaying information such as current fan rpm, CPU and system temperature, system load, memory usage, uptime. Sometimes it is used for displaying current song title.

The software-based monitor would reside in the notification area of your taskbar. Installation is as simple as a few clicks and verifying critical settings in the operating system. In Windows 95, 98 and Me packaged System Monitor, it's a program that is used to monitor various activities on a computer such as CPU usage or memory usage. The equivalent of System Monitor on Windows 2000 and XP is called Performance Monitor. To access it press and hold simultaneously Control-Alt-Delete, click on Task Manager and the Performance tab. Software-based system monitors can also regulate interesting overclocking options on the motherboard, video card, network speed, and the hard disk's popular S.M.A.R.T setting called "Automatic Acoustic Management."

Voltage, temperature and fan speeds of the CPU and motherboard can be read from the I²C bus using software such as lm_sensors under Linux.

The hardware-based monitor is a LCD panel, typically mounted in a 5.25" drive bay on the computer case. Some large models take up two drive bay slots. They are usually connected to the USB port. Low-end universal models require extensive rewiring and bypassing of readily available, motherboard based resources such as fan speed sensors and temperature measurement. Controls are easily accessible but certain measurements are either not accurate or require temperature probes to be placed near critical components such as the memory and cpu. Other high end models are PCI or motherboard specific. These fully utilize available and foreseen sensors, measurement schemes, and reliability prediction calculations (MTBF). One great example is how Hard disks are monitored by S.M.A.R.T technology. These high end models can display the HDD's RPM, error calculations and temp just to name a few.

On some models, the backlight color of the LCD panel is changeable. On future models, a miniature version of a pc will sit in the drive bay monitoring the main computer. Having it's own separate power supply but generating little heat yet fully maintaining the user on a wide selection of options and information. Fully capable of diagnosing the server even if no power is available to the server, as long as the system monitor continues to receive power, and contacting the Director of Technology of the server failure. Restart of a critical server that lost power, the power was later restored, but did not reboot is fully possible automatically or at the discretion of the IT specialist. It is very rare on OEM computers, but can sometimes been seen on servers, high-end workstations or computers of computer enthusiasts. It is sometimes used on modded computer cases.