SpeedFan Sensor

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SpeedFan Sensor

The SpeedFan Sensor can monitor the temperature of CPU cores, hard disks or fan speeds in conjunction with the free tool SpeedFan. This tool can be configured to utilize the xAP Home Automation Protocol and publishes device status via UDP through the network. You can install several agents of the utility onto every system for which you would like to monitor the temperature and fan speed. For each agent a SpeedFan-Sensor is configured that captures the data, processes conditions and stores the data to the database.

If the temperature gets too high you can have a notification action configured or take other automatic actions to prevent your systems from overheating. To prevent false-positive warnings due to peaks that may occur during e.g. nightly backups, configure the condition to only perform the particular action after the condition matched 6-8 consecutive times for example. For the SpeedFan tool this corresponds to 3-4 minutes.

Another use case of course, is to monitor the speed of the system fans as they show a tendency to slow down after several months of operation due to dust and deterioration. A simple notification can save you from bigger hardware damages because the fan was exchanged early enough.

 

Notes:

For the sensor to operate correctly it is necessary to install a xAP hub in the default configuration when service and user interface run on the same host. This is required to delegate the xAP messages to both applications. Thus, the service can log them and the user interface, which has access to the most recent values, can be configured. A good hub is available as xFx Express Hub on the internet. Remember to start the hub service if you just installed it and pay attention that ServerSentinel service and the GUI are not running so the port used by the xAP protocol is not occupied when the xAP hub starts to operate. If things are configured correctly, the source drop-down menu will provide the known xAP sources.

Sensor Tasks

Test Sensor

Tests the current sensor settings.

Get Help

Opens the ServerSentinel online help for the current sensor.

Basic Settings

Name

The name of the sensor (max. 100 characters). Choose a meaningful name to clearly identify the sensor.

Sensor is Active

Toggles the sensor ON/OFF.

Check Interval

The interval or times at which which the sensor should perform its checks.

Simple

The sensor performs its checks every x time units, e.g. every 10 minutes.

Daily

The sensor performs its checks daily at one or more (max. 4) fixed times, e.g. daily at 0 and 12 o'clock.

Weekly

The sensor performs its checks at certain days of the weeks at one or more (max. 4) fixed times, e.g. monday to friday at 12 o'clock.

Monthly

The sensor performs its checks at certain days of the month at one or more (max. 4) fixed times, e.g. every 1st of the month at 12 o'clock.

Only check if this Sensor didn't fail

This sensor will only be checked, if the sensor in the drop down list didn't fail.

Further Information

Comment

Short additional information to the sensor (max. 255 characters).

SpeedFan Options

Source

Define the source to gather system information from.

Meta Data Values

Data Value

Data Type

Description

Checktime

Date

The time the dataset has been created.

Exception Message

String

The message of the error if any occurred.

Response Time

Integer

The response time needed to perform the check.

Status

String

A status string that may contain arbitrary information that was collected by the sensor (max. 255 characters). Per default this value is empty.

Status Flag

Enum

The status of the sensor after the check has been performed.

Specific data values are not displayed until some messages where received.