Monitoring programs....

[SuperTrooper]

....at which point should I start needing one of these? I don't plan on doing any "overclocking" cause I have NO idea what I am doing! I give you guys much respect for having the knowledge you do about these PCs and their hw/sw! In any event, I see that MBM 5 is a program? Are there any others out there a simpleton like myself can start with and learn?

 

[I.M.O.G.]

It is very simple... Overclocking doesn't even require any knowledge about hardware or software to get started with.

MBM5 is the best temperature monitoring program out there.

But temps aren't important anyways, when you go about setting your overclock, you have to test your system for stability by running a program which makes the computer work very hard. If your settings and temperatures are too high, you will receive errors during this. As long as your system does not give errors under a heavy load, then your temperatures are fine.

The only thing I check my temps for, are to make sure they aren't terrible as that will shorten the lifetime of the components, but so long as they are within a decent ballpark figure of where they should be, they are nothing to be concerned about.

 

[rogerdugans]

You start needing to monitor your temps when you want to know more about what's going on "under the hood" as it were...

As IMOG said, the indicated temps aren't really too important as long as they are below the instant combustion range.
What they can be good for is finding hardware flaws, such as when a component is dying.
They can also be used to help diagnose imminent system failures or cooling problems.

The best way, In My Arrogant Opinion...to use temp/voltage monitoring apps is to get a "baseline" of where a system runs well, and then keep half an eye on it:
If a temp or voltage starts changing much from where it normally runs, there may be a problem.

In what passes for "normal use" in my stuff, nothing changes drastically most of the time. 99% of the time all the monitoring stuff I have set up tells me nothing other than "All is well", but its nice to have that info.