The main task for SpeedFan is to read values from available temperature sensors located inside your PC. They are mainly accessed using the 2-wire SMBus (System Management Bus) serial interface, but SpeedFan uses several ways to access almost every hardware monitor chip and reading available. This is the full listing of temperature sensors that SpeedFan can access.

SpeedFan works perfectly as a hardware monitor tool almost on every hardware with available temperature sensors and can access S.M.A.R.T. data from hard disks on almost every motherboard. But some motherboards do include the needed circuitry to allow SpeedFan to change fan speeds based on temperature readouts. This is the listing of motherboards that can change fan speeds based of users' reports.

Most hard disks manufactured after 1995 do include S.M.A.R.T. support. Several of them are able to report their internal temperature this way. SpeedFan can access S.M.A.R.T. wherever available and, if the hard disk supports it, it can even read its temperature. This is the listing of hard disks that report their temperature.

In order to find hardware monitoring chips and temperature sensors, SpeedFan needs access to several resources on your motherboard. Some of them can be found on ISA. All PCs have got ISA, even if there is no ISA slot. Some other chips are embedded in the SuperIO chip. Some others can be found on the SMBus. In order to access the 2-wire SMBus (System Management Bus) serial bus, SpeedFan needs to communicate with other devices. SpeedFan recognizes and properly accesses several system bus.

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