How to read lm-sensors on AMD FX 6300?

Question

My FX 6300 sits on a ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 and is currently overclocked (I did the stresstesting and such on Windows to get it stable). Now I need the socket temp and the core temps so I use lm sensors. But I really don't understand how to read them. I found http://blog.felipe.lessa.nom.br/?p=93 it says that there are two temp1 values both should be the cpu temp but one of those is relative, so I really don't know which one of this to read while stresstesting. Also temp2 = M/B temp equals the socket temp?

Here's my sensors output:

k10temp-pci-00c3
Adapter: PCI adapter
temp1:        +22.5°C  (high = +70.0°C)
                       (crit = +90.0°C, hyst = +87.0°C)

fam15h_power-pci-00c4
Adapter: PCI adapter
power1:       13.04 W  (crit =  94.99 W)

asus-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
cpu_fan:        0 RPM

radeon-pci-0100
Adapter: PCI adapter
temp1:        +39.0°C  (crit = +120.0°C, hyst = +90.0°C)

it8721-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
in0:          +2.78 V  (min =  +2.60 V, max =  +0.19 V)  ALARM
in1:          +2.78 V  (min =  +1.76 V, max =  +3.02 V)
in2:          +1.36 V  (min =  +0.01 V, max =  +0.48 V)  ALARM
+3.3V:        +3.22 V  (min =  +3.46 V, max =  +6.07 V)  ALARM
in4:          +1.73 V  (min =  +0.20 V, max =  +0.70 V)  ALARM
in5:          +2.50 V  (min =  +2.33 V, max =  +1.34 V)  ALARM
in6:          +0.77 V  (min =  +0.08 V, max =  +0.30 V)  ALARM
3VSB:         +4.61 V  (min =  +0.38 V, max =  +3.70 V)  ALARM
Vbat:         +3.26 V  
fan1:        1240 RPM  (min =   39 RPM)
fan2:        1013 RPM  (min =  131 RPM)
fan3:           0 RPM  (min =   12 RPM)  ALARM
temp1:        +40.0°C  (low  = +103.0°C, high =  +6.0°C)  ALARM  sensor = thermistor
temp2:        +33.0°C  (low  = -79.0°C, high = -42.0°C)  ALARM  sensor = thermistor
temp3:       -128.0°C  (low  = -85.0°C, high = -75.0°C)  sensor = disabled
intrusion0:  OK

Answer 1

I run an FX6300 on an M5A97 R2.0 (So my results should be very similar)

You should install Psesnor. It's like Hwmonitor for Windows.

sudo apt-get install psensor

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Terms:
CPU Package = the temperature of the CPU socket, as measured by the motherboard.
CPU Core = the internal temperature of the actual cores on the CPU (This is the one to watch)
Motherboard = the temperature of the south bridge

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Some Notes:
The CPU core temp will always be lower than the socket temp, since the CPU has active cooling, whilst the socket does not.

Since the FX6300 is a 6-core CPU, you would expect that each core has a temperature sensor. There is some confusion about this. It seems that only AMD's overdrive software can detetct all 6 of the FX6300's core temp sensors. However, all the cores will be within 1-2C of each other

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Temps in Psensor:
I have renamed all the temps so I know what is what. If you look at the "chip", you can know what is what and rename them like I did.

Motherboard

CPU Core Temp

CPU Package / Socket Temp

Answer 2

If you wrote a configuration file for your motherboard you could remove the sensors not connected to anything (fan 3 and temp 3) and correct the limits so that you don’t get all those ALARMs in the sensors output.

You can readily see which temps are from the cores by graphing the output using Psensors while you stress them. Install stress with sudo apt-get install stress. For example to stress both cores of a dual core CPU for 10 seconds use stress -c 2 -t 10. Here is the result of stress -c 1 -t 30 on my dual core PC. You can see that the first 15 seconds are run on core 1 then the load switches to core 2.

When using sensors and applications like psensors to read temperatures and voltages it is important to check them. You do this by comparing the outputs from sensors with the values displayed by the BIOS (which you can assume are correct). If your PC displays the values briefly during bootup video it and compare the values with those from sensors after the boot completes. Otherwise boot into the BIOS and use the hardware health (or similar) menu selection and photograph or write down the results.

Answer 3

I have the AMD6300/m5a97 combo. lm-sensors does not, by default, detect all sensors correctly from the board, and thus psensor does not show correctly. you should run "sudo sensors-detect" and answer yes to all prompts. psensor will now show all sensors, but labelled generically. you will need to go through the psensor menus for preferences to edit the labels and choose which to display.