Linking a hot moment to the app behind it in Pulse

Heat is a symptom. By the time a laptop is warm on your knees or a fan is howling, the thing that caused it may already have finished. The temperature peaks list in Pulse by Zaweba is built to close that gap. It shows the temperature peaks of a period alongside the three busiest apps in that minute, so the hot moment and its likely cause sit side by side.

Where to look

Open the History page (View menu, Ctrl+3 or the tray menu) and pick Today, Yesterday or This week from the Show selector. The temperature peaks list sits with the other History lists. Each entry gives a peak and the three apps that were working hardest at that minute.

Why the busiest apps matter

A temperature on its own tells you something was hot. It doesn't tell you why. Pulse records a one-minute history that includes each sensor's peak and average and each busy app's CPU time, so for every peak it can say who was busy at the time. Most of the time the answer is obvious once you see it: a game, a video export, a big compile, a browser tab that misbehaved.

Sometimes it's a surprise, and that's where the list earns its keep. A peak at a time when you weren't using the PC, next to a program you don't recognise, is exactly the kind of thing that's otherwise impossible to catch.

What it needs

The list depends on temperature readings, and which readings you have depends on your setup. GPU and NVMe drive temperatures work without administrator rights, so those peaks are there from the start. CPU temperatures need the optional sensor helper, which you turn on with Sensor readings in Settings or the button on the Temperatures page. CPU sensors also need the free, signed PawnIO driver, installed separately.

If you're mainly interested in CPU heat, turn the helper on first, otherwise the list can only show peaks from the sensors Pulse can read without it.

Thinking about what you see

Not every peak is a problem. Parts are designed to get warm under load, and the Temperatures page shows each sensor's normal, warm and hot bands, using the hardware's own limits where it can read them. A peak that reaches warm during a game is just the PC doing its job.

What's worth acting on is a pattern. If peaks keep reaching hot, or they line up with the same app day after day, you've learned something. It might be a setting in that app, a game running without a frame limit, or a PC that needs its vents cleaned.

Compare the periods. Yesterday against Today tells you whether something is new. This week shows you whether it's a habit.

Pairing it with alerts

The list is for looking back. For hearing about heat as it happens, the temperature alert on the Alerts page is on by default and fires when a sensor stays past its threshold for 5 seconds. The alert tells you now, and the peaks list helps you understand it afterwards.

Keeping the two together is a quiet, calm way to look after a PC. You don't have to watch the Temperatures page all day. Pulse by Zaweba keeps the record, and when something does get hot, it has already noted who was busy.