BASH Script to Monitor the CPU Frequency and Temperature on Raspberry PI


We can write a BASH Script to print out the current CPU frequency and temperature on Raspberry PI.

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#pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cat ./cpu_freq.sh 
#!/bin/bash
 
temp=`head -n 1 /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp | xargs -I{} awk "BEGIN {printf \"%.2f\n\", {}/1000}"`
 
echo $((`cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq`/1000)) MHz, $temp degrees
#pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cat ./cpu_freq.sh 
#!/bin/bash

temp=`head -n 1 /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp | xargs -I{} awk "BEGIN {printf \"%.2f\n\", {}/1000}"`

echo $((`cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq`/1000)) MHz, $temp degrees

cpu-frequency-raspberrypi BASH Script to Monitor the CPU Frequency and Temperature on Raspberry PI BASH Shell hardware Raspberry PI Technology

Then, we can simpily run the following BASH command to monitor the CPU frequency and Temperature for Raspberry PI every few seconds:

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# monitor interval: every 3 seconds
while : ; do ./cpu_freq.sh; sleep 3; done
# monitor interval: every 3 seconds
while : ; do ./cpu_freq.sh; sleep 3; done

This is super useful if you are overclocking your raspberry PI e.g. 4B model you can tweak/overclock the ARM CPU to 2147 MHz and GPU to 750 MHz. You can modify the /boot/config.txt. Latest Raspberry PI models will automatically throttle the CPU if temperature gets too hot.

#uncomment to overclock the arm. 700 MHz is the default.
over_voltage=6
arm_freq=2147
force_turbo=1
gpu_freq=750

The `force_turbo` will enable CPU to run at maxium frequency even it is idle. After overclocking, you may also need to reduce the CPU temperature by plugin a heatsink or external Fan.

Most Raspberry PI External Fans are on 5V power – which you can see which two pins are for this by using the Raspberry PI utility pinout.

raspberrypi-pinout BASH Script to Monitor the CPU Frequency and Temperature on Raspberry PI BASH Shell hardware Raspberry PI Technology

Overclocking Raspberry PI 4 to 2147MHz

Just make sure you have a good cooling for CPU before you overclock the Raspberry PI ARM CPU.

raspberry-pi-max-cpu BASH Script to Monitor the CPU Frequency and Temperature on Raspberry PI BASH Shell hardware Raspberry PI Technology

Raspberry Pi

–EOF (The Ultimate Computing & Technology Blog) —

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