hardware monitoring sensors on x570 motherboard

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nondescript · Post by **nondescript** » Sun Oct 13, 2019 8:56 am

Hi, I've migrated my gentoo installation from an old intel board to an x570 aorus itx motherboard and everything seems well after I followed a transition guide.

I'm curious of how to determine what hardware monitoring exists on the board and how to determine if it is currently supported by kernel modules. lm_sensors' "sensors-detect --auto" command finds no sensors.

What steps should I take to enable temperature and fan speed control with this hardware? Thanks.

mike155 · Post by **mike155** » Sun Oct 13, 2019 11:34 am

Google "lm-sensors x570" returns a couple of links.

Does one of them contain the information you are looking for?

nondescript · Post by **nondescript** » Sun Oct 13, 2019 12:42 pm

Yes, that is helpful, thank you. It would appear that built-in support will be in kernel ~5.4, and I am on 4.19.72, I didn't realize how far behind I am in kernel versions. The only experimental package I've dared to try is firefox. I'll research more about what I can expect if I switch to a newer kernel version, and the alternative of patching the support into older kernels.

Post by Hu » Sun Oct 13, 2019 3:58 pm

Unlike the Firefox developers, the kernel developers are very firmly against regressions or breaking existing workflows. A kernel upgrade will likely be uneventful, and will be less trouble than backporting the functionality. If you keep the old kernel binary installed in parallel, and the new one does not work for you, it's very likely that you can switch back to the old kernel. This also differs from Firefox, where periodic profile format changes preclude easy downgrading.

wrc1944 · Post by **wrc1944** » Sun Oct 13, 2019 7:17 pm

You might try enabling the IT87 family of sensors as the x570-aorus family of motherboards seem to be using that chip.
https://www.tweaktown.com/image.php?ima ... w_full.jpg

https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/9106/ ... ndex4.html

I found that on my x370 family of ASRock boards most of them use the nct6775 chip family, and when I enabled it as a module in my kernel I got the full spectrum of temps, fans, voltages showing up in the GKrellM monitoring application. CONFIG_SENSORS_NCT6775=m

IT87 is in the kernel config list of sensors at: CONFIG_SENSORS_IT87 is not set, under # Native drivers

Just enable the module at boot in /etc/conf.d/modules, and then configure (check off under "sensors") each item you wish enabled in gkrellm, assuming it87 is working on the x570 boards.

Just remembered- I did recently have a gigabyte board which used an IT87 chip for sensors. Please let us know if this worked.

The Main Man · Post by **The Main Man** » Sun Oct 13, 2019 10:45 pm

From the links provided I see that IT8795E chip is used for fans and monitoring.
Unfortunately that chip isn't supported in the kernel, as many other sensors in IT87 driver.
These are supported in the kernel :

Code: Select all

 Supports: IT8603E  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8620E  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8622E  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8623E  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8628E  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8705F  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8712F  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8716F  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8718F  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8720F  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8721F  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8726F  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8728F  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8732F  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8758E  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8771E  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8772E  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8781F  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8782F  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8783E/F Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8786E  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8790E  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            IT8792E  Super I/O chip w/LPC interface
 *            Sis950   A clone of the IT8705F

Tony0945 · Post by **Tony0945** » Mon Oct 14, 2019 12:18 am

kajzer wrote:Unfortunately that chip isn't supported in the kernel, ...

I really don't know why mobo manufacturers don't provide that data to the kernel team. True, Linux users are a small part of their base, but they provide that data to third party Windows vendors, so it's just a matter of e-mailing a few existing documents.

wrc1944 · Post by **wrc1944** » Mon Oct 14, 2019 1:03 am

IIRC, the CONFIG_SENSORS_NCT6775=m according to the info in make xconfig says it covers several versions of the family, so I would hope the it87 for the x570 gigabyte might work.

I know IT87 worked fine on my gigabyte amd FX board with vishera cpus, 4.x.x kernels, and gkrellm. Monitored all the cores activity, temps, fans, voltages, among other items out of the box perfectly, with no offsetting tweaking required.

I think it's certainly worth a try enabling it and see what happens- might work fine. IIRC, the make xconfig info also said it covers several versions of the IT87 family.

Not that I'd precisely know the correct way to do it, but maybe patch kernel-5.x.x manually with the missing chip IT8795E info into /usr/src/linux-5.3.6-gentoo/drivers/hwmon/it87.c before compiling the kernel?

FWIW, Just looked in 5.4-rc2 git-sources, and IT8795E still isn't there, but they do have a new nct version hwmon driver in rc3..... Looking at that it87.c file it looks like you would need mobo detailed info on the chip, and really be an expert kernel hacker to add it yourself, and that's not me!

The Main Man · Post by **The Main Man** » Mon Oct 14, 2019 9:11 am

Writing support for the chips not included in the kernel driver is not a problem, that's already done.
btw my chip is also not included in the IT87 driver.
There's out-of-tree driver here :
https://github.com/a1wong/it87

I tried that one and it works, although acpi_enforce_resources=lax boot parameter or ignore_resource_conflict module parameter have to be used.
Otherwise system reports ACPI conflict and it wouldn't load.

Personally, I don't like using 'ignore_resource_conflict' so I don't use this out-of-tree driver, it's not a problem though including the missing chips in the kernel, but the resource conflict would still be there, that's the reason they are not included.

Had a chat with the guy who wrote that driver few months back and basically he said that this is a problem :

Besides, it is not a chip problem. It is the board vendor's BIOS causing the conflict. If you know how to decode the DSDT, you'll find all the information there.

nondescript · Post by **nondescript** » Fri Oct 18, 2019 3:31 pm

Hu wrote:Unlike the Firefox developers, the kernel developers are very firmly against regressions or breaking existing workflows.[...]

Unfortunately I am an nvidia user. I tried to install kernel (5.4 rc2) from git-sources and then nvidia-driver failed to compile.

kajzer wrote:Writing support for the chips not included in the kernel driver is not a problem, that's already done.

[...]

Had a chat with the guy who wrote that driver few months back and basically he said that this is a problem :
Besides, it is not a chip problem. It is the board vendor's BIOS causing the conflict. If you know how to decode the DSDT, you'll find all the information there.

That doesn't sound good

If anyone digs up this thread and has more information, feel free to add it. Thanks so much everyone for the expertise.