Zotac IONITX-A vs. lm-sensors

[Erhnam]

Some more information: As stated in my first post, my results where obtained on an acer revo, not on the zotac board; both are nvidia ion boards but the zotac uses a different hardware sensor. I haven't been able to figure out which one so far, will try to find some more info on this. Some good news: regardless of hardware sensors all ion boards share at least one sensor, namely the on-chip sensor in the atom cpu. The coretemp module required for reading such sensors doesn't yet support the atom cpu, so it doesn't work out of tzhe box. A patch to fix this has been available since 2.6.27; unfortunately it hasn't yet (as of 2.6.30) been integrated into the kernel source - there's an effort to get it included in one of the next kernel versions. In the meantime you can either patch your kernel source to add coretemp support for the atom CPU (http://mabene.icomedias.com/coretemp.patch) or you can use my patched coretemp.ko module (works with current jaunty kernel linux-image-2.6.28-13-generic, http://mabene.icomedias.com/coretemp.ko) bye, Martin

Thanks! But could you explain us how to apply the patch and how to build the module? Downloading a module directly from the Internet is not very safe.

[d-range]

@Erhnam
It's pretty easy. Suppose you have the kernel sources (I used 2.6.30) unpacked in /usr/src/linux-2.6.30, just do the following:

- Copy the patch to /usr/src/linux-2.6.30, let's assume you saved it as 'coretemp.patch'
- cd to /usr/src/linux-2.6.30
- Do a 'patch -p1 < coretemp.patch'
- Go on the internet and google for 'compile kernel ubuntu way', read the article that's listed as the top result and find out how to build a kernel .deb package you can install with aptitude or dpkg.

In short, to compile the kernel you will generally want to keep the kernel config of your currently working kernel, which means that you'll have to copy the configuration file that's stored in /boot (on my system it's called /boot/config-2.6.30-ion, but check your running kernel version first) to /usr/src/linux-2.6.30/.config

After you've ensured the kernel configuration is all set do something like:

- 'make-kpkg clean'
- 'fakeroot make-kpg --initrd --append-to-version=-ion kernel-image kernel-headers'

And it should build the kernel and drop two .deb packages in /usr/src

Note that I'm typing this from the top of my head so these 'instructions' might not be 100% correct for your system and kernel, so don't use it as a step-by-step guide, just as a summary of the required steps. The 'how to build a kernel, the ubuntu way' is a good source to learn how to build a kernel.

Also, I might be mistaking about the -p1 switch to the patch command, it specifies how many path elements the patch tool will strip off the filenames in the patch file, to find the corresponding file on your system. For example: if someone who has it's kernel sources in '/usr/src/blergh' made the patch, there might be references to files called 'blergh/filename', patch -p1 would strip off 'blergh' and look for ./filename). If the patch command fails, try -p0 or -p2 (I don't have time to check how this particular patch file was made again right now).

[sem7ex]

Hi,

im also interested in this issue. i can see the temperatures with sensors, and also the gpu temperature with the gnome applet.

but i'd also like to be able to control the cpu speed because now if i connect the fan, the cpu stays below 20° but without it goes up to 70°. I would like it somewhere in the middle.

has anybody made any progress with this?!

[Alfiegerner]

Hi,

im also interested in this issue. i can see the temperatures with sensors, and also the gpu temperature with the gnome applet.

but i'd also like to be able to control the cpu speed because now if i connect the fan, the cpu stays below 20° but without it goes up to 70°. I would like it somewhere in the middle.

has anybody made any progress with this?!

Is it even possible to reduce the fan speed at all? Just unpacked my ion A expecting it to be quiet and it's blowing at 3600 rpms and making a right bloody racket.

I haven't found a way to reduce the fan speed in the bios.

Any help much appreciated.

[truant]

As far as I know, fan control isn't possible unless you have entries in /proc/acpi/fan/ I don't have any, which makes sense as kzanol's patch only covers core temp.

See here for more info: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=846480

That said - stock fans are always noisy. I always ditch them right away. Spend a few quid at quietpc.com and get a decent silenced fan, you won't regret it.

I have no fan on the board, but one of these on the case: http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/pro...-kazejyuni-500

You can't hear it unless you put your ear right next to the fan intake. Even after I took the tiny whiny fan out of the psu, the case (and core) is still running nice and cool - and inaudible - in a hot room.

[PaulMic]

Hi everyone, I've tried but the patch doesn't work. Would it be because i'm using the server version of the kernel? Thanks.

I had to place the coretemp.ko file in /lib/modules/2.6.28-13-generic/kernel/drivers/hwmon/ and add a line with "coretemp" in /etc/modules

[Alfiegerner]

PaulMic what does uname -a give you?

Incidentally, I got a zalman fan mate 2 for my ion A, lowered the voltage to 5v and it runs effectively silent from a distance of a metre away. Temps get as high as 55 with burnBX running 4 times over all the virtual cores for 1 hour - happy days!

[falstaff]

Hello,

Thanks guys for this thread... I just get my Zotac ION D Board and I tried to read the cpu temperature for two hours now

But I also found out some interesting infos, so here's what i know (or belive to know )

The Zotac ION boards use MCP79 Chipsatz, which contains an SMBus Controller at PCI 00:03:2. This SMBus Controler has I2C buses, which are usully used to connect sensors, but sensors-detect doesn't detect any there (might be because not supported, or not available at all...)
So we have to find out if there is something, and if yes, what... (thats what kzanol allready said...
On 2.6.31 Kernel seem to be a problem with loading nForce2_smbus:
$ dmesg | grep SMB
[ 0.509972] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LSMB] (IRQs 20 21 22 23) *11
[ 7.776088] i2c-adapter i2c-0: nForce2 SMBus adapter at 0x4d00
[ 7.776118] nForce2_smbus 0000:00:03.2: Error probing SMB2.

I could avoid this problem by appending acpi_enforce_resources=lax. Nevertheless, there is no sensor detected by sensors-detect...

ACPI also supports temperature reading, called ACPI Thermal Zones. Its often used in Laptops, and seldom in normal motherboards... Zotac doesn't supports ACPI Thermal Zones, so no way here...

But what I didn't knew was that there is a cpu internal sensor, thanks kzanol.

I use karmic, so i had to compile the modul. There is a simple(r) way to do this (copy-n'-paste-able):

sudo aptitude install linux-source build-essential
cd /usr/src
sudo tar xvjf linux-source-2.6.31.tar.bz2
sudo wget http://mabene.icomedias.com/coretemp.patch
cd linux-source-2.6.31
sudo patch -p1 < ../coretemp.patch
sudo make -j 4 -C /lib/modules/2.6.31-8-generic/build M=/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.31/drivers/hwmon/ modules
# Test the driver:
sudo insmod drivers/hwmon/coretemp.ko
sensors
# Copy the driver and let it load on startup...
sudo cp drivers/hwmon/coretemp.ko /lib/modules/2.6.31-8-generic/kernel/drivers/hwmon/coretemp.ko
sudo su -c "echo coretemp.ko >> /etc/modules"

sensors shows:

$ sensors
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0:      +56.0°C  (crit = +95.0°C)                  

coretemp-isa-0001
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 1:      +52.0°C  (crit = +95.0°C)                  

coretemp-isa-0002
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 2:      +56.0°C  (crit = +95.0°C)                  

coretemp-isa-0003
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 3:      +52.0°C  (crit = +95.0°C)

Without active CPU-Cooling!


Bye
falstaff

[graysky]

Great thread! I'm compiling right now on an Arch box (takes a LONG time on this Atom 330).

[graysky]

Is it possible to read the GPU temp and MB temp?

Nvclock doesn't recognize the GPU temp for example and I cannot find out which module is required for the motherboard's temp.

Thanks!