AIBS(4) Device Drivers Manual AIBS(4)

aibsASUSTeK AI Booster ACPI ATK0110 temperature, voltage, and fan sensor

aibs* at acpi?

The aibs driver provides support for the voltage, temperature and fan sensors available through the ATK0110 ACPI device on ASUSTeK motherboards. The number of sensors of each type, as well as the description of each sensor, varies according to the motherboard.

The driver supports an arbitrary set of sensors, provides a description regarding what each sensor is used for, and reports whether each sensor is within the specifications as defined by the motherboard manufacturer through ACPI.

The aibs driver supports sensor states as follows: temperature sensors can have a state of OK, WARN, CRIT or UNKNOWN; fan and voltage sensors can have a state of OK or WARN only. Temperature sensors that have a reading of 0 are marked as invalid and their state is set to UNKNOWN, whereas all other sensors are always assumed valid. Temperature sensors have two upper limits (WARN and CRIT), fan sensors have either only the lower limit, or one lower and one upper limit, and voltage sensors always have a lower and an upper limit.

Sensor values are made available through the HW_SENSORS sysctl(2) interface, and can be monitored with the systat(1) sensors view, sensorsd(8), or sysctl(8) hw.sensors. For example, on an Asus Stricker Extreme motherboard:

$ sysctl hw.sensors.aibs0
hw.sensors.aibs0.temp0=31.00 degC (CPU Temperature), OK
hw.sensors.aibs0.temp1=43.00 degC (MB Temperature), OK
hw.sensors.aibs0.fan0=2490 RPM (CPU FAN Speed), OK
hw.sensors.aibs0.fan1=0 RPM (CHASSIS FAN Speed), WARNING
hw.sensors.aibs0.fan2=0 RPM (OPT1 FAN Speed), WARNING
hw.sensors.aibs0.fan3=0 RPM (OPT2 FAN Speed), WARNING
hw.sensors.aibs0.fan4=0 RPM (OPT3 FAN Speed), WARNING
hw.sensors.aibs0.fan5=0 RPM (OPT4 FAN Speed), WARNING
hw.sensors.aibs0.fan6=0 RPM (OPT5 FAN Speed), WARNING
hw.sensors.aibs0.fan7=0 RPM (PWR FAN Speed), WARNING
hw.sensors.aibs0.volt0=1.26 VDC (Vcore Voltage), OK
hw.sensors.aibs0.volt1=3.25 VDC ( +3.3 Voltage), OK
hw.sensors.aibs0.volt2=4.95 VDC ( +5.0 Voltage), OK
hw.sensors.aibs0.volt3=11.78 VDC (+12.0 Voltage), OK
hw.sensors.aibs0.volt4=1.23 VDC (1.2VHT Voltage), OK
hw.sensors.aibs0.volt5=1.50 VDC (SB CORE Voltage), OK
hw.sensors.aibs0.volt6=1.25 VDC (CPU VTT Voltage), OK
hw.sensors.aibs0.volt7=0.93 VDC (DDR2 TERM Voltage), OK
hw.sensors.aibs0.volt8=1.23 VDC (NB CORE Voltage), OK
hw.sensors.aibs0.volt9=1.87 VDC (MEMORY Voltage), OK

Generally, sensors provided by the aibs driver may also be supported by a variety of other drivers, such as lm(4) or it(4). The precise collection of aibs sensors is comprised of the sensors specifically utilised in the motherboard design, which may be supported through a combination of one or more physical hardware monitoring chips.

The aibs driver, however, provides the following advantages when compared to the native hardware monitoring drivers:

  • Sensor values from aibs are expected to be more reliable. For example, voltage sensors in many hardware monitoring chips can only sense voltage from 0 to 2 or 4 volts, and the excessive voltage is removed by the resistors, which may vary with the motherboard and with the voltage that is being sensed. In aibs, the required resistor factors are provided by the motherboard manufacturer through ACPI; in the native drivers, the resistor factors are encoded into the driver based on the chip manufacturer's recommendations. In essence, sensor values from aibs are very likely to be identical to the readings from the Hardware Monitor screen in the BIOS.
  • Sensor descriptions from aibs are more likely to match the markings on the motherboard.
  • Sensor status is supported by aibs. The status is reported based on the acceptable range of values for each individual sensor as suggested by the motherboard manufacturer. For example, the threshold for the CPU temperature sensor is likely to be significantly higher than that for the chassis temperature sensor.
  • Support for newer chips in aibs. Newer chips may miss a native driver, but should be supported through aibs regardless.

As a result, sensor readings from the actual native hardware monitoring drivers may be ignored as appropriate.

systat(1), sysctl(2), acpi(4), intro(4), sensorsd(8), sysctl(8)

The aibs driver first appeared in OpenBSD 4.7.

The aibs driver was written by Constantine A. Murenin <cnst@openbsd.org>, University of Waterloo.

January 12, 2018 OpenBSD 7.5