NAME

SYNOPSIS

Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, place the following line in loader.conf(5):

aibs_load="YES"

DESCRIPTION

The driver supports an arbitrary set of sensors, provides descriptions regarding what each sensor is used for, and reports the current values as well as the supposed range specifications of each sensor's input as defined by the motherboard manufacturer through ACPI.

The range specifications are as follows:

• Voltage sensors have a lower and an upper range specification.
• Temperature sensors have two upper specifications.
• Fan sensors may either have only the lower specification, or, depending on the DSDT, one lower and one upper specification.

Sensor readings and the range specifications are made available through the sysctl(3) interface, and can be monitored with sysctl(8). For example, on an ASUS V3-P5G965 barebone:

> sysctl dev.aibs.0.{volt,temp,fan}
dev.aibs.0.volt.0: 1192 850 1600
dev.aibs.0.volt.1: 3312 2970 3630
dev.aibs.0.volt.2: 5017 4500 5500
dev.aibs.0.volt.3: 12302 10200 13800
dev.aibs.0.temp.0: 28.0C 80.0C 95.0C
dev.aibs.0.temp.1: 55.0C 60.0C 95.0C
dev.aibs.0.fan.0: 878 600 7200
dev.aibs.0.fan.1: 0 700 7200

> sysctl -d dev.aibs.0.{volt,temp,fan}
dev.aibs.0.volt:
dev.aibs.0.volt.0: Vcore Voltage
dev.aibs.0.volt.1:  +3.3 Voltage
dev.aibs.0.volt.2:  +5 Voltage
dev.aibs.0.volt.3:  +12 Voltage
dev.aibs.0.temp:
dev.aibs.0.temp.0: CPU Temperature
dev.aibs.0.temp.1: MB Temperature
dev.aibs.0.fan:
dev.aibs.0.fan.0: CPU FAN Speed
dev.aibs.0.fan.1: CHASSIS FAN Speed

Generally, sensors provided by the aibs driver may also be supported by certain other drivers or utilities that access the ISA / LPC or I2C / SMBus devices directly. 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 or other utilities:

• 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 range specifications are supported by aibs. The range specification is reported 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.

SEE ALSO

HISTORY

An earlier version of the driver, acpi_aiboost, first appeared in FreeBSD 7.0 and NetBSD 5.0.

AUTHORS

An earlier version of the driver, named acpi_aiboost, was written for FreeBSD by Takanori Watanabe.