Intel DG965WH (ICH8) detects OK but sensors says "no sensors detected"

Information requested in FAQ "what to send when asking for help"

Hello, Thanks for the report. Unfortunately, the board seems to use intel proprietary QST technology. So no classic chip devices were found. The technology works by executing the binary firmware inside the computers memory. It does the memory controller, later using some other bus the control is transfered to ICH8 which has connected fans, perhaps temps too. The ICH8 documentation is still incomplete, so we cannot really help. If you happen to know someone at Intel, please ask them to release the documentation. Again, we are sorry. Try to complain at Intel - or force them to provide the QST documentation so the driver could be developed. Thanks. Rudolf

Hello again,

Please can you check BIOS if you have intel QST enabled? If there is no such option, please send us the output of

lspci
lspci -n

Thanks.

Regards Rudolf

When you referred to Intel "QST" did you mean "Quick Resume Technology" or QRT? If not, what does QST stand for.

I'm attaching the output from lspci with various options.

Output from lspci with various options

Hello,

Sorry for the delay, IIRC you asked what to ask in Intel right? It seems that the thermal management is run via special firmware inside the chipset, through the interface called HECI. I found some PDF that intel wants to create the opensource drivers for that - there was written contact your intel representative ;)

So far, good to be if someone from intel could contact me, Jean Delvare or the directly in the list.

There is also some incomplete documentation in the ICH8 datasheet, maybe the sensors could be read from there. (there is whole PCI device for the thermal stuff, some of it is documented in spec update but that is not enough)

Hope it helps,

Rudolf

I am using an Intel DG965SS http://developer.intel.com/products/motherboard/DG965SS/index.htm, and I am having the same problem. It uses ICH8 too. If needed, I can provide more information, but it is not to much different from the ones I read in this ticket.

Just for information, I wrote a support e-mail to Intel right now, asking them to read this ticket and to help developers with documentation.

In the past (a long time ago), I started a ticket for a D815EEA2U and it is running since them. I hope we could make this ICH8 works too.

Thank your attention and for lm_sensors.

Replying to ticket:

I am using an Intel DG965SS http://developer.intel.com/products/motherboard/DG965SS/index.htm, and I am having the same problem. It uses ICH8 too. If needed, I can provide more information, but it is not to much different from the ones I read in this ticket. Just for information, I wrote a support e-mail to Intel right now, asking them to read this ticket and to help developers with documentation. In the past (a long time ago), I started a ticket for a D815EEA2U and it is running since them. I hope we could make this ICH8 works too. Thank your attention and for lm_sensors.

I forgot, Freitas, from Brazil.

"me too" - hitting this same issue on two Intel boards with G/Q965 + ICH8[R] chipsets. One board is a DQ965GF and the other is a DG965RY.

lspci shows both boards include an HECI controller.

Do the recent announcements at http://softwareblogs.intel.com/2007/04/13/intel-me-interface-heci-now-available/ and http://www.openamt.org/ provide sufficient documentation to read the sensors data ???

Intel motherboards based on the current "Bearlake" series chipsets (DP35DP, DG33TL, DG33FB, DG33BU, DQ35JO, DQ35MP, DX38BT and so on) have the same issue -- the sensor data is accessible only through the management engine (HECI).

Intel's current efforts seem to be focused on cleaning up the HECI driver for inclusion in the stock kernel tree:

http://groups.google.com/group/linux.kernel/browse_thread/thread/3fb3f88233d126a4/2054fc982ce20a31?

but progress seems to be slow as there seems to be approximately one person (Anas Nashif, anas.nashif@intel.com) working on it.

Their web-based ticket system indicates two tickets thus far opened by people like us who have been trying to get their sensors working, in these cases by trying to run the Intel AMT management software using the OpenAMT stack, and failing to do so because their motherboards don't have AMT support, and the stack currently lacks support for QST.

http://www.openamt.org/ticket/8 http://www.openamt.org/ticket/9

Would it be possible for an lm-sensors developer to contact Anas Nashif and see if QST support could be expedited in any way?

Thanks for all the information. All in all this is rather good news. As it seems that Intel is working on getting their HECI support code merged into the kernel, and that they are aware that some people need it (and possibly some additional code) to read their sensors, I don't think that there's any point in further harassing Anas. I'd just wait for them to be done with their side of the work. After that, if they need our help to complete the sensors support, they could send us one of their motherboards so that we have some hardware to test our work.