Re: [lm-sensors] ITE IT8518E supported in coreboot, helpful?

[Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>]

On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 11:47:55AM +0200, Santi Villalba wrote:
> This controller is giving people some trouble, as it is shipped in
> more and more laptops [1] and the fans can become quite annoying in
> these systems.
> 
> In the past it was said that the main problem was the lack of a
> datasheet from ITE [2]. Recently there has been progress from the
> coreboot projects getting the info for quanta firmware on IT8518
> [3]. Can this particular file help with the lack of specs or it
> depends on other factors?
> http://review.coreboot.org/gitweb?p=coreboot.git;a=blob;f=src/ec/quanta/it8518/acpi/ec.asl;hu49fa283da69b9b1fca8589b1fc7f59fd30f7a4;hb~568559634199668859b7c662aea7f6b41f3920
> 

I may be missing something, but my understanding is that the chip
has an embedded microcontroller (EC) which handles the actual fan
control. While the chip data sheet describes the hardware accessible
to the EC, and the API between CPU and EC, it does not describe
the logical interface between the two. Problem is that this
interface is not well defined and depends on the microcode
running on the EC.

The file referenced above seems to provide that information for the
specific board and for the microcode running on the EC in that board
(which appears to be the referenced 'quanta' firmware). That does
not mean, however, that it would be the same for other boards,
including yours.

A second potential problem is that the ACPI data provided above suggests
that the EC may be controlled through ACPI, which means that ACPI most
likely reserves the memory space needed to access the controller.
If this is the case in your system, which is quite likely, your best
option would be an ACPI driver.

Thanks,
Guenter

> In my particular case, I have a noisy clevo p150em. I can help
> providing testing and perhaps developing - just looking at the code
> of other modules, it87, it seems to me I could give a hand beyond
> testing.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> [1] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id\x154462
>      http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&tv146
> http://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/laptop/486412-cpu-cooler-runs-almost-constantly.html
> http://www.linuxmint-fr.org/forum/systeme/145143-ventilateur-qui-tournent-a-fond-no-pwm-capable-sensor-modules.html
> 
> [2] http://lists.lm-sensors.org/pipermail/lm-sensors/2012-February/035486.html
> 
> [3] http://review.coreboot.org/gitweb?p=coreboot.git;a=commitdiff;h~568559634199668859b7c662aea7f6b41f3920
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> lm-sensors mailing list
> lm-sensors@lm-sensors.org
> http://lists.lm-sensors.org/mailman/listinfo/lm-sensors
> 

_______________________________________________
lm-sensors mailing list
lm-sensors@lm-sensors.org
http://lists.lm-sensors.org/mailman/listinfo/lm-sensors