[lm-sensors] aftermarket PCI or ISA monitoring board?

[lm-sensors] aftermarket PCI or ISA monitoring board?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Hello,

Please CC me as I'm not subscribed to the list.  I'd like to know if
there are any PCI or ISA boards designed for thermal monitoring on the
market that work with lm-sensors.  My Googling so far has been fruitless.

Basically I'm looking for an (inexpensive, and by this I mean less than
the price of a consumer mobo) add in PCI/ISA card that will work with
lm-sensors, one that has thermistor wires one can attach to a north
bridge chip heatsink, hard drive, etc.  There are many examples on the
market of such thermal monitoring devices, but all I've seen simply
provide an LCD display and mount in a drive bay.  This may be fine for a
desktop PC, but I'm wanting to monitor some temps remotely, temps of
components not monitored by the motherboard monitoring chip.

Thanks for any information you can provide.

-- 
Stan

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Re: [lm-sensors] aftermarket PCI or ISA monitoring board?

[Jean Delvare]

Hi Stan,

On Sat, 08 Jan 2011 12:18:53 -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> Please CC me as I'm not subscribed to the list.  I'd like to know if
> there are any PCI or ISA boards designed for thermal monitoring on the
> market that work with lm-sensors.  My Googling so far has been fruitless.
> 
> Basically I'm looking for an (inexpensive, and by this I mean less than
> the price of a consumer mobo) add in PCI/ISA card that will work with
> lm-sensors, one that has thermistor wires one can attach to a north
> bridge chip heatsink, hard drive, etc.  There are many examples on the
> market of such thermal monitoring devices, but all I've seen simply
> provide an LCD display and mount in a drive bay.  This may be fine for a
> desktop PC, but I'm wanting to monitor some temps remotely, temps of
> components not monitored by the motherboard monitoring chip.

I don't know of any such board, sorry.

-- 
Jean Delvare

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Re: [lm-sensors] aftermarket PCI or ISA monitoring board?

[Guenter Roeck]

On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 06:44:08AM -0500, Jean Delvare wrote:
> Hi Stan,
> 
> On Sat, 08 Jan 2011 12:18:53 -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> > Please CC me as I'm not subscribed to the list.  I'd like to know if
> > there are any PCI or ISA boards designed for thermal monitoring on the
> > market that work with lm-sensors.  My Googling so far has been fruitless.
> > 
> > Basically I'm looking for an (inexpensive, and by this I mean less than
> > the price of a consumer mobo) add in PCI/ISA card that will work with
> > lm-sensors, one that has thermistor wires one can attach to a north
> > bridge chip heatsink, hard drive, etc.  There are many examples on the
> > market of such thermal monitoring devices, but all I've seen simply
> > provide an LCD display and mount in a drive bay.  This may be fine for a
> > desktop PC, but I'm wanting to monitor some temps remotely, temps of
> > components not monitored by the motherboard monitoring chip.
> 
> I don't know of any such board, sorry.
> 
I think that will require two steps - interface to i2c first, then to sensors.
One could use something like Calibre PCI93LV/C (expensive) and write a driver
for it (if the vendor is willing to release the card specification), Quancom
PCIPROTO or similar, or use a USB-I2C interface card such as Diolan U2C-12.
Either would require some additional work to add actual sensors.
I use Diolan U2C-12 and made a little board with a max6696 using Schmartboard
test boards. That was quite straightforward.

Guenter

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Re: [lm-sensors] aftermarket PCI or ISA monitoring board?

[Jean Delvare]

On Sun, 9 Jan 2011 09:41:11 -0800, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 06:44:08AM -0500, Jean Delvare wrote:
> > Hi Stan,
> > 
> > On Sat, 08 Jan 2011 12:18:53 -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> > > Please CC me as I'm not subscribed to the list.  I'd like to know if
> > > there are any PCI or ISA boards designed for thermal monitoring on the
> > > market that work with lm-sensors.  My Googling so far has been fruitless.
> > > 
> > > Basically I'm looking for an (inexpensive, and by this I mean less than
> > > the price of a consumer mobo) add in PCI/ISA card that will work with
> > > lm-sensors, one that has thermistor wires one can attach to a north
> > > bridge chip heatsink, hard drive, etc.  There are many examples on the
> > > market of such thermal monitoring devices, but all I've seen simply
> > > provide an LCD display and mount in a drive bay.  This may be fine for a
> > > desktop PC, but I'm wanting to monitor some temps remotely, temps of
> > > components not monitored by the motherboard monitoring chip.
> > 
> > I don't know of any such board, sorry.
> > 
> I think that will require two steps - interface to i2c first, then to sensors.

Not necessarily. The SMBus is routed over PCI, so it would be possible
to simply use the motherboard's SMBus controller.

> One could use something like Calibre PCI93LV/C (expensive) and write a driver
> for it (if the vendor is willing to release the card specification), Quancom
> PCIPROTO or similar, or use a USB-I2C interface card such as Diolan U2C-12.
> Either would require some additional work to add actual sensors.

USB or parallel port solutions certainly exist and are already
supported, but that would be external when it seems Stan is after an
internal solution.

> I use Diolan U2C-12 and made a little board with a max6696 using Schmartboard
> test boards. That was quite straightforward.

If soldering things is an option, then many recent boards have an SMBus
header, so it would be possible to choose any supported SMBus-based
hardware monitoring device and wire up everything manually.

Still, I am curious why nobody thought of manufacturing a hardware
monitoring system in PCI format. This would be very easy to implement,
and I'm sure computer enthusiasts would be interested.

-- 
Jean Delvare

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Re: [lm-sensors] aftermarket PCI or ISA monitoring board?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Jean Delvare put forth on 1/9/2011 4:11 PM:

> If soldering things is an option, then many recent boards have an SMBus
> header, so it would be possible to choose any supported SMBus-based
> hardware monitoring device and wire up everything manually.

The board in question is 10+ years old, but it does have a 5 pin SMBus header.
The board is the legendary Abit BP6.  Unfortunately the manual doesn't provide
the pin assignments for this SMBus connector, though it does for all the other
connectors.  Strange.

Could you suggest a few inexpensive models of such lm-sensors compatible SMBus
based hardware monitoring devices containing, say, 1-3 thermal sensing circuits
(with probes/lead wires), and maybe a few non-PWM fan RPM sensing/driving circuits?

Also, will lm-sensors and the sensors user space program work with two
monitoring chips simultaneously?  Does anyone know if phpsysinfo will, or can
with additional tweaking, display data from both devices?

> Still, I am curious why nobody thought of manufacturing a hardware
> monitoring system in PCI format. This would be very easy to implement,
> and I'm sure computer enthusiasts would be interested.

I will be one such person, if it turns out I can't get an SMBus monitoring
device working in this system, or if such a device is cost prohibitive.

-- 
Stan

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Re: [lm-sensors] aftermarket PCI or ISA monitoring board?

[Guenter Roeck]

On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 07:10:53PM -0500, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> Jean Delvare put forth on 1/9/2011 4:11 PM:
> 
> > If soldering things is an option, then many recent boards have an SMBus
> > header, so it would be possible to choose any supported SMBus-based
> > hardware monitoring device and wire up everything manually.
> 
Good point ...

> The board in question is 10+ years old, but it does have a 5 pin SMBus header.
> The board is the legendary Abit BP6.  Unfortunately the manual doesn't provide
> the pin assignments for this SMBus connector, though it does for all the other
> connectors.  Strange.
> 
Of the five pins, one will be Ground, one will be VCC. There may be another ground
or possibly alert, plus I2C data and clock.

Should be easy to figure out Ground and VCC. That leaves three additional pins
to play with, so it should be possible to find out what is what by trying.

> Could you suggest a few inexpensive models of such lm-sensors compatible SMBus
> based hardware monitoring devices containing, say, 1-3 thermal sensing circuits
> (with probes/lead wires), and maybe a few non-PWM fan RPM sensing/driving circuits?
> 
max6696 supports three sensors (one internal, two external). Besides the sensors,
all I needed to wire the chip was one capacitor and one resistor, plus another
capacitor for each of the external sensors. The datasheet has a nice sample picture.
You might need additional resistors to set the chip's i2c address if you want to support
more than one chip, plus a zener diode and another resistor to generate 3.3V if the board 
only provides 5V.

Tricky part is that the chip is in uMAX or QSOP package with .5mm or .635mm pitch,
so you'll need a good soldering iron and a calm hand to do the soldering, or find
some HW guy to do it for you.

Of course, you could simply buy MAX6695EVKIT. I don't know the price, but usually 
Maxim's evaluation board pricing is quite reasonable.

> Also, will lm-sensors and the sensors user space program work with two
> monitoring chips simultaneously?  Does anyone know if phpsysinfo will, or can
> with additional tweaking, display data from both devices?
> 
max6696 supports 9 i2c addresses, so you could connect up to 9 chips
to a single i2c bus.

Guenter


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Re: [lm-sensors] aftermarket PCI or ISA monitoring board?

[Jean Delvare]

On Sun, 9 Jan 2011 17:35:13 -0800, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 07:10:53PM -0500, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> > Jean Delvare put forth on 1/9/2011 4:11 PM:
> > 
> > > If soldering things is an option, then many recent boards have an SMBus
> > > header, so it would be possible to choose any supported SMBus-based
> > > hardware monitoring device and wire up everything manually.
> > 
> Good point ...
> 
> > The board in question is 10+ years old, but it does have a 5 pin SMBus header.
> > The board is the legendary Abit BP6.  Unfortunately the manual doesn't provide
> > the pin assignments for this SMBus connector, though it does for all the other
> > connectors.  Strange.
> > 
> Of the five pins, one will be Ground, one will be VCC. There may be another ground
> or possibly alert, plus I2C data and clock.
> 
> Should be easy to figure out Ground and VCC. That leaves three additional pins
> to play with, so it should be possible to find out what is what by trying.
> 
> > Could you suggest a few inexpensive models of such lm-sensors compatible SMBus
> > based hardware monitoring devices containing, say, 1-3 thermal sensing circuits
> > (with probes/lead wires), and maybe a few non-PWM fan RPM sensing/driving circuits?
> > 
> max6696 supports three sensors (one internal, two external). Besides the sensors,
> all I needed to wire the chip was one capacitor and one resistor, plus another
> capacitor for each of the external sensors. The datasheet has a nice sample picture.
> You might need additional resistors to set the chip's i2c address if you want to support
> more than one chip, plus a zener diode and another resistor to generate 3.3V if the board 
> only provides 5V.
> 
> Tricky part is that the chip is in uMAX or QSOP package with .5mm or .635mm pitch,
> so you'll need a good soldering iron and a calm hand to do the soldering, or find
> some HW guy to do it for you.
> 
> Of course, you could simply buy MAX6695EVKIT. I don't know the price, but usually 
> Maxim's evaluation board pricing is quite reasonable.

Other solutions include the Texas Instruments TMP421 (3 external
thermal sensors), National Semiconductor LM63 (1 external thermal
sensor + 1 fan monitoring input), all LM85-compatible chips (2 external
thermal sensors + 4 fan monitoring inputs, SMSC EMC2103 (3 external
thermal sensors + 1 fan monitoring input) and Analog Devices ADM1031 (2
external thermal sensors + 2 fan monitoring inputs.)

You can put more than one of each on the same SMBus segment.

> > Also, will lm-sensors and the sensors user space program work with two
> > monitoring chips simultaneously?

Yes, definitely. I'm doing that all the time.

> > Does anyone know if phpsysinfo will, or can
> > with additional tweaking, display data from both devices?

As far as I know, phpsysinfo merely parses the output of "sensors", so
there is no reason why it wouldn't work.

-- 
Jean Delvare

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Re: [lm-sensors] aftermarket PCI or ISA monitoring board?

[Stan Hoeppner]

Jean Delvare put forth on 1/10/2011 2:28 AM:
> On Sun, 9 Jan 2011 17:35:13 -0800, Guenter Roeck wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 09, 2011 at 07:10:53PM -0500, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
>>> Jean Delvare put forth on 1/9/2011 4:11 PM:
>>>
>>>> If soldering things is an option, then many recent boards have an SMBus
>>>> header, so it would be possible to choose any supported SMBus-based
>>>> hardware monitoring device and wire up everything manually.
>>>
>> Good point ...
>>
>>> The board in question is 10+ years old, but it does have a 5 pin SMBus header.
>>> The board is the legendary Abit BP6.  Unfortunately the manual doesn't provide
>>> the pin assignments for this SMBus connector, though it does for all the other
>>> connectors.  Strange.
>>>
>> Of the five pins, one will be Ground, one will be VCC. There may be another ground
>> or possibly alert, plus I2C data and clock.
>>
>> Should be easy to figure out Ground and VCC. That leaves three additional pins
>> to play with, so it should be possible to find out what is what by trying.
>>
>>> Could you suggest a few inexpensive models of such lm-sensors compatible SMBus
>>> based hardware monitoring devices containing, say, 1-3 thermal sensing circuits
>>> (with probes/lead wires), and maybe a few non-PWM fan RPM sensing/driving circuits?
>>>
>> max6696 supports three sensors (one internal, two external). Besides the sensors,
>> all I needed to wire the chip was one capacitor and one resistor, plus another
>> capacitor for each of the external sensors. The datasheet has a nice sample picture.
>> You might need additional resistors to set the chip's i2c address if you want to support
>> more than one chip, plus a zener diode and another resistor to generate 3.3V if the board 
>> only provides 5V.
>>
>> Tricky part is that the chip is in uMAX or QSOP package with .5mm or .635mm pitch,
>> so you'll need a good soldering iron and a calm hand to do the soldering, or find
>> some HW guy to do it for you.
>>
>> Of course, you could simply buy MAX6695EVKIT. I don't know the price, but usually 
>> Maxim's evaluation board pricing is quite reasonable.
> 
> Other solutions include the Texas Instruments TMP421 (3 external
> thermal sensors), National Semiconductor LM63 (1 external thermal
> sensor + 1 fan monitoring input), all LM85-compatible chips (2 external
> thermal sensors + 4 fan monitoring inputs, SMSC EMC2103 (3 external
> thermal sensors + 1 fan monitoring input) and Analog Devices ADM1031 (2
> external thermal sensors + 2 fan monitoring inputs.)
> 
> You can put more than one of each on the same SMBus segment.
> 
>>> Also, will lm-sensors and the sensors user space program work with two
>>> monitoring chips simultaneously?
> 
> Yes, definitely. I'm doing that all the time.
> 
>>> Does anyone know if phpsysinfo will, or can
>>> with additional tweaking, display data from both devices?
> 
> As far as I know, phpsysinfo merely parses the output of "sensors", so
> there is no reason why it wouldn't work.

Thank you all for the suggestions.  I'm out of my element here, as I don't
participate in this sector of the computer/electronics marketplace.  Is there an
online retailer or wholesaler where I can actually add one of these devices to a
cart, and check out?  Or at least see descriptions and pricing info without
having to speak to a sales rep, lying to him or her, just to minimize my price
on what is really a one time purchase?  Do any of them in the U.S. regularly
sell in single quantities, with little or no salesperson hassles?

Back when I was building custom white box servers and storage systems, I had to
spend way too much time "servicing my vendor relationships".  A bit oxymoronic
that phrase, given that I was the customer...

Thanks.

-- 
Stan

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Re: [lm-sensors] aftermarket PCI or ISA monitoring board?

[Jean Delvare]

On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:48:02 -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> Thank you all for the suggestions.  I'm out of my element here, as I don't
> participate in this sector of the computer/electronics marketplace.  Is there an
> online retailer or wholesaler where I can actually add one of these devices to a
> cart, and check out?  Or at least see descriptions and pricing info without
> having to speak to a sales rep, lying to him or her, just to minimize my price
> on what is really a one time purchase?  Do any of them in the U.S. regularly
> sell in single quantities, with little or no salesperson hassles?

I don't know, sorry, I'm not much in this sector either. The few sample
chips I have here, were sent to me for free by the manufacturers, but
that was generally in exchange of me writing or fixing Linux support
for the chip in question. I don't know where you can buy them...
electronics shop maybe?

In France, I see that Conrad sells some thermal sensors, Dallas DS1620,
DS1621, DS1820 and DS1821, but that's about it. Very limited choice :(

-- 
Jean Delvare

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Re: [lm-sensors] aftermarket PCI or ISA monitoring board?

[Guenter Roeck]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 11:53:11AM -0500, Jean Delvare wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:48:02 -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> > Thank you all for the suggestions.  I'm out of my element here, as I don't
> > participate in this sector of the computer/electronics marketplace.  Is there an
> > online retailer or wholesaler where I can actually add one of these devices to a
> > cart, and check out?  Or at least see descriptions and pricing info without
> > having to speak to a sales rep, lying to him or her, just to minimize my price
> > on what is really a one time purchase?  Do any of them in the U.S. regularly
> > sell in single quantities, with little or no salesperson hassles?
> 
> I don't know, sorry, I'm not much in this sector either. The few sample
> chips I have here, were sent to me for free by the manufacturers, but
> that was generally in exchange of me writing or fixing Linux support
> for the chip in question. I don't know where you can buy them...
> electronics shop maybe?
> 
> In France, I see that Conrad sells some thermal sensors, Dallas DS1620,
> DS1621, DS1820 and DS1821, but that's about it. Very limited choice :(
> 
Mouser has pretty much everything in the US, including some eval boards.
Some eval boards are also available directly from manufacturers, though
I don't know if they are selling to end users (Maxim has a note on their 
Web site indicating that they only sell to manufacturers).

I sometimes get samples for free by stating that I plan to writing a Linux driver
for the chip. Of course one should only do that if the idea _is_ to write a driver.

Guenter

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