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Under both Windows (Motherboard Moniter) and linux (lm_sensors) software exisits that can moniter the built in thermal and fan sensors that most modern motherboards have, and can be configured to shut down your computer when it overheats or a fan fails.

> the new ASUS motherboads have COP : CPU Overheating Protection, which switches off the machine when temp goes baloony.

I have an ASUS board a bit over a year old. I do intensive number crunching on my home machines, with some jobs running over a week of continual 100% CPU time. Being AMDs, they tend to run kind of hot, too, so sometimes I put a room fan blowing along the wall behind the boxes' exhausts.

At any rate, one warm day I had the A/C set kind of high and the room fan aimed elsewhere, and one of the boxes overheated while I was out to lunch. But the board halted it for me. When I came home it was making a horrible alarm sound, and unfortunately I had to reboot because I couldn't figure out how to make it restart after the alarm, but at least I didn't get a fire, nor even any overheat damage to the CPU.

BTW, Linuxers/BSDers who have temperature sensors on their motherboards may want to run lm_sensors and a display such as gkrellm in order to keep an eye on your system temperatures when you are around.

i2c-pport docs
lm_sensors lm75 module docs
lm75 datasheet from national

i2c-pport docs
lm_sensors lm75 module docs
lm75 datasheet from national

> Where can i find out about lm_sensors in the 2.4.3 kernel?

You sound like 'Eliza'.

Visit the lm_sensors page. Notice that i2c support is built in to the 2.4.* kernels, so you won't need the separate download for that, but you do need to have the basic i2c support compiled in to the new kernels. (It may already be compiled in if you have a stock kernel.)

Once you've gotten i2c support, just get the lm_sensors package and follow the instructions in the QUICKSTART file. When you're done, you'll have a hardware monitoring infrastructure, if your motherboard provides the info.

Various user tools tap in to that infrastructure to give you a live display or plot the data. I've already mentioned gkrellm; you can find more at the lm_sensors site's links page, or perhaps on google.

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I have never actually owned an Abit motherboard but you have to appreciate what they do with their spare time (read: dual celeron BP6, etc).
The cool thing about some of their motherboards is the Winbond Hardware monitoring chip that they use in some. The lm_sensors package allows linux users full use of the hardware monitoring features. Use it in conjunction with frontends like KLM or GnoLM.
Also, the "one MHz step" thing that they have can be used from inside linux. I mean, you can change the FSB from inside linux (in one MHz steps) because of the clock generator that they use.
Im not knocking other manufacturers, but I have found Abit to be a linux overclocker's best friend.

Useful Links:
FSB Utility for Linux
The lm_sensors Homepage

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o/c da world!

Check out the LM-sensors project.

They have a pretty good ticketed support system. I think it's purely internal at the moment but you might be able to use it if you e-mail phil@stimpy.netroedge.com

OK, I'm one of the developers, but so what? :')

Lm_sensors is pretty cool and can be used to see how hot your CPU's are, how fast your CPU fans are spinning, what voltages your supplies are providing, drive that neat I2C display, etc., etc. Alan Cox thinks it's worthy of kernel integration, scheduling it for 2.5.x when it gets started. We've come a long way over the last year or so.... :')

--Phil

Some further speed improvement may be reached
by running jobs on dedicated CPUs (clean cache).
This can be done by installing pset utility.

Check your voltages and temperatures under Linux
using lm_sensors. BTW If your Vcore2 stays constant
around 1.5V: There are BP6 boards which have
switched Vcore2 and Vbatt readings.

The current state of the project is that it is able to translate Psion Word files to ASCII, HTML 3.3 and HTML 4.0. I am working on RTF (Rich Text Format) output right now (ugh! talk about an ugly file format!). And images and stuff will be supported Real Soon Now (tm).

I have recently set up a CVS archive; if others want to join me on this project, they are very welcome to do so. Contact me at frodol@dds.nl.

By the way, psiconv is of course distributed under the GPL, and the file format documentation is completely in the public domain!

http://www.lm-sensors.nu

You might have received an email warning that the voltages were beginning to go wacky. I found a dying power-supply and replaced it before services when down with this software. It can tell you when a CPU fan is slowing or stopped, or if things are getting too hot, too. Nifty!

Matrix-Orbital makes some little displays (which mount in an empty drive bay) to display some simple alpha-numeric stuff. Lm-sensors has I2C drivers for them for Linux. Pictures at their web site.


--Phil