Smart Monitoring PC Hardware Launched By NVIDIA

MojoKid writes "NVIDIA has just introduced a new open-industry standard for real-time monitoring and control of PC power supplies, chassis, and water cooling systems. Dubbed ESA, which stands for Enthusiast System Architecture, the company hopes the standard will be adopted across the industry. A new wave of ESA compliant hardware that can be monitored and controlled via a standard interface could ensue, like smart health-monitoring power supplies and other components, that would increase system stability and reliability. 'The ESA standard is built around the USB HID (Human Interface Device) specification and has been submitted to the USB-if HID subcommittee for discussion and approval. ESA is essentially a hardware and software interface that takes data collected by analog sensors and converts it to digital information that can accessed via software. Below are a handful of slides taken from an NVIDIA-produced presentation on ESA.'"

Comments

Hmm....

[EveryNickIsTaken]

ESA is essentially a hardware and software interface that takes data collected by analog sensors and converts it to digital information that can accessed via software. Sounds like a computer to me...

Printer Analog Sensors

[Dareth]

I hope the sensors work better than the ones in my HP printers. While it is may be interesting all the things they can detect, jam in tray 3, under fuser, etc. They really annoy the hell out of the users.

Well, I would ramble on more about voltage flux warnings etc, but I have to run and change my print toner... I have less than 1000 pages left!

Re:Printer Analog Sensors

[The -e**(i*pi)]

50% is running out of hard drive space 80% is out of hard drive space 90% is screwing up your computer

Re:Printer Analog Sensors

[mikael]

While it is may be interesting all the things they can detect, jam in tray 3,

I find using ketchup works much better than toner ink - although it does tend to drip a lot.

Isn't this what SMBUS / I2C is for?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this what SMBUS / I2C is for?

Re:Isn't this what SMBUS / I2C is for?

[Andy Dodd]

Yeah, except there's no standard for I2C controllers (making software a nightmare - how many I2C controllers does lm-sensors need to support? How many are not supported?), likewise no standard for certain sensor types with I2C interfaces. (How many different temperature sensor drivers does lm-sensors have?)

On the other side of the world....

[neokushan]

In NVIDIA's new open-industry standard, you can monitor components inside your computer.

In soviet Russia, components inside your computer monitor YOU!

Re:On the other side of the world....

[tcolberg]

And yet on the otherside of the world, the administration's wide definition of wiretapping means that the "components inside your computer monitor YOU" TOO!

IPMI Lite?

[drdanny_orig]

Wasn't this already accomplished w/ IPMI? At least in more expensive server hardware? What am I missing?

Re:IPMI Lite?

[Junta]

From my brief look at nVidia's site, it looks like it's more an internal standard than external. IPMI stops at the service processor. The service processor, in turn, used as many arbitrary busses/protocols internally to gather the data and report it back (and while the service processor *might* help you with fan-control versus throttling using OEM commands, the sensor interface strictly speaking only mandates reporting, not controlling). Such a system, for example, would do perfectly fine at reporting on all components explicitly integrated by the manufacturer. However, stick in an arbitrary graphics card, and no sensor value for it's temp/fan will appear as an IPMI-reported device. If a hypothetical standard existed within the case, monitoring may work better without having to buy a single-vendor solution that planned for all that, and you could hypothetically monitor and control arbitrary installed devices. Also, if intelligent about it, more tradeoffs can be made. When you can send instruction to both the GPU and it's cooling device, then for performance you could request that the cooling ramp up whatever it takes, but then go to acoustic and it would throttle the GPU instead of ramping up fans. An IPMI compliant BMC that was also ESA compliant might generate SDRs based on some sort of ESA-discovery.

nVidia isn't the only game in town talking about internal standards for this, Intel for one definitely has been pushing their own ideas in terms of moving standardization to the interior of the systems.

I've wanted something like this for a long time

[MonorailCat]

I currently have to use several programs and a manual fan controller to for half the capability this system offers. To read temps I have to use different programs for motherboard, case, and GPU, and several fans aren't even controllable, in hardware or software. I have little understanding of the temperature distribution in my case. Getting all this information and more into one integrated hardware/software package is a feature I'd gladly pay more for.

USB port usage...

[Ptur]

So you'll need a usb port for each item that you want to monitor (PSU, case, cooling,...).
Apart from usb port shortage, this also means more wires inside the case will be restricting the airflow.

Re:USB port usage...

[LWATCDR]

The problem with SPI for this application is that you need a CS line per device. That could be a lot of lines and or wires. Length of run shouldn't be a problem for the sensors in a PC case. The limit is depends on the clock speed but you can easily get a few meters. So with a 6 to 12 foot limit one has to wonder just how big your case is!
Motherboards already use the SMBus to monitor temps and fans. So why go with USB?

Why not just link to nvidia's page?

[SuperBanana]

Nothing like primary source material, folks.

I really grow tired of Slashdot linking to another site that describes a web page, instead of just linking to the page itself.

Re:Why not just link to nvidia's page?

[Anonymous Coward]

...and when someone does link to the original source document for something like this, people say that the editors are just shilling for the manufacturer. Seriously, they can't win. Say what you will about the quality of a particular article (which, from what I can tell, is poor), but it's very acceptable to link to a new article which reports the contents of a different site, so as to give analysis, compilation of additional primary sources, etc.

Is it interactive?

[ircmaxell]

This would be cool if it allowed real time interactivity with the devices rather than just monitoring. Think about it, being able to monitor and control devices remotely... It can be done now, but it's highly device dependant... With an open protocol, lmsensors would become much easier to install...

If it works....god bless em

[Danathar]

All I can say is getting LINUX to recognize sensors on various motherboards is a pain in the Ass. Any standardization in this area would be great.

Re:Off-topic: What's going on with Slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that you are logged in on the one with dynamic articles, and not on the static one.

Ummm....SMB?

[Mateorabi]

Isn't this what the System Management Bus (SMBus) is for? SMB also has the advantage of not requiring hubs to provide multiple ports since its a true multi-slave two wire bus. (Multi master, too.) Why not just provide a breakout connector on the motherboard to chain more devices? It is 100-400kbps but most of the peripherals don't need to report more than a few bits per second of diagnostic info anyway.

Re:Join my club!

[Big Nothing]

Nope, I just changed it.

LET'S GET READY TO WIKIRUUUUUUUUMMMBBBBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Naah, just kidding, I wouldn't dream of starting a wikiwar just to get some karma points. Or would I?

Excuse me, Dave

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I've just picked up a fault in the AE35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure in 72 hours.

Why not SNMP?

[smackenzie]

Why don't they fold more video monitors (and enthusiast monitors like water temperature of water coolers) into SNMP or SNMP2? (Or have they already?) Why do we need another standard?

SNMP is an industry standard, well-supported, flexible with multiple attractive interfaces... pretty sure it can be realtime and has the added bonuses of being networkable by default.

SMBus is a mess

[Wesley Felter]

Today's motherboards use I2C/SMBus for sensor access, and it is a total mess. There are hundreds of models of sensor chips that need drivers, and there's no way to know the mapping from sensor numbers to the real world (which fan is "fan 0"?). Then some vendors add microcontrollers that are not on the SMBus and have totally undocumented interfaces (hello AIGuru). I haven't looked at ESA, but hopefully it solves some of these problems.

Upon further contemplation...

[inject_hotmail.com]

Again, this isn't a troll...I'm just a realist.

I just hope that the standard requires high-quality components, because I can see this backfiring. I have sold ASUS motherboards since I starting selling computers a few years back, and have had a lot of success (read: very very low RMA rate). Even though I choose to include only high-quality components, I have seen a situation where the motherboard -thought- it was running over temperature and began throttling itself (ASUS P4S800-X I think it was)...and this happened on 90% of those specific boards I sold (10% had celeron chips, which run 10C cooler or so). Mind you, I'd rather have an erroneous overtemp than undertemp. Anyway, ASUS claimed that there is and was nothing wrong with their boards. Meanwhile, many other people suffered the same situation, even after BIOS updates and thermal repasting. Obviously ASUS tried something different (cheaper?) and it sucked.

Having said that, if this is all going to work, please, for the love of our computer gods, oh please, only use high-quality parts so us techs don't have to suffer so much.