[lm-sensors] NCT6776 global registers 0x1c=0 and 0x24=0x5c onASRock Extreme4

[Jean Delvare]

On Tue, 12 Apr 2011 19:02:19 +0200, Ian Dobson wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Mike Campin" <lm_sensors at ootsa.homelinux.net>
> Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2011 6:04 PM
> To: <lm-sensors at lm-sensors.org>
> Subject: [lm-sensors] NCT6776 global registers 0x1c=0 and 0x24=0x5c onASRock 
> Extreme4
> 
> > Hi,
> >
> > Only 2 of the 5 fans are showing up on my ASRock P67 Extreme4 motherboard.
> > It due to the NCT6776 global configuration register 0x1c and 0x24 values.
> > The fans work if I modify these registers prior to loading the w83627ehf
> > driver.
> >
> > My question is where are these registers initialized? Should I ask ASRock
> > to fix the BIOS?
> >
> >  isadump -y -k 0x87,0x87 0x2e 0x2f
> >
> >          0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  a  b  c  d  e  f
> >     00: ff ff 00 ff ff ff ff 02 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
> >     10: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff f8 0e 00 00 ff ff
> >     20: c3 33 ff 00 5c 00 00 98 00 ff 20 00 80 00 00 01
> >     30: 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
> >
> >  isaset -y -f 0x2e 0x87
> >  isaset -y -f 0x2e 0x87
> >  isaset -y 0x2e 0x2f 0x1c 0x3
> >  isaset -y 0x2e 0x2f 0x24 0x1c
> >
> > Thanks, Mike
> >
> > -- 
> > Mike Campin
> > lm_sensors at ootsa.homelinux.net
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > lm-sensors mailing list
> > lm-sensors at lm-sensors.org
> > http://lists.lm-sensors.org/mailman/listinfo/lm-sensors
> 
> ASRock designed the board, so they should setup the hardware monitoring chip 
> correctly. Allowing users to change the chip configuration is a really bad 
> idea, as many of the pins can have different functionality/electrical 
> spcifications depending on the config. Setting up a pin incorrectly could 
> blow the chip (Configuring a pin so that it's a source that's connected to 
> an unprotected/limited sink for example).
> 
> So ASRock should fix the BIOS.

Seconded. But before flaming Asrock, two things worth checking:
* Availability of a BIOS update fixing the issue.
* Options in the BIOS to enable/disable the monitoring of specific
  fans. I can imagine that the BIOS skips the configuration steps for
  fans for which monitoring was disabled (although that would probably
  mean more code than just doing it unconditionally...)

-- 
Jean Delvare