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Old 31st May 2021
dcbdbis dcbdbis is offline
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Default Two needs and a request for info

Good Evening All,

My linux contracts are winding down. I no longer need Linux as my main "driver".

I have used FreeBSD before as my main driver. I'm comfy with it.

I have two needs - that are now very important. I have also posted this in the OpenBSD forum - as I have a friend who is recommending OpenBSD over FreeBSD....But I am more familiar with FreeBSD. And FreeBSD has VM support via VirtualBox. VM's are a key parts of my work.


a) The latest AMDGPU drivers - turn the fans off at startup. The GPU then idles @ ~ 140degF (60DegC). In Linux - I run a python daemon that samples the temp every 10 seconds, and then sets the fan to a specified fan curve in a text file that sits in the /etc tree (/usr/local/etc in many BSD's). How do we do that in FreeBSD? I can get my info my grepping through ACPI entries I query...But then - how to manually control the AMDGPU fan speed?

MSI Rx-480

Thank you for taking the time to read this...


Dave
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Old 31st May 2021
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scottro scottro is offline
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Note that you accidentally posted this twice. It seems answers are coming in the other post. (You might want to ask mods to delete this one. Don't be too worried about it, we all do it once in awhile.)

Answers should go the other one, that has already gotten some answers.
http://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=11775
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Old 1st June 2021
J65nko J65nko is offline
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@scottro, IMHO the OP is here, in the FreeBSD section, asking this question about fan control, on FreeBSD running VirtualBox guests.
As stated in FreeBSD as a Host with VirtualBox™ FreeBSD supports VirtualBox, while OpenBSD does not
.
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Old 1st June 2021
dcbdbis dcbdbis is offline
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I posted to both forums deliberately, as both BSD's are in the running for my next daily driver. And I was willing to use whichever one, could meet my needs.

OpenBSD doesn't have decent VM support yet - which I need to still do the occasional side-project. So I can't implement my business model as an independent developer on it - yet.

Also - DutchDaemon in the FreeBSD forums, was kind enough to bring to bear some developers he knows - to provide me a definitive answer on the GPU Fan question. I know FreeBSD has good VM support. But the GPU is an issue since the latest OSS AMDGPU driver was released. It initializes the card with zero fan speed in both Linux and FreeBSD. Others I've researched have the same issue since the AMDGPU driver update.

Once I hear back from DutchDaemon and friends - I'll come back here and post the answer for others.

D

Last edited by dcbdbis; 1st June 2021 at 02:57 AM. Reason: clarifications
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Old 1st June 2021
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Ah, I see.
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Old 2nd June 2021
dcbdbis dcbdbis is offline
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I have contacted the author of the AMDGPU-Fan python daemon. He is going to look at his code and see what it would take to work under FreeBSD...

D
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Old 3rd June 2021
dcbdbis dcbdbis is offline
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Well,


I installed FreeBSD 13 to real hardware.

Using this command: sysctl -a | grep -i temperature.

I can't see any metrics on my RX-480. And if I can't see them, then of course no code can be written to control the GPU fan without a temperature input. I see many other posts regarding this issue, in other BSD forums and such. This is an issue that is not unique to FreeBSD. It's an issue with all of the BSD's.

In my research and readings, it has been alleged that the folks who ported the amdgpu driver to BSD, had to turn off certain things in the driver to make it work with the FreeBSD kernel.

I'm not sure why AMD sets the fan speed to zero in the latest versions of their OSS driver, they didn't used to in older drivers. This is also a common problem in the Linux world among amdgpu users whose posts I also read.

​IMHO - AMD is allowing the card to get way too hot before they begin to spool up their own fans based upon their default setting in their onboard GPU BIOS.


So lastly - I will post to AMD directly and see if we get an answer....

Just keeping this thread up to date with my latest research...


D
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Old 3rd June 2021
J65nko J65nko is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dcbdbis View Post
I installed FreeBSD 13 to real hardware. Using this command: sysctl -a | grep -i temperature.
I can't see any metrics on my RX-480.
You assume that there are syctl's that have the string 'temperature' in their name.
Not having a FreeBSD machine at hand I only can show you the following on OpenBSD:
Code:
$ sysctl hw

hw.machine=amd64
hw.model=Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1220 v3 @ 3.10GHz
hw.ncpu=4
hw.byteorder=1234
hw.pagesize=4096
hw.disknames=sd0:0353ff6115eea594,cd0:
hw.diskcount=2
hw.sensors.cpu0.temp0=29.00 degC
hw.sensors.acpitz0.temp0=8.30 degC (zone temperature)
hw.cpuspeed=3093
hw.setperf=100
hw.vendor=HP
hw.product=ProLiant ML310e Gen8 v2
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Old 3rd June 2021
dcbdbis dcbdbis is offline
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On my real hardware - with the amdgpu kldload'ed - and in reviewing every single entry in 'sysctl -a", there are no temperatures for the RX-480 GPU under any entry.

AMD pointed the finger @ the FreeBSD devs, and finger-pointing is not helpful for anyone. I am not about to get into that scenario. So it's over. It can't be done under FreeBSD.

As far as I am concerned - it is now a dead issue. The amdgpu driver under FreeBSD cannot monitor GPU temps, not natively, not via sysctl, not via acpi. CPU's? No problem! GPU's? for AMD anyway - it is a no go.

I am not going to slowly cook my GPU because the AMD devs decided to spool the fans down to zero in their latest driver at initialization.

I want to thank everyone who responded. I am grateful for the support, but this issue is now a dead issue.


D
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Old 4th June 2021
J65nko J65nko is offline
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Did they give you the reasoning why the driver spools the video card fan down?
It should not be too difficult to allow the user via a directive to turn this feature on or off.

Can I conclude that the temperature sensor on the video card does not directly control the fan speed?
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Old 4th June 2021
dcbdbis dcbdbis is offline
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Nope. No reason.

It isn't too difficult in my mind either. Controlling the fan under Linux is a cakewalk. But something in FreeBSD prevents it. Not sure in what component, kernel, driver, both. But for me to go deeper into it technically, and I will no longer be operating on knowledge, but conjecture.

What I do know about the RX-480 - is that the temp sensor is used by an on-card (in BIOS, P.I.D. loop). And the setpoints for the RX-480 in BIOS are way too late to spool up the fans. So in their own BIOS (an MSI card BTW) - the PID loop setpoints are way too high.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller


D
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