ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Extreme: Linux gets access to more sensors|igor…

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The Linux driver asus-ec-sensors is to be extended with support for the ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Extreme. The submitted v2 patch adds the documentation and the actual hwmon driver, totaling 16 new lines of code. That sounds minor, but it is quite relevant for users of such boards under Linux, because this is not about RGB folklore, but about usable sensor data for temperature and water-cooling monitoring. The patch adds the board to the list of supported models and, in the Intel 700-family path, adds additional sensors for water flow as well as water inlet and outlet temperatures.

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Linux hwmon expands visibility on a high-end mainboard

The technical core lies in access to the mainboard’s Embedded Controller. On many ASUS boards, that is where sensor values reside that are not fully visible through conventional Super-I/O paths. The official kernel documentation states that ASUS mainboards provide hardware monitoring data via Super-I/O and ACPI-EC registers and that some sensors are only reachable through the EC. Among other values, the driver reads VRM temperature, CPU Opt fan speed, water flow, and water inlet and outlet temperatures, and uses an ACPI mutex to avoid conflicts with the firmware during EC access. For the ROG Maximus Z790 Extreme, it is particularly interesting that the patch does more than add a simple DMI name. In the board profile, T-Sensor, VRM temperature, water sensors, and water flow are enabled. In addition, there is a dedicated entry in the DMI table that matches exactly on “ROG MAXIMUS Z790 EXTREME”. In practical terms, this means that monitoring tools under Linux could in future see what is happening in the cooling loop without external workaround solutions. On a board of this class, it would also be somewhat embarrassing if the water-cooling data were only conveniently visible under Windows. After all, expensive sensor hardware is only…

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