aticonfig --pplib-cmd "get temperature 0"
and it seems to produce meaningful readings. Cool.
As a mostly unrelated note: I purchased a tool to measure power consumption and on Windows this machine idles at ~68 Watt, with Linux ~74 Watt (all components included). Not bad for an Athlon 64 X2 5200+, HD 3850 and 4 Gig of RAM, I guess. Apparently power saving mechanisms on Windows are better tuned, but I of course can't pin it down to e.g. the graphics driver.
With several glxgears instances this machine will happily consume ~167 Watt.
edit: I was as of yet unable to push temperature beyond 90°C.
Last edited by SavageX; 05-13-2008 at 12:36 PM.
gives output likeCode:#!/bin/bash for((;1<2;)); do echo "----------------------------" aticonfig --pplib-cmd "get fanspeed 0" aticonfig --pplib-cmd "get temperature 0" sleep 1 done
Code:---------------------------- Fan speed query: Query Index: 0, Speed in percent Result: Fan Speed: 47% Temperature for thermal controller 0 is 91.000000
Last edited by SavageX; 05-13-2008 at 02:03 PM.
then you are suffering from the bios bug. Same as I had.
You should contact powercolor for an updated bios or if you do not want to wait you could go ahead and flash with this bios:
some info also available here:
The bioses for BBA ATIs are all the same. I own a Sapphire card and I flashed it with the above mentioned bios since Sapphire never responded back to my email.
with the faulty bios usually the card will not go over 92C except if you really stress test it with some heavy gaming it will even reach 97C. But by then you should be seing lots of artifacts which was the main reason that I first checked the temps.
Last edited by ashrack; 05-13-2008 at 04:05 PM.
If you're brave you could check out the BIOS collection on techpowerup and/or edit a compatible BIOS with custom fan settings. Incredibly easy to do if you have a spare Windows partition (to launch the BIOS editor since I don't think it would work on Wine).
Thanks for the hints. I contacted Powercolor support and I hope I can retrieve an officially blessed BIOS (so if things go wrong I won't end up standing in the rain).
As a fun note: The decorative sticker on the card peeled itself off.
I now flashed the Visiontek BIOS and the card stays well below 80°C. Thanks for the hint, I assume the card may feel much healthier now ;-)