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Notebook Hardware Control 2.0 Beta is out today

post #1 of 22
8/1/06 at 3:20pm
Thread Starter 
http://www.pbus-167.com/nhc/nhc.htm

release notes:

Quote:
Release Notes of Notebook Hardware Control
NHC 2.0 - Pre-Release-02 (01.08.2006)
- fixed the bug (Count must be positive...) that interrupted the loading of NHC on some systems.
- fixed the bug (Read Processor Policy failed) on Windows 2000
- To-Do: prepare the release 2.0, AMD Voltage Control support,
- change CPU temperature warning to CPU temperature clockdown

NHC 2.0 - Pre-Release (31.07.2006)
- add ACPI Control System (powerfull and open source) -> see main features for more details
- updated the ACPI Thermal Zone
- removed the Intel Core Duo CPU Speed bug
- add CPU Speed Control for Windows 2000 and Windows Vista (preliminary)
- add Custom Dynamic Switching Speed Up and Slow Down delay
- add large Battery Icon for the TaskBar
- add alternative function to detect the "System Power Status". This is a workaround on system
- that have problems with the keyboard or touchpad when using NHC.
- add possibility to change the ATI Powerplay settings
- add nVidia Powermizer support
- add LCD Brighntess support (in combination with ACPI Control System)
- updated the system tray menu for the professional version and add new profile icons
- add possibility to change the profile after a defined user idle time.
- add XML settings file (settings.xml)
- updated the nhcDriver
- removed the nhcACPI driver (not longer necessary)
- removed the nhcsafe.exe file (not longer necessary)
- updated the nhc webpage and nhc help file
- removed bugs and problems
- To-Do: prepare the release 2.0, AMD Voltage Control support,
- change CPU temperature warning to CPU temperature clockdown

I'll install it later this afternoon. Have to uninstall previous versions first. HOPEFULLY it can access the fan control on the 5672.
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post #2 of 22
8/1/06 at 3:33pm
Wow, really good news. With latest RMClock eating characters from my keyboard input, I'm definitely looking forward to trying NHC.

Edit: Tried this version. This is the most complete, intuitive, user-friendly version. Everything I need in a single package. One small complaint is that it uses .NET so memory usage (virtual, not physical) is high and startup is not snappy (albeit a lot better than other .NET applications, like ATI's CCC).
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post #3 of 22
8/1/06 at 3:41pm
Thread Starter 
Just installed it on my 5672. No fan control. Even removed references to the availability of it in new releases.

Has a new icon that runs on the task bar, but other than that I don't see anything new. I only looked quickly for fan control though.

Hopefully it won't slow my computer down like the last version. Boot up was so slow I disabled on boot and it ran cleaner.

Maybe next version will have fan control?
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post #4 of 22
8/1/06 at 3:53pm
Thread Starter 
I see the problem. The acer isn't recognizing a function. Probably the ACPI configuration.

here's scr shots:

Mine



Theirs
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post #5 of 22
8/1/06 at 4:02pm
Thread Starter 
Looks like the ACPI is programmable for geeks

http://www.pbus-167.com/nhc/nhc_adva...pi_programming

Maybe someone will come up with something. I remember reading awhile back that Acer/Intel uses a specification called IPMI. Here's a tech article about it:

http://developer.intel.com/pressroom...s/sp91698a.htm

Maybe that is the problem with fan control and ACPI on this computer.
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post #6 of 22
8/1/06 at 4:07pm
Thread Starter 
found out what the missing middle button was. if you hit the play button it enables a transparent monitoring graph on your screen. No additional functionality settings.
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post #7 of 22
8/1/06 at 6:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by techno3
Looks like the ACPI is programmable for geeks

http://www.pbus-167.com/nhc/nhc_adva...pi_programming

Maybe someone will come up with something. I remember reading awhile back that Acer/Intel uses a specification called IPMI. Here's a tech article about it:

http://developer.intel.com/pressroom...s/sp91698a.htm

Maybe that is the problem with fan control and ACPI on this computer.

Actually, it's just bad ACPI programming in BIOS on the Acer side. I used to visit Gentoo (Linux) forums and there were patched ASL scripts there for some Acer laptop models that fixed at least some issues.

I always wondered where MobileMeter gets temperature readings in ACPI. I wrote my own application that reads TZ (thermal zone) info from ACPI and it looks like some constant value. My guess is that you have to read raw data and walk the data structure yourself instead of relying on proper BIOS/Windows interaction. Speedfan also has this issue of not reading temps properly on Acer laptops.
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post #8 of 22
8/1/06 at 6:47pm
Thread Starter 
too geeky for me to be able to figure out. Doesn't seem to be any way to mess with the bios. I wish Acer would just update their bios to allow fan control again.

Speedfan doesn't recognize any fan control on here.
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post #9 of 22
8/1/06 at 6:57pm
Thread Starter 
Started a thread over on the english NHC forum that maybe some techminded users can chime in on:

http://www.p35-forum.de/board/thread.php?postid=44295

Wish I knew more so I could contribute a solution.
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post #10 of 22
8/2/06 at 3:56pm
@DarthAcer: I´m sorry I didn´t scroll this morning, so I didin´t read that the thread was currently here! I deleted the my double-Thread! Sorry!

Has anyone an Ferrari 4005 for creating an Script?
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post #11 of 22
8/2/06 at 4:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by techno3
Started a thread over on the english NHC forum that maybe some techminded users can chime in on:

http://www.p35-forum.de/board/thread.php?postid=44295

Wish I knew more so I could contribute a solution.
Hey Techno3,
Just got back from the NHC forum. You posted this line.

"I'll grab the system info from NHC in next post. System has been crashing alot since yesterday and I don't want to lose the jpg url"

What do you mean. Has your system been BSoD since installing NHC 2 ?
I installed it and had a 0x0000008e BSoD and a 0x1000008e spontaneous
restart. I removed NHC 2 and reinstalled the earlier version and haven't
had a problem since.? I'm also using an Acer 5672.
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post #12 of 22
8/4/06 at 12:35am
Thread Starter 
hi fjgold1. No BSOD with it, but definitely causing some issues. Sudden lockups or reboots. Scandisk would run after improper shutdown and the nhc prefetch file was corrupt one time. Here's a thread dicussing it with another guy with a Sager and similar issues.

http://www.p35-forum.de/board/thread...ae4929c93a10e5

I haven't reverted back to the 1.1 version yet. I did an uninstall and deleted the NHCdriver.sys (corrupt) in system32/drivers folder and reloaded NHC. I don't let it load with windows.

After deleting the corrupt files and reinstalling, so far no problems. I ran dependency walker along with NHC for a few hours last night to catch a crash and it didn't happen. XP event viewer doesn't have any real errors.

Haven't used it full time though, so too soon to tell if it was a corrupt install issue. I'm very confident that some of the NHC forum users will be able to help us with a script to control the fan and maybe we can help them test the beta issues in return.
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post #13 of 22
8/4/06 at 4:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by techno3
hi fjgold1. No BSOD with it, but definitely causing some issues. Sudden lockups or reboots. Scandisk would run after improper shutdown and the nhc prefetch file was corrupt one time. Here's a thread dicussing it with another guy with a Sager and similar issues. http://www.p35-forum.de/board/thread...ae4929c93a10e5 I haven't reverted back to the 1.1 version yet. I did an uninstall and deleted the NHCdriver.sys (corrupt) in system32/drivers folder and reloaded NHC. I don't let it load with windows. After deleting the corrupt files and reinstalling, so far no problems. I ran dependency walker along with NHC for a few hours last night to catch a crash and it didn't happen. XP event viewer doesn't have any real errors. Haven't used it full time though, so too soon to tell if it was a corrupt install issue. I'm very confident that some of the NHC forum users will be able to help us with a script to control the fan and maybe we can help them test the beta issues in return.
In my case I got a lock after defragging a partition using Diskeeper. Coincidental I think. It happened when I accidently hit the save button in Diskeeper. I had to force computer to shut down. On restart I was greeted with a BSoD a few seconds after everything was up and running. Another forced restart and about ten minutes into session computer restarted for no reason. The BSoD code was 0x0000008E. After the spontaneous restart the event viewer posted an error 0x1000008e. I immediately removed NHC 2.0 beta and reinstalled the earlier version. I have no real interest in controlling my fan as my temps are well behaved. I only use NHC really to monitor my CPU temps. I have no doubt that there is a bug in the new version that is messing with acpi or something that is causing this. I won't use the new version until this issue is settled. I will be watching this thread and the NHC thread closely and contributing where I can. Hope we can fix this as I bought the Pro version to help with developement.
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post #14 of 22
8/4/06 at 10:48am
Thread Starter 
Interesting. Mine locks up (still) usually when clicking a save button in IE or back button, etc.

Last night I walked away from the computer and when I came back it was locked up with the little skiing snowman on the screen. It may have been dynamic switching at the time.

I suspect it's a dual core issue, but I since I don't read german, I don't know if it's just dual cores that are having similar issues.
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post #15 of 22
8/4/06 at 11:38am
Since dual core support is a relatively new addition, and since NHC is not final yet, it's quite possible that Core Duo is a culprit. E-mailing developer some details might help.

I have been running latest NHC on TM8104 without any problems thus far.

Decompiled DSDT, found BRLV field which I assumed to be Brightness Level (should be the same in all recent Acer models, I checked DSDT from couple of other laptops: TM8006 and TM8204). Created ACPI script. The script auto-compiled and loaded upon subsequent startup of NHC but only shows Brightness = 0 and I do not see a way to manipulate it. Will do more experimentation. There is also VFAN field but it is 1-bit, i.e. seems to be On/Off thingie. Might be luckier with controlling it instead of brightness.
The hardest part is trying to figure out functions from 4-character field names in DSDT. Might also need to use ACPI methods instead of accessing fields directly but have to figure what exactly are 4 parameters that it requires.

Different laptops require different model name though, for example, TM810x are Kingfisher, TM820x - Como.

Edit: Woo-Hoo! Found IBM-ACPI Linux project. It appears, Acer ACPI has FSPD (Fan Speed) same as Thinkpads. There's some other common stuff. Looking forward to get some things working.

Edit2: Can't access stuff without some enhancements to NHC ACPI interface. Requested those enhancements in the NHC/Samsung forum. If it gets done, I'm going to put together ACPI scripts for various Acer models.
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post #16 of 22
8/4/06 at 12:53pm
I can confirm as well that the latest version of NHC is running perfectly fine on my 8104.

DarthAcer please keep us updated about the ACPI stuff as I would be interested as well how to use NHC for screen brightness, fan control, etc. on my 8104.
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post #17 of 22
8/4/06 at 3:33pm
Same here

1E-9
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post #18 of 22
8/4/06 at 6:00pm
Thread Starter 
Cool Darthacer. That would be so helpful to many of us! Appreciate it.
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post #19 of 22
8/5/06 at 5:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DarthAcer
Since dual core support is a relatively new addition, and since NHC is not final yet, it's quite possible that Core Duo is a culprit. E-mailing developer some details might help. I have been running latest NHC on TM8104 without any problems thus far. Decompiled DSDT, found BRLV field which I assumed to be Brightness Level (should be the same in all recent Acer models, I checked DSDT from couple of other laptops: TM8006 and TM8204). Created ACPI script. The script auto-compiled and loaded upon subsequent startup of NHC but only shows Brightness = 0 and I do not see a way to manipulate it. Will do more experimentation. There is also VFAN field but it is 1-bit, i.e. seems to be On/Off thingie. Might be luckier with controlling it instead of brightness. The hardest part is trying to figure out functions from 4-character field names in DSDT. Might also need to use ACPI methods instead of accessing fields directly but have to figure what exactly are 4 parameters that it requires. Different laptops require different model name though, for example, TM810x are Kingfisher, TM820x - Como. Edit: Woo-Hoo! Found IBM-ACPI Linux project. It appears, Acer ACPI has FSPD (Fan Speed) same as Thinkpads. There's some other common stuff. Looking forward to get some things working. Edit2: Can't access stuff without some enhancements to NHC ACPI interface. Requested those enhancements in the NHC/Samsung forum. If it gets done, I'm going to put together ACPI scripts for various Acer models.
For exots like Ferrari 4000 too? I would turn the loud fan to an slower RPM!
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post #20 of 22
8/5/06 at 10:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by stronzo
Fo exots like Ferrari 4000 too? I would turn the loud fan to an slower RPM!

You know that it's dangerous, right? Although running fan slow always as opposed to on and off with high speed might be ok.

Anyway, Manfred on NHC forum said he'll add SMBus read/write to ACPI interface in the next version and fan control will become possible.
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