Patchy graphics - Is it the card?

[jamall]

Sorry, I'm in the opposite time zone to most of you guys, and a man has to sleep and work if he wants to buy more **** to tinker with! HWMonitor seems to be giving me correct readings for everything. From the Extensions list in the System Information utility, here's a list of the loaded status of kexts that may be relevant:

ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin yes
ACPISensors no
AppleACPIButtons yes
AppleACPIEC yes
AppleACPIPlatform yes
AppleBMC yes
AppleGraphicsPowerManagement no
AppleHWAccess yes
AppleHWSensor no
AppleMGPUPowerControl no
AppleSMBusPCI no
AppleSMC yes
AppleSMCPDRC no
CPUSensors yes
DirectHW yes
FakeSMC yes
GPUSensors yes
IOACPIFamily yes
LPCSensors no

Remenber this is an unsupported 2008 dual quad-core Xserve running OS X 10.9.5 through the use of a modified PlatformSupport.plist file, with an externally mounted video card, a third externally mounted power supply for the video card, and every software hack I've attempted in the last three years that didn't immediately bork the system, so not exactly "vanilla".

Edit: I can't believe the word "****" gets automatically censored out, that's ******* bull-****! In context it was ******* harmless. You hear worse ******* language from little mother-******* running around a ******* kindergarden playground! That's ******!

 

[h9826790]

Thanks for the sharing, will try those setting on my backup boot partition in these few days (and report back).

So, I just want to confirm we should

1) download the latest version (from your link)

2) run the installer, select the correct plugin (as above)

3) reboot and then we should get all the readings

Correct?

 

[jamall]

Thanks for the sharing, will try those setting on my backup boot partition in these few days (and report back).

So, I just want to confirm we should

1) download the latest version (from your link)

2) run the installer, select the correct plugin (as above)

3) reboot and then we should get all the readings

Correct?

As long as you're using Mavericks, yes, although there wasn't an installer on the HWMonitor.dmg I downloaded, I had to use Kext Utility to install the extra kexts. Instead of restarting you can just open the Terminal and run:

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/GPUSensors.kext​

and by the look of my list of loaded extensions I could have skipped ACPISensors.kext and LPCSensors.kext. These kexts are unsigned however, so I don't know how you'd go about installing them in Yosemite or El Capitan.

Edit: I just checked my uptime and realised that I haven't rebooted for nearly a month, and seeing as I installed HWMonitors on the first weekend in March and only ran the above command (because the GPU temperature reading was all I was after), ACPISensors.kext and LPCSensors.kext may well load when I next restart. It's also possible that my Xserve panics and won't boot, but in that event I'll know where to start troubleshooting.

 

[h9826790]

Got it! Thanks for the details, will study a bit more and then test it on El Capitan

 

[h9826790]

A quick test is done in 10.11.4, use Kext utility to install the FakeSMC, CPUsensors, and GPUsensors kext. No kernel panic during reboot, but GPU monitoring not working so far for my HD7950 and R9 280.

The CPU sensors actually working, so now I can monitor the CPU frequency. However, the GPU temperature always stay at 85, it's the max reading that can display, nothing related to the real temperature.

 

[Machines]

A quick test is done in 10.11.4, use Kext utility to install the FakeSMC, CPUsensors, and GPUsensors kext. No kernel panic during reboot, but GPU monitoring not working so far for my HD7950 and R9 280.

The CPU sensors actually working, so now I can monitor the CPU frequency. However, the GPU temperature always stay at 85, it's the max reading that can display, nothing related to the real temperature.
View attachment 622522

We cannot rely on EL Cap for advanced sensor reading , I guess . We then require an earlier OS X version .

 

[jamall]

We cannot rely on EL Cap for advanced sensor reading , I guess . We then require an earlier OS X version .

Your guess is wrong. Unless you've done some under-the-hood fiddling, as I mentioned above, unsigned kexts will not load in Yosemite and El Capitan. This is a major "feature" of OS X that you should already be aware of, and I'm not sure why you're concerned with "advanced sensor reading" if you're not. I haven't looked for a while, but "kext-dev-mode=1" used to be a workaround.

 

[Machines]

I'm not sure why you're concerned with "advanced sensor reading"

I rebuild workstation components and it helps to be able to access component thermal sensors in the OS environment they ultimately will in installed in .