Any specific requirement for a Mobo to read power stats from the PSU?

[Ch33rios]

I have a Gigabyte MX31-BS0 and while all sensors and such work just fine, my existing PSU didn't seem to be recognized in the ipmi management console and thus no power consumption is reported.

I would really like to be able to see that so before I go out and buy a new PSU, just wanted to check to see if I need to look for something specific on the new one...I was going to stick with standard desktop PSUs as well since my build uses an ATX style unit (server specific units had very minimal options it seemed at Newegg unless I was needing a rack mount serve psu).

Thanks so much!!

 

[Terry Kennedy]

I have a Gigabyte MX31-BS0 and while all sensors and such work just fine, my existing PSU didn't seem to be recognized in the ipmi management console and thus no power consumption is reported.

I would really like to be able to see that so before I go out and buy a new PSU, just wanted to check to see if I need to look for something specific on the new one...I was going to stick with standard desktop PSUs as well since my build uses an ATX style unit (server specific units had very minimal options it seemed at Newegg unless I was needing a rack mount serve psu).

You need a motherboard and power supply that both support PMBus. There will usually be a 5-pin connector with either 4 or 5 wires between the PSU and MB which carries the PMBus data. A highly-integrated system (like a Dell server) might have the PMBus connected via some other method.

That gets you physical connectivity. However, there is no standard for where the PMBus registers are located in the address space. There are 2 different values here - the bus number (which is controlled by the motherboard) and the device address (which is set by the power supply).

Most motherboard vendors only support PMBus on their own power supplies. You can make things work with some external tools, if you know the device address(es). For an (older) write-up of my saga getting PMBus to work with SMCIPMITool and a 3Y Power supply, go here and scroll down to "The mysterious SMBus and PMBus and their relation to I2C". In my later RAIDzilla 2.5 systems, I'm using a Supermicro power supply with a Supermicro motherboard [advertising link, not mine], so it all "just works".

 

[Ch33rios]

You need a motherboard and power supply that both support PMBus. There will usually be a 5-pin connector with either 4 or 5 wires between the PSU and MB which carries the PMBus data. A highly-integrated system (like a Dell server) might have the PMBus connected via some other method.

That gets you physical connectivity. However, there is no standard for where the PMBus registers are located in the address space. There are 2 different values here - the bus number (which is controlled by the motherboard) and the device address (which is set by the power supply).

Most motherboard vendors only support PMBus on their own power supplies. You can make things work with some external tools, if you know the device address(es). For an (older) write-up of my saga getting PMBus to work with SMCIPMITool and a 3Y Power supply, go here and scroll down to "The mysterious SMBus and PMBus and their relation to I2C". In my later RAIDzilla 2.5 systems, I'm using a Supermicro power supply with a Supermicro motherboard, so it all "just works".

Ahhhh now I see. Looked at my motherboard and indeed there is a PMBus connector. I didn't see any standard ATX style PSU's on Newegg that had a documented PMBus connector so I guess I'm S.O.L. on that front Too bad...guess I can get a killawatt or something to monitor it at the wall but that'll just be a point in time unfortunately.

 

[azev]

you could also monitor power consumption using smart ups or metered pdu.