Strange CPU temp down offset in Alpha 17

[SethCodingInc]

Hi,

I'm trying to create profile for MSI Alpha 17 and it's not as easy as I thought it is.

My EC dump:

   | 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F
---|------------------------------------------------
00 | 00 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 
10 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 
20 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A 05 00 00 00 00 0B 52 
30 | 02 05 00 05 00 00 50 81 6A 18 60 3B 71 02 C0 00 
40 | 35 0C 27 00 CD 18 10 FC 88 09 88 3A E5 0B F8 43 
50 | 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 
60 | 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 37 00 32 39 40 47 4E 55 
70 | 6C 00 00 28 2D 32 39 41 50 69 04 04 04 04 04 09 
80 | 00 00 37 3C 41 46 4B 50 62 00 00 30 37 3E 44 4D 
90 | 55 64 04 04 04 04 04 04 06 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 
A0 | 31 37 4B 4B 49 4D 53 31 2E 31 31 34 31 30 31 37 
B0 | 32 30 32 34 31 35 3A 30 31 3A 33 34 00 00 00 28 
C0 | 00 00 06 23 00 00 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 
D0 | 00 00 C1 00 0D 00 05 E4 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 
E0 | E2 00 00 CD 18 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 9A 00 00 
F0 | 00 00 00 00 27 80 26 90 23 A0 00 00 00 00 00 00 

Problem is in CPU fan curve. I have up temps interval 7. So, the offset in down temps should be 6. But is 4. And the last offset is 9! I have no idea what is going on here. GPU is perfectly fine, interval 5 offset 4. EC is after reset, MSI Center after restoring to defaults. Do you have any clue what to do with XML profile in that case? And what is happening here?

[Sparronator9999]

Hi, please enclose your EC dump in a fenced code block (```) in the future.

I have fixed this for you in your original comment.

[Sparronator9999]

As for the EC layout, there is this image that I recently created for my EC research document.

I have up temps interval 7. So, the offset in down temps should be 6. But is 4. And the last offset is 9! I have no idea what is going on here.

Oddly enough, MSI laptops have 8 up thresholds and 6 down thresholds for temperature. This is one of the reasons why YAMDCC only exposes 7 fan/temperature points for all MSI laptops: there is a missing down threshold.

Anyways, I did a quick search for your laptop. Am I correct that it uses an AMD processor? If so, try using one of the Intel 9th-gen generic configs to start off (most of MSI's AMD laptops appear to use the "old" EC layout present in MSI's pre-10th-gen Intel laptops).

EDIT: nevermind, I took a look at your EC dump and your laptop appears to be using the "new" EC layout. Use this config instead.

EDIT 2: I have created a modified version of the above linked config for your laptop (the only difference between the two is the default fan profiles): MSI-Alpha-17.zip. Please verify it works as expected, then go to the Info tab and click Get model and manufacturer to correct the laptop model stored in the config, then save the config and create a pull request if you want to add it to the list of supported laptops.

[SethCodingInc]

I used new layout and without keylight (as you can see in EC there is 0 where light level should be, and my keylight has only 4 levels including off). And yes, it's AMD.

I am not sure if I wrote things correctly. I didn't wrote about number of curve points. I wrote about "wrong" math in offsets. Interval between up temps is 7 in Celsius degree. So every down temp threshold should be 6 to be math correct. But I have 4, and 9 in last point. This is not correct from math point of view.

[Sparronator9999]

The down thresholds exist so the fan doesn't rapidly cycle between two speeds if the CPU/GPU temperature immediately drops back below the corresponding up threshold. They do not need to equal the next up threshold down.

For example, the first non-zero up threshold for your laptop (50°C) has a down threshold offset of 4 stored in EC (=46°C real down threshold). This means the fan will turn on when the CPU hits 50°C, then will wait until the temperature drops to 46°C before turning off again.

For the 6th down threshold (the one with 9°C), the corresponding up threshold is 85°C (which means the real down threshold for this temperature would be 76°C). You might notice this is lower than the next up threshold down, so one of two things could happen (I have not tested this scenario):

1. The fan slows down to the next speed down (with up threshold of 78 and down threshold of 74)
2. The fan skips a fan speed, and slows down to the one corresponding to up threshold of 71 and down threshold of 67 (since the temperature is below the up threshold of the one skipped).

...does any of this make sense?

But I agree the 9° down threshold offset seems like a potential error.

EDIT: it might make more sense if you play around with the fan profiles in the config editor, while running a load like Prime95 (CPU) or Kombustor (GPU).

[SethCodingInc]

It doesn't make any sense to me. At all. Let's look at 53*-57* range. What should happen when CPU temp is 52*? It is too low for this range, and too high for previous (up temp 50*). In the other hand GPU ranges are perfectly fine. I think I need to spare some time to do 'reverse engineering'. I mean running some benchmark and observing CPU temp and fan rpm correlation. This topic intrigues me, a lot.

EDIT: oh, now I see your edit (I respond based on e-mail notification). Yes, this is what I am going to do.

[Sparronator9999]

Let's look at 53*-57* range. What should happen when CPU temp is 52*? It is too low for this range, and too high for previous (up temp 50*)

The UpThreshold is how hot the CPU needs to get before the corresponding fan speed (in this case, 45%) is selected. Likewise, the DownThreshold is how "cold" the CPU needs to get before the corresponding fan speed is selected.

If the CPU temp is 52°C, the fan speed will decrease to 40%, since it's below the DownThreshold of 53 for the 45% fan speed, and above the UpThreshold for the 40% fan speed.

If the CPU temperature was instead 55°C, then the fan speed will be one of two states:

• 40% if the CPU hasn't heated up to 57°C yet after cooling to 53°C.
• 45% if the CPU previously reached 57°C, then started cooling down again. The fan speed will slow down to 40% if the CPU continues to cool down to 53°C or below.

Hopefully this makes more cents.

[SethCodingInc]

OMG I'm dumb. You tried to explain it to me before but I was constantly blind. Thanks, now I understand how it works. I thought these thresholds are ranges. Also in testing I see different behavior depending on temp is going up or down.

[Sparronator9999]

Yeah, I don't think I'm the best at explaining things sometimes...

Glad you figured out how it worked though.

[SethCodingInc]

One more observation: keyboard backlight level is not stored in EC. It's consistent with fact that after EC reset rgb pattern is not reset. To be honest I have no idea how to reset rgb keyboard.

[Sparronator9999]

MSI laptops with RGB keyboards don't appear to store keyboard backlight values in the EC (probably because the keyboards can have every key controlled individually), and therefore aren't currently supported. I don't anticipate support being added for these keyboards in the near future unless someone else adds support for them.

You can remove the <KeyLightConf> tag and contents to remove keyboard backlight support for your laptop if you're getting warnings about failed KeyLight-related operations (which one of us appears to have already done in your pull request).

EDIT: I was the one that didn't include keyboard backlight support in your config. You can test if your laptop supports it using this config, but I doubt yours supports it since it's an RGB keyboard.

[SethCodingInc]

YAMDCC can't work with my backlight. My Pull Request doesn't have KeyLightConf section.