Linux's Corsair PSU Driver Being Updated For Newer Power Supplies

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux's Corsair PSU Driver Being Updated For Newer Power Supplies

Added to the Linux kernel back in 2020 was a community-written Corsair power supply driver for exposing various sensor data that their higher-end PSUs make available via a USB interface. This reverse-engineered "corsair-psu" driver has continued to be improved upon and adding support for newer Corsair PSUs. A new patch out this weekend extends the corsair-psu driver for handling newer 2022~2023 model power supplies...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Corsair-PSU-Driver-2023

[ElectricPrism]

Sensor Data? Like PSU Temp and Fan speed? Is there more?

I'm curious what this type of data would be practically useful for.

[Danny3]

Fuck you Corsair for not doing this yourself and for not providing docs so that people have to reverse-engineer your stuff!

[Akiko]

Sensor Data? Like PSU Temp and Fan speed? Is there more?

I'm curious what this type of data would be practically useful for.

Yeah, you can pull quite some information from these PSUs. Because of being the "simple" USB HID protocol you can pull it in a very high frequency like lets say every 100ms and the internal micro-controller updates the data in realtime. Here, this is how it looks like:

The Upper one is a HX1500i Series 2023 and the lower one is a HX850i.

corsairpsu-hid-3-e
Adapter: HID adapter
v_in:        230.00 V  
v_out +12v:   11.95 V  (crit min =  +8.41 V, crit max = +15.59 V)
v_out +5v:     5.08 V  (crit min =  +3.50 V, crit max =  +6.50 V)
v_out +3.3v:   3.33 V  (crit min =  +2.31 V, crit max =  +4.30 V)
psu fan:        0 RPM
vrm temp:     +34.8°C  (crit = +70.0°C)
case temp:    +22.8°C  (crit = +70.0°C)
power total:  58.00 W  
power +12v:   26.00 W  
power +5v:    22.50 W  
power +3.3v:  10.50 W  
curr +12v:     2.25 A  (crit max = +168.75 A)
curr +5v:      4.50 A  (crit max = +40.00 A)
curr +3.3v:    3.25 A  (crit max = +40.00 A)

corsairpsu-hid-3-4
Adapter: HID adapter
v_in:        230.00 V  
v_out +12v:   12.14 V  (crit min =  +8.41 V, crit max = +15.59 V)
v_out +5v:     5.05 V  (crit min =  +3.50 V, crit max =  +6.50 V)
v_out +3.3v:   3.30 V  (crit min =  +2.31 V, crit max =  +4.30 V)
psu fan:        0 RPM
vrm temp:     +49.8°C  (crit = +70.0°C)
case temp:    +43.5°C  (crit = +70.0°C)
power total: 172.00 W  
power +12v:  144.00 W  
power +5v:    29.00 W  
power +3.3v:   4.50 W  
curr +12v:    12.25 A  (crit max = +85.00 A)
curr +5v:      5.75 A  (crit max = +40.00 A)
curr +3.3v:    1.44 A  (crit max = +40.00 A)​

Uhm, I'm the developer of that driver and also trying to get the AXi series working, but they are a completely different beast.

Outside of the hardware monitoring system you can access even more information:

# ls -1 /sys/kernel/debug/corsair-psu-0003:1B1C:1C06.0004/
ocpmode
product
uptime
uptime_total
vendor​

# cat /sys/kernel/debug/corsair-psu-0003:1B1C:1C06.0004/*                                                                                                                                        :(
multi rail
HX850i
03:45:01
1221 day(s), 07:45:01
CORSAIR​

[uid313]

Manufacturers keep focusing and pushing things that I am not interested in such as USB connector, RGB fans, connectors on the side, etc, meanwhile all I care about is getting a 80 Plus Titanium (or Platinum) at a good price.

[creative]

LOL! I just have a RM850X so that counts me out of this.

[skeevy420]

Manufacturers keep focusing and pushing things that I am not interested in such as USB connector, RGB fans, connectors on the side, etc, meanwhile all I care about is getting a 80 Plus Titanium (or Platinum) at a good price.

Ditto. Although I don't mind the USB interfaces when they're useful like these. I'm not a fan of simple charging-only/power-only USB ports that do nothing but add an inconveniently placed charging port on the back of my PC.

Akiko Just wanted to say thanks even though I don't have a Corsair PSU.

[intelfx]

Manufacturers keep focusing and pushing things that I am not interested in <...>

Of course we all know that there is only one person in the whole world — you, thus manufacturers have no reason to focus on things that you are not interested in...

[Vorpal]

Manufacturers keep focusing and pushing things that I am not interested in such as USB connector, RGB fans, connectors on the side, etc, meanwhile all I care about is getting a 80 Plus Titanium (or Platinum) at a good price.

The situation is a bit more complicated than that. 80 Plus only tests efficiency at 4 points of the power load. It doesn't guarantee anything in between. It doesn't test safety features such as short circuit protection, overload, overvoltage or overcurrent. It doesn't test quality of components (how long will they last).

Gamers Nexus on YouTube did a good interview video a few days ago that touched on this and an alternative certification that does take more of that into account: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=waaR9FmjzQc

That said, I don't see the point of rgb at all. Give me quiet and efficient high quality components instead.

[uid313]

The situation is a bit more complicated than that. 80 Plus only tests efficiency at 4 points of the power load. It doesn't guarantee anything in between. It doesn't test safety features such as short circuit protection, overload, overvoltage or overcurrent. It doesn't test quality of components (how long will they last).

Gamers Nexus on YouTube did a good interview video a few days ago that touched on this and an alternative certification that does take more of that into account: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=waaR9FmjzQc

That said, I don't see the point of rgb at all. Give me quiet and efficient high quality components instead.

I've heard that 80 Plus marking is a good indicator of quality of components because I've heard that to be able to live up to 80 Plus Platinum you need high quality components else it wouldn't be possible to reach that efficiency at those 4 points of power load.