Catching BIOS alert

Fitzi · June 16, 2016

My BIOS has a lower speed limit (in rpm) setable for each of my fans.
It states that it will generate an alert if a fan goes slower than its limit, but also that I need a software that is able to catch these alerts.

For practicing purposes I decided to write such a piece of software myself (in C#, because of GUI reasons). Unfortunately, I could not find any information about how these alerts are thrown or how to possibly catch them.
So, my question is: Has anyone a rough idea of how this happens? Is this probably already recognized by windows (i am working on win10 btw) and can it be somehow intercepted or subscribed to?
Any idea where I should start looking for?

Thanks in advance,

Fitzi

burnttoastnice · June 16, 2016

The BIOS would probably send an interrupt or something that would get caught and saved in Event Manager (That's where I've seen other system alerts go in the past). However I'd go about this by just polling the fan speed, and if it gets below a certain RPM, then show a MessageBox or something. I've never done things of this sort in C# (I mainly just make utilities to securely interface with webservers) so I can't really help much in terms of interfacing with system sensors.

If you're worried about your fans failing, don't. Fans last a very, very, very loooooooong time - I've got some that are 10+ years old and still going strong, with re-oiled bearings. As long as you're not using any generic nonsense from china (Which are really noisy by the way) you should be all good

Fitzi · June 17, 2016

22 hours ago, burnttoastnice said:

The BIOS would probably send an interrupt or something that would get caught and saved in Event Manager (That's where I've seen other system alerts go in the past).

Ah, the Event Manager seems like a good bet, I'm looking into this on the weekend. Thanks a lot.

22 hours ago, burnttoastnice said:

However I'd go about this by just polling the fan speed, and if it gets below a certain RPM, then show a MessageBox or something. I've never done things of this sort in C# (I mainly just make utilities to securely interface with webservers) so I can't really help much in terms of interfacing with system sensors.

I actually want to read my fan speeds and temperatures too . I already got most of the temperature readings working, so yeah.

22 hours ago, burnttoastnice said:

If you're worried about your fans failing, don't. Fans last a very, very, very loooooooong time - I've got some that are 10+ years old and still going strong, with re-oiled bearings. As long as you're not using any generic nonsense from china (Which are really noisy by the way) you should be all good

Never fear, I'm not worried at all ( my fans are just some weeks old ) that they might fail. I'm just interested in getting into reading sensors and bios alerts and this monitoring kind of things.

Btw, I found open Open Hardware Monitor in the meantime and currently looking through the code. I guess I'll everything I need in there.
So, thanks again for the event manager tip. I will look into this.

And if I produce anything useful within my out-of-curiosity project, I will present it here.

Have a nice day,

- Fitzi