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Drive the iBUYPOWER AW5 / AW5D 360 mm AIO cooler's round LCD from Linux — no Windows, no vendor software.
Warning
AI-authored · use at your own risk. The code and documentation in this repository were
written by Claude (Anthropic's Claude Code) working with the author, from black-box
reverse-engineering of the hardware (details: Authorship & AI disclosure
and How this was figured out).
It ships no vendor code. It's a small, dependency-free, auditable script that only writes
the documented status report to a hidraw device — but it comes with absolutely no
warranty; you run it entirely at your own risk (see LICENSE). Read it before you run it.
The AW5D's stock "digital gauge" (big CPU-temperature number, spinning fan, coloured arc + bars) is drawn and animated by the cooler's own firmware. All the host has to do is push one 64-byte USB-HID report per second with the live CPU stats. This project does exactly that, reading temperature / usage / clock straight from the Linux kernel — so the screen just works, natively.
Status: working on an iBUYPOWER unit (
3402:0407, "CoolerMaster" variant) on a Ryzen 7 7800X3D / Bazzite box. The three real readouts — temperature, usage, clock — are exact. Contributions/other variants welcome.
There is (was) no Linux support for this cooler in liquidctl, CoolerControl, or any community project — the vendor only ships a Windows app (HYTE Nexus). The cooler itself, though, is a plain USB-HID device that Linux can talk to directly. The full reverse-engineering story and the byte-level protocol are in RESEARCH.md.
Each ~1 s the driver writes HID output report 0x10 (64 bytes) to the
cooler's hidraw node:
| offset | field | notes |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0x10 |
report ID |
| 1 | 0x08 |
constant (packet type) |
| 2 | CPU usage % | 0–100, also drives the fan-spin animation |
| 3–4 | CPU clock (MHz) | big-endian uint16 — exact, e.g. 0x0EA9 = 3753 |
| 5 | CPU temperature °C | integer — the big on-screen number |
| 9 | blue temperature arc | cosmetic gauge level |
| 10 | orange clock bar | cosmetic gauge level |
| 11 | green usage bar | cosmetic gauge level |
| 12 | 0xF0 / 0xF9 |
normal / high-load styling flag |
There is no handshake, wake, or init packet — you open the device and write.
Sensors come from sysfs: k10temp (Tctl) for temperature, /proc/stat for
usage, cpufreq for the average core clock. Everything is Python 3 standard
library — no pip dependencies.
- Linux with the cooler on USB (
lsusbshowsID 3402:0407) - Python 3.8+
- An AMD Ryzen box for the temperature sensor out of the box (
k10temp/zenpower); Intelcoretempis also probed. Any CPU works if you point--temp-inputat the righthwmonN/tempN_input.
One-liner:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/claygorman/aw5d-linux/main/bootstrap.sh | bashOr clone and review first (recommended if you'd rather not pipe curl to bash):
git clone https://github.com/claygorman/aw5d-linux
cd aw5d-linux
./install.sh # or, on Bazzite/SteamOS: just installEither way it drops the driver in ~/.local/share/aw5d-lcd/, installs a udev rule
so the device is writable without root, and enables a systemd user service with
lingering — so the screen updates on boot and keeps going even if you never log in
graphically (or your compositor crashes to the desktop).
Uninstall with ./install.sh --uninstall (or just uninstall).
This installs cleanly with no rpm-ostree layering and no reboot — everything
lives in $HOME plus a single udev rule in /etc, and the cooler's hidraw node is
made user-writable, so the --user service can drive it. (There's deliberately no
Flatpak/app-store build: a hardware daemon needs raw /dev/hidraw access and a
systemd service, which the Flatpak sandbox can't provide.) just recipes are included
for the common actions — just install, just status, just logs, just set-interval 2.
Once installed, the systemd service runs run for you — you don't normally invoke the
driver by hand. But it has three commands (handy for setup + troubleshooting):
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
run (default) |
drive the LCD in a loop (what the service runs) |
doctor |
diagnose a dark screen: device present? writable? sensors? service? |
list |
print the detected device + sensors, then exit |
self-update |
manually fetch the latest, reinstall, and restart (never automatic) |
After install, an aw5d-lcd command is on your PATH:
# FIRST STOP if the screen is dark — checks device, permissions, sensors, service:
aw5d-lcd doctor
# show just the detected device + sensors:
aw5d-lcd list
# print what would be sent, without touching the device:
aw5d-lcd --dry-run --verbose
# send one frame and exit (a quick "does it light up" test):
aw5d-lcd --once --verbose
# run the live loop by hand (Ctrl-C to stop):
aw5d-lcd --verboseThe command lives at
~/.local/bin/aw5d-lcd(override the dir withAW5D_BIN_DIR, e.g.AW5D_BIN_DIR=/usr/local/bin). Ifaw5d-lcdisn't found, add~/.local/binto yourPATHor open a fresh shell. Running from a clone before installing? Usepython3 aw5d_lcd.py …(orjust doctor).
Useful flags: --interval SECONDS, --device /dev/hidrawN,
--temp-input /sys/class/hwmon/hwmonN/tempN_input, --version.
On Bazzite/SteamOS the same actions are available via just — just doctor,
just list, just logs, just set-interval 2.
Manage the installed service:
systemctl --user status aw5d-lcd
systemctl --user restart aw5d-lcd
journalctl --user -u aw5d-lcd -fUpdate interval — how often the driver pushes fresh CPU stats to the LCD (default 1 s).
Note
The cooler's firmware re-renders the gauge at ~1 Hz, so 1 s is the sweet spot. 2–5 s
is perfectly fine and a touch lighter on CPU/USB. Anything below ~0.5 s just adds USB/CPU
traffic with no visible benefit — the panel won't update faster. 0 would busy-loop, so the
driver clamps it to 0.05 s and warns.
Three ways to set it (highest precedence first):
# 1. CLI flag, when running directly:
python3 aw5d_lcd.py --interval 2
# 2. Env var — the installed service reads ~/.config/aw5d-lcd.env:
echo 'AW5D_INTERVAL=2' > ~/.config/aw5d-lcd.env
systemctl --user restart aw5d-lcd
# 3. Or a full systemd override, if you prefer:
# systemctl --user edit aw5d-lcd → add [Service] / blank ExecStart= / new ExecStart=…install.sh drops a commented ~/.config/aw5d-lcd.env for you (see
aw5d-lcd.env.example); it's never overwritten on re-install.
Note
This project never auto-updates. There is no background updater, no systemd timer,
and no cron job — and the driver itself makes no network calls while running (it only
reads sensors and writes to the LCD). Nothing phones home. self-update fetches from the
network only when you run it. You update only when you choose to.
# Easiest — the built-in manual updater (fetches latest, reinstalls, restarts the service):
aw5d-lcd self-update
# Or re-run the one-liner:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/claygorman/aw5d-linux/main/bootstrap.sh | bash
# Or from a clone:
git pull && ./install.sh # or: just updateYour ~/.config/aw5d-lcd.env (interval, etc.) is never overwritten, so your settings
survive updates. To pin a version, just don't run the update — or check out a tag
(git checkout v1.0.0).
The udev rule (udev/99-aw5d-lcd.rules) sets the AW5D's hidraw node to 0666
so a non-root (and lingering, session-less) service can drive it. It's an
internal cooler display, not a security boundary; adjust the mode/group if your
threat model differs.
Contributions welcome — especially reports for other AW5-family variants
(1029 / 1030, or anything that isn't 3402:0407). See
CONTRIBUTING.md for how to report a variant and the clean-room rule,
and RESEARCH.md for the protocol and how it was reverse-engineered.
Same idea, other vendors — invaluable references while figuring this out:
This is an independent, clean-room reimplementation based on our own observations of how the hardware behaves, for interoperability. It contains no vendor code: no decompiled sources, no bundled executables, and no firmware. "iBUYPOWER", "AW5", "HYTE", and "Nexus" are trademarks of their respective owners; this project is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.
Use at your own risk. Writing to hidraw devices is inherently low-level; while
this only ever sends the small status report described above, no warranty is
provided (see LICENSE).
In the interest of transparency: the code and documentation in this repository were written by AI — Anthropic's Claude (Claude Code, Opus 4.x) — working interactively with Clay Gorman. Clay owns the hardware, directed the reverse-engineering, captured the USB/HID protocol from the running device, and tested every result on the physical cooler. The protocol was derived from black-box observation (see RESEARCH.md); Claude authored the driver, packaging, and docs from that shared investigation.
If you're evaluating this for trust, that's the point of saying so plainly: it's
a small, dependency-free, auditable Python script that only writes the documented
status report to a hidraw device. Please read it before you run it.
MIT © 2026 Clay Gorman