The United Nations’ International E-waste Monitor estimates that the world generates over 60 million tonnes of e-waste yearly. Moreover, this quantity is rising 5 occasions as quick as e-waste recycling. A lot of this waste comes from prematurely discarded digital gadgets.
Many enterprises observe a typical three-year substitute cycle, assuming older computer systems are inefficient. Nonetheless, many of those gadgets are nonetheless practical and will carry out nicely with minor upgrades or upkeep. The difficulty is, nobody is aware of what the weak factors are for a selected machine, or what the wanted upkeep is, and the diagnostics could be too expensive and time-consuming. It’s simpler to only purchase model new laptops.
When shopping for a used automotive, dealerships and particular person consumers can entry every automotive’s specific CarFax report, detailing the automobile’s utilization and upkeep historical past. Armed with this info, dealerships can carry out the mandatory fixes or upgrades earlier than reselling the automotive. And people can resolve whether or not to belief that automobile’s efficiency. We at HP realized that, to stop pointless e-waste, we have to gather and make obtainable utilization and upkeep information for every laptop computer, like a CarFax for used PCs.
There’s a specific problem to accumulating utilization information for a PC, nonetheless. We’d like to verify to guard the person’s privateness and safety. So, we got down to design a data-collection protocol for PCs that manages to stay safe.
The firmware-level information collector
Fortunately, the sensors that may gather the mandatory information are already put in in every PC. There are thermal sensors that monitor CPU temperature, power-consumption screens that observe power effectivity, storage well being indicators that assess stable state drive (SSD) put on ranges, efficiency counters that measure system utilization, fan-rotation-speed sensors that detect cooling effectivity, and extra. The bottom line is to gather and retailer all that information in a safe but helpful approach.
We determined that one of the simplest ways to do that is to combine the life-cycle information into the firmware layer. By embedding telemetry capabilities straight inside the firmware, we make sure that system well being and utilization information is captured the second it’s collected. This information is saved securely on HP SSD drives, leveraging hardware-based safety measures to guard towards unauthorized entry or manipulation.
The safe telemetry protocol we’ve developed at HP works as follows. We collect the crucial {hardware} and sensor information and retailer it in a delegated space of the SSD. This space is write-locked, which means solely approved firmware parts can write to it, stopping unintentional modification or tampering. That approved firmware part we use is the Endpoint Safety Controller, a devoted piece of {hardware} embedded in business-class HP PCs. It performs a crucial position in strengthening platform-level safety and works independently from the primary CPU to supply foundational safety.
The safe telemetry protocol collects information from sensors into a chunk of {hardware} referred to as an endpoint safety controller, with built-in safety protections. The endpoint safety controller then writes the information to a devoted read-only portion of the stable state drive, the place approved working system purposes can entry the information.Mark Montgomery
The endpoint safety controller establishes a safe session by retaining the key key inside the controller itself. This mechanism permits learn information safety on the SSD—the place telemetry and delicate information are saved—by stopping unauthorized entry, even when the working system is reinstalled or the system surroundings is in any other case altered.
Then, the collected information is recorded in a time-stamped file, saved inside a devoted telemetry go online the SSD. Storing these information on the SSD has the good thing about guaranteeing the information is persistent even when the working system is reinstalled or another drastic change in software program surroundings happens.
The telemetry log employs a cyclic buffer design, robotically overwriting older entries when the log reaches full capability. Then, the telemetry log may be accessed by approved purposes on the working system stage.
The PCFax
The telemetry log serves as the inspiration for a complete system historical past report. Very similar to a CarFax report for used vehicles, this report, which we name PCFax, will present each present customers and potential consumers with essential info.
The PCFax report aggregates information from a number of sources past simply the on-device telemetry logs. It combines the safe firmware-level utilization information with info from HP’s manufacturing unit and supply-chain information, digital-services platforms, customer-support service information, diagnostic logs, and extra. Moreover, the system can combine information from exterior sources together with companion gross sales and repair information, refurbishment companion databases, third-party part producers like Intel, and different authentic tools producers. This multisource method creates an entire image of the system’s whole life cycle, from manufacturing by way of all subsequent possession and repair occasions.
For IT groups inside organizations, we hope the PCFax will convey simplicity and provides alternatives for optimization. Accessing fine-grained utilization and well being info for every system of their fleet may help IT managers resolve which gadgets are despatched to which customers, in addition to when upkeep is scheduled. This information may assist system managers resolve which particular gadgets to exchange reasonably than issuing new computer systems robotically, enhancing sustainability. And this may help with safety: With real-time monitoring and firmware-level safety, IT groups can mitigate dangers and reply swiftly to rising threats. All of this will facilitate extra environment friendly use of PC assets, reducing down on pointless waste.
A PCFax report, very like a CarFax, will element essential utilization and upkeep info to assist inform potential clients. Hewlett Packard
We additionally hope that, a lot because the CarFax offers folks confidence in shopping for used vehicles, the PCFax can encourage resale of used PCs. For enterprises and customers buying second-life PCs, it supplies detailed visibility into the whole service and assist historical past of every system, together with any repairs, upgrades, or efficiency points encountered throughout its preliminary deployment. By making this complete system historical past available, PCFax permits extra PCs to search out productive second lives reasonably than being prematurely discarded, straight addressing the e-waste problem whereas offering financial advantages to each sellers and consumers within the secondary PC market.
Whereas HP’s options symbolize a major step ahead, challenges stay. Standardizing telemetry frameworks throughout various ecosystems is crucial for broader adoption. Moreover, educating organizations about the advantages of life-cycle information will probably be important to driving uptake.
We’re additionally engaged on integrating AI into our dashboards. We hope to make use of AI fashions to investigate historic telemetry information and predict failures earlier than they occur, similar to detecting growing SSD write cycles to forecast impending failure and alert IT groups for proactive substitute, or predicting battery degradation and robotically producing a service ticket to make sure a substitute battery is prepared earlier than failure, minimizing downtime.
We plan to begin rolling out these options firstly of 2026.
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