netdev - Re: Bug#690845: ethtool: incorrect WoL detection on Broadcom NX II rev

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Date:	Wed, 24 Oct 2012 15:23:02 +0100
From:	Ben Hutchings <ben@...adent.org.uk>
To:	Michael Chan <mchan@...adcom.com>
Cc:	690845@...s.debian.org, Teodor MICU <mteodor@...il.com>,
	netdev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Bug#690845: ethtool: incorrect WoL detection on Broadcom NX II
 rev < 12

On Mon, 2012-10-22 at 19:18 -0700, Michael Chan wrote:
> On Tue, 2012-10-23 at 02:45 +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote: 
> > Well we knew that much!  Is the problem that the system firmware 'owns'
> > the WoL control registers so the host can't safely change them?  Is it
> > possible to *read* the WoL configuration, if not to change it? 
> 
> It's a hardware problem and I don't understand all the details.  There
> is an internal PCIX to PCIE bridge on this chip and it gates the NIC's
> PME event.  During S5 reset, the bridge gets reset by the BIOS and the
> WoL setting done by the driver will no longer work.  Newer chip revs
> have fixed the problem in hardware.
>
> The driver reads the pre-boot WoL setting from NVRAM and it becomes the
> ethtool WoL default setting.  Apparently, it is also not working in this
> case.  I know that it doesn't work on some LOM designs as the setting is
> actually in BIOS NVRAM as opposed to NIC NVRAM.

Thanks for the explanation.  This does seem to be unfixable, then,
unfortunately.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Never attribute to conspiracy what can adequately be explained by stupidity.

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