linux-kernel - RE: dell-smbios makes wireless card unusable on Dell XPS 13 9360

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Message-ID: <7327e792366249329b9892a226f9d5c9@ausx13mpc120.AMER.DELL.COM>
Date:   Thu, 8 Feb 2018 04:57:11 +0000
From:   <Mario.Limonciello@...l.com>
To:     <pmenzel+platform-driver-x86@...gen.mpg.de>
CC:     <pali.rohar@...il.com>, <it+platform-driver-x86@...gen.mpg.de>,
        <platform-driver-x86@...r.kernel.org>,
        <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: RE: dell-smbios makes wireless card unusable on Dell XPS 13 9360

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Menzel [mailto:pmenzel+platform-driver-x86@...gen.mpg.de]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 7, 2018 3:41 AM
> To: Limonciello, Mario <Mario_Limonciello@...l.com>
> Cc: Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@...il.com>; it+platform-driver-x86@...gen.mpg.de;
> platform-driver-x86@...r.kernel.org; linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: dell-smbios makes wireless card unusable on Dell XPS 13 9360
> 
> Dear Mario,
> 
> 
> On 02/06/18 20:51, Mario.Limonciello@...l.com wrote:
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: platform-driver-x86-owner@...r.kernel.org [mailto:platform-driver-x86-
> >> owner@...r.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Paul Menzel
> >> Sent: Tuesday, February 6, 2018 10:08 AM
> >> To: Limonciello, Mario <Mario_Limonciello@...l.com>
> >> Cc: Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@...il.com>; it+platform-driver-
> x86@...gen.mpg.de;
> >> platform-driver-x86@...r.kernel.org; linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
> >> Subject: Re: dell-smbios makes wireless card unusable on Dell XPS 13 9360
> 
> >> On 02/06/18 16:58, Mario.Limonciello@...l.com wrote:
> >>
> >>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>> From: Paul Menzel [mailto:pmenzel+platform-driver-x86@...gen.mpg.de]
> >>>> Sent: Tuesday, February 6, 2018 9:50 AM
> >>>> To: Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@...il.com>; Limonciello, Mario
> >>>> <Mario_Limonciello@...l.com>; it+platform-driver-x86@...gen.mpg.de
> >>>> Cc: platform-driver-x86@...r.kernel.org; Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-
> >>>> kernel@...r.kernel.org>
> >>>> Subject: dell-smbios makes wireless card unusable on Dell XPS 13 9360
> >>
> >>>> Adding `dell-smbios` to `/etc/modules` on the Dell XPS 13 9360, it seems
> >>>> to badly effect the Wireless LAN device, causing it to be absent or to
> >>>> not work.
> >>>>
> >>>> In one case, the whole system lagged, that means, the log in screen
> >>>> stayed grayed out for 15 seconds, and the mouse pointer stopped moving
> >>>> every 20(?) seconds for some seconds.
> >>>
> >>> Can you please confirm if you're indicating this is a regression in 4.15?
> >>> Or was this present in earlier kernels too?
> >>
> >> Yes, it happened with Ubuntu’s 4.13 too. My original message had one log
> >> attached where the Wifi wasn’t visible at all.
> >
> > Looking at that log it looks to me that the ath10k firmware crashed, not that
> > dell-smbios lagging caused the crash.
> >
> > [   15.262226] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: firmware crashed! (uuid a6c40788-b7ad-
> 4f6a-890a-62e62c1f6e5f)
> > [   15.262233] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: qca6174 hw3.2 target 0x05030000
> chip_id 0x00340aff sub 1a56:1535
> > [   15.262235] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: kconfig debug 0 debugfs 1 tracing 1 dfs 0
> testmode 0
> > [   15.262645] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: firmware ver WLAN.RM.4.4-00022-
> QCARMSWPZ-2 api 6 features wowlan,ignore-otp crc32 4d458559
> > [   15.262941] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: board_file api 2 bmi_id N/A crc32
> 0e26ef70
> > [   15.262943] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: htt-ver 0.0 wmi-op 4 htt-op 3 cal otp
> max-sta 32 raw 0 hwcrypto 1
> > [   15.274887] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: failed to get memcpy hi address for
> firmware address 4: -16
> > [   15.274900] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: failed to read firmware dump area: -16
> > [   15.274909] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: Copy Engine register dump:
> >
> > Do you have a strong correlation with dell-smbios loading and the wireless
> > firmware crashing?  You're the first account I've heard of this.
> 
> Yes, the correlation is very strong.

In this situation you've described, can you unload ath10k and reload to recover?

> 
> > Also why are you putting it in /etc/modules rather than letting the udev
> > rules load from modaliases?  Or did you artificially prevent that in some way?
> 
> No idea, with Ubuntu 17.10 there are log messages, that the module is
> not loaded. So I thought adding it to `/etc/modules` will fix it. Should
> the module smbios-dell be supported out of the box on Ubuntu 17.10?
> 

It's only supposed to load when it's needed by another kernel module such as
dell-laptop or dell-wmi.

I suppose the messages you were seeing were related to the backends to
dell-smbios (dell-smbios-wmi or dell-smbios-smm) not yet being initialized
when a driver had requested to use an SMBIOS method.

If you don't add it to /etc/modules I would expect that you'll find it's actually
already loaded by the system when boot has completed.