Re: dell-smbios makes wireless card unusable on Dell XPS 13 9360

[Paul Menzel]

Dear Mario,


On 02/06/18 20:51, Mario.Limonciello@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: platform-driver-x86-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:platform-driver-x86-
> > owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Paul Menzel
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 6, 2018 10:08 AM
> > To: Limonciello, Mario <Mario_Limonciello@xxxxxxxx>
> > Cc: Pali RohÃr <pali.rohar@xxxxxxxxx>; it+platform-driver-x86@xxxxxxxxxxxxx;
> > platform-driver-x86@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: Re: dell-smbios makes wireless card unusable on Dell XPS 13 9360

> > On 02/06/18 16:58, Mario.Limonciello@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Paul Menzel [mailto:pmenzel+platform-driver-x86@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, February 6, 2018 9:50 AM
> > > > To: Pali RohÃr <pali.rohar@xxxxxxxxx>; Limonciello, Mario
> > > > <Mario_Limonciello@xxxxxxxx>; it+platform-driver-x86@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > > > Cc: platform-driver-x86@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-
> > > > kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > > 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 Ubuntuâs 4.13 too. My original message had one log
> > attached where the Wifi wasnât 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.

> 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?


Kind regards,

Paul

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