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

[Paul Menzel]

Dear Mario,


Am 08.02.2018 um 05:57 schrieb Mario.Limonciello@xxxxxxxx:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Paul Menzel [mailto:pmenzel+platform-driver-x86@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 7, 2018 3:41 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 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 0x05030000chip_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?

No, I unloaded ath10k_pci, and that takes a few seconds, and also shows 
the Linux error messages in the log. Loading it again, there are also 
Linux error messages, and the wireless does *not* work again.

> > > 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.

Yes, it looks like it gets loaded after I removed it from `/etc/modules`.

Still, that behavior should not happen. Could you reproduce it? Is it 
actually a ath10k_pci bug, and their maintainers should be added?


Kind regards,

Paul