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

[Mario.Limonciello]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Menzel [mailto:pmenzel+platform-driver-x86@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, February 8, 2018 12:37 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
> 
> 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?
> 

I've tried using XPS 9370 I have on my desk several times using Ubuntu's 4.13 as
well as 4.15.2 but could not reproduce it.
I also tried to put dell-smbios into /etc/modules
The XPS 9370 has an ath10k supported wireless chip.

Perhaps some others on the list with XPS 9360 on hand can comment if
they've seen this and can reproduce.