Re: [PATCH 0/2] platform/x86: asus-armoury: add Whisper Mode support

[Marco Scardovi]

In data mercoledì 29 luglio 2026 15:34:28 Ora legale dell’Europa centrale, Denis Benato ha scritto:
> 
> On 7/29/26 15:22, Marco Scardovi wrote:
> > In data mercoledì 29 luglio 2026 15:10:56 Ora legale dell’Europa centrale, Denis Benato ha scritto:
> >> On 7/29/26 09:32, Hans de Goede wrote:
> >>> Hi Marco,
> >>>
> >>> On 28-Jul-26 15:56, Marco Scardovi wrote:
> >>>> In data martedì 28 luglio 2026 13:39:39 Ora legale dell’Europa centrale, Hans 
> >>>> de Goede ha scritto:
> >>>>> Hi,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thank you for your patch.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 28-Jul-26 09:18, Marco Scardovi wrote:
> >>>>>> This series introduces support for ASUS WMI Whisper Mode hardware controls
> >>>>>> in the asus-wmi header and asus-armoury driver.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Background & Findings:
> >>>>>> ----------------------
> >>>>>> After talking with Denis and thanks to NeuroMarshal reverse engineering
> >>>>>> and
> >>>>>> firmware trace analysis on modern ASUS laptops, three specific WMI Device
> >>>>>> IDs were identified that manage acoustic profiles and thermal regulation
> >>>>>> under ASUS Whisper Mode:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> 1. ASUS_WMI_DEVID_WHISPER_MODE (0x0012007A):
> >>>>>>    - Controls the BIOS-level Whisper Mode acoustic profile toggle
> >>>>>>    (read/write boolean).> 
> >>>>>> 2. ASUS_WMI_DEVID_WHISPER_ENABLE (0x00090022):
> >>>>>>    - Enables or disables Dynamic Whisper acoustic regulation (read/write
> >>>>>>    boolean).> 
> >>>>>> 3. ASUS_WMI_DEVID_WHISPER_STATUS (0x00090023):
> >>>>>>    - Reports status and allows runtime control over Dynamic Whisper state
> >>>>>>    (read/write boolean).
> >>>>> I wonder how this interacts with the platform_profile stuff ?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I would expect enabling whisper mode to lower the max performance,
> >>>>> so does this automatically change the platform_profile away
> >>>>> from performance when it is set to performance ?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Note the platform_profile API is extensible. To me it seems more
> >>>>> logical to expose this as a whisper mode platform-profile ?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Regards,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Hans
> >>>> Hi Hans,
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks for the feedback!
> >>>> Here you can find my opinions on your questions.
> >>>>
> >>>> 1. Interaction with platform_profile:
> >>>> In ASUS laptops, where presents, Whisper Mode operates as an
> >>>> independent boolean toggle/feature controlling fan acoustic target limits in
> >>>> firmware/EC, rather than acting as a global thermal profile. Setting 
> >>>> WHISPER_MODE or WHISPER_ENABLE via WMI sends a direct call to the EC/BIOS, 
> >>>> which adjusts acoustic thresholds internally without altering the active 
> >>>> platform_profile state (throttle_thermal_policy) in asus-wmi. IIRC on Windows 
> >>>> it even permits to "hear" the ambient to make the fans run in a way to blend 
> >>>> with the ambient noise.
> >>>>
> >>>> 2. platform_profile vs firmware_attributes (asus-armoury):
> >>>> platform_profile is designed for mutually exclusive global power/thermal
> >>>> modes (Quiet, Balanced, Performance). Whisper Mode, on the other hand, 
> >>>> consists of independent BIOS feature toggles (0/1 controls for BIOS Whisper 
> >>>> Mode, Dynamic Whisper Enable, and Status).
> >>>> Since asus-armoury is dedicated to exposing BIOS/Armoury Crate firmware
> >>>> attributes via fw_attributes_class (similar to nv_dynamic_boost,
> >>>> nv_temp_target, panel_od, etc.), exposing these three WMI controls as
> >>>> sysfs firmware attributes fits the overall design of asus-armoury much
> >>>> better than extending platform_profile.
> >>>>
> >>>> I hope I've been of help. Feel free to let me know if you have more 
> >>>> questions: I'll try to answer the best of my capacities.
> >>> Thank you for clarifying things. Since the EC/BIOS interface sees this
> >>> as 2 independent settings, I agree that exposing this as a firmware
> >>> attr is the best way to expose this.
> >>>
> >>> Its a bit weird that one can select Performance profile and enable
> >>> whisper mode at the same time. But if that is how the Asus firmware
> >>> interfaces work, then that is how it is.
> >> Hello Hans and Marco,
> >>
> >> I agree that this is weird and we don't have a device with whisper mode,
> >> but there is the possibility of the official windows app allowing whisper mode
> >> only on certain modes: we would need to find someone with windows
> >> to confirm this, but I also don't think binding whisper to quiet/low performance
> >> is a bad idea.
> >>
> >> My opinion is that either whisper gets its own profile and is a combination of
> >> quiet + whisper set to 1 or we check what windows does since I don't want
> >> to have hardware running in configurations that ASUS never intended to.
> >>
> >> Best regards,
> >> Denis
> >>> Regards,
> >>>
> >>> Hans
> >>>
> >>>
> > Hi Denis,
> > I made more checks on Whisper Mode and find out why it isn't under a single
> > power profile: it works the contrary of power profiles.
> >
> > To be more specific: while power profiles tends to match the fans with the
> > TDP, in Whisper Mode it sets the max power (if under performance) but cut
> > it if the dB/RPMs are too high to respect the Whisper Mode. So it basically
> > works for any power profiles but instead of pushing up the fans to cool the
> > CPU/GPU, it kills the power to maintain the loudness in check
> Alright, perfect.
> > Let me know if it is a feature you want or not. If we end up deciding to kill
> > it feel free to let me know.
> Yes I want this to be in the kernel: I simply don't want to do things that
> were never intended to be done, other than that I have no reservations.
> 
> So you have my OK with these.
> 
> 
> Thank you,
> Denis
> 
> > Best regards,
> > Marco
> >
> >
> 
Hi everyone,

I've made more and more studies about Whisper Mode and dumped my own laptop
to set my mind straight about Whisper Mode, because I had some more doubts
about it.

TL;DR: Adding Whisper Mode is not useful for our drivers.
TL;DR 2: Whisper Mode enables only when power profile Quiet is set.

Whole version:
After dumping the ACPI DSDT tables and testing runtime calls via a diagnostic 
module on real hardware, I verified that the Embedded Controller (EC) automatically 
manages Whisper Mode acoustic capping whenever `platform_profile` is set to "quiet" 
(thermal policy 0x00120075 = 2).

This behavior applies to both internal hardware and connected eGPUs. Because the 
EC handles Whisper Mode natively within the quiet profile, discrete queries/writes 
to WMI IDs 0x0012007A and 0x00090022 return 0xFFFFFFFE (unsupported). 

Therefore, exposing standalone Whisper Mode sysfs attributes is unnecessary, 
as `platform_profile = quiet` already provides full Whisper Mode functionality.

Best regards,
Marco