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

[Mario.Limonciello]

> -----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
> 
> Dear Mario,
> 
> 
> 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.

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?