2003-07-14 18:42:27

by Andrew Grover

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: RE: Linux 2.6-pre1 Does not boot on ASUS L3800C: lock up in acpi while "Executing all Devices _STA and_INIT methods"

> From: Eric Valette [mailto:[email protected]]
> I happily run 2.4.21-pre5 with ACPI enabled and everything works just
> fine. I tried today 2.6-pre1 with exactly the same hardware
> configuration as the 2.4 one and the laptop does not boot. It hangs
> while dispaying : "Executing all Devices _STA and_INIT methods"
> allthough it has already printed several '.'

That's weird. They should have the same version of the ACPI code...

-- Andy


2003-07-20 13:01:23

by Eric Valette

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Linux 2.6-pre1 Does not boot on ASUS L3800C: lock up in acpi while "Executing all Devices _STA and_INIT methods"

Grover, Andrew wrote:
>>From: Eric Valette [mailto:[email protected]]
>>I happily run 2.4.21-pre5 with ACPI enabled and everything works just
>>fine. I tried today 2.6-pre1 with exactly the same hardware
>>configuration as the 2.4 one and the laptop does not boot. It hangs
>>while dispaying : "Executing all Devices _STA and_INIT methods"
>>allthough it has already printed several '.'
>
>
> That's weird. They should have the same version of the ACPI code...


Just to try to help, as suggested by Karol Kasimor, disabling the APIC
make the code pass this section. The APIC is now really unconditionnaly
enabled (regardless of BIOS settings) due to this change in 2.5.74...

<http://lists.insecure.org/lists/linux-kernel/2003/Jun/5840.html>

So this is an interaction between APIC and ACPI... I still think it
should not crash at least...

BTW : I still cannot boot as the radeon framebuffer driver make things
unreable. I will stcik with 2.4 for a while...

-- eric

2003-07-20 17:43:22

by Karol Kozimor

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Linux 2.6-pre1 Does not boot on ASUS L3800C: lock up in acpi while "Executing all Devices _STA and_INIT methods"

Thus wrote Eric Valette:
> BTW : I still cannot boot as the radeon framebuffer driver make things
> unreable. I will stcik with 2.4 for a while...

Boot the framebuffer into 1024x768@60 mode, every other I tried simply
doesn't work.
Best regards,

--
Karol 'sziwan' Kozimor
[email protected]

2003-07-20 19:31:14

by Eric Valette

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: [PATCH] Linux 2.6-pre-mm2 Fix crash on boot on ASUS L3800C if enabing APIC => add this machine to DMI black list

--- linux-2.6.0-test1/arch/i386/kernel/dmi_scan.c.orig 2003-07-20 17:09:10.000000000 +0200
+++ linux-2.6.0-test1/arch/i386/kernel/dmi_scan.c 2003-07-20 21:25:02.000000000 +0200
@@ -706,6 +706,12 @@
NO_MATCH, NO_MATCH
} },

+ { local_apic_kills_bios, "ASUS L3C", {
+ MATCH(DMI_BOARD_VENDOR, "ASUSTeK Computer INC."),
+ MATCH(DMI_BOARD_NAME, "P4_L3C"),
+ NO_MATCH, NO_MATCH
+ } },
+
/* Problem Intel 440GX bioses */

{ broken_pirq, "SABR1 Bios", { /* Bad $PIR */


Attachments:
dmi_scan_black_list (485.00 B)

2003-07-21 01:00:02

by Mikael Pettersson

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Linux 2.6-pre-mm2 Fix crash on boot on ASUS L3800C if enabing APIC => add this machine to DMI black list

On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 21:48:24 +0200, Eric Valette wrote:
>The following patch integrated in 2.5.74,
>
><http://lists.insecure.org/lists/linux-kernel/2003/Jun/5840.html>
>
>really enables the APIC even if BIOS disabled it. Unfortunately,
>enabling APIC really does not seem to work on this ASUS laptop and ACPI
>(which is mandatory) crash the kernel in ACPI code at boot time while
>"Executing all Devices _STA and_INIT methods"
>
>Unless someones find a bug in ACPI code related to APIC management, It
>is safer to add this machine in the DMI black list (along with DELL,
>IBM, ...).
>
>So, as suggested by the author of the problematic change, I added and
>entry in the DMI black list. But my guess is that most laptop will soon
>be present in this list....

At least two P4 laptops are known to require the 2.5.74 patch, and
they do work with the local APIC.

While I don't dispute your machine has some problem, please
do the following first before we completely blacklist it:
- ensure you have the latest BIOS (ftp.asuscom.de has the ones for
their desktop mainboards, presumably the laptop BIOSen are also there)
- in what way is ACPI mandatory? does it fail to boot, or does it
just lose some specific feature? If you just want suspend support,
try APM if the machine has it

A question for the ACPI people:
- Does the Linux kernel ACPI code ever transfer control to BIOS,
explicitly or implicitly via SMIs triggered by the interpreter?
If you do transfer control, do you disable interrupts and/or
the interrupt controllers before transferring control?
Entering BIOS with the local APIC live, in particular the timer,
is a known hang-generator with APM.

/Mikael
(. again in "I hate BIOS writers" mode, grr .)

2003-07-21 07:49:43

by Eric Valette

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Linux 2.6-pre-mm2 Fix crash on boot on ASUS L3800C if enabing APIC => add this machine to DMI black list

Mikael Pettersson wrote:

> While I don't dispute your machine has some problem, please
> do the following first before we completely blacklist it:
> - ensure you have the latest BIOS (ftp.asuscom.de has the ones for
> their desktop mainboards, presumably the laptop BIOSen are also there)

Have the latest BIOS from 3 June...

> - in what way is ACPI mandatory? does it fail to boot, or does it
> just lose some specific feature? If you just want suspend support,
> try APM if the machine has it

Many ACPI managed buttons, Fans, ...

--
__
/ ` Eric Valette
/-- __ o _. 6 rue Paul Le Flem
(___, / (_(_(__ 35740 Pace

Tel: +33 (0)2 99 85 26 76 Fax: +33 (0)2 99 85 26 76
E-mail: [email protected]

2003-07-21 15:45:10

by Eric Valette

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [ACPI] Re: [PATCH] Linux 2.6-pre-mm2 Fix crash on boot on ASUS L3800C if enabing APIC => add this machine to DMI black list


>>The following patch integrated in 2.5.74,
>>
>><http://lists.insecure.org/lists/linux-kernel/2003/Jun/5840.html>
>>
>>really enables the APIC even if BIOS disabled it. Unfortunately,
>>enabling APIC really does not seem to work on this ASUS laptop and ACPI
>>(which is mandatory) crash the kernel in ACPI code at boot time while
>>"Executing all Devices _STA and_INIT methods"
>>
>>Unless someones find a bug in ACPI code related to APIC management, It
>>is safer to add this machine in the DMI black list (along with DELL,
>>IBM, ...).
>>
>>So, as suggested by the author of the problematic change, I added and
>>entry in the DMI black list. But my guess is that most laptop will soon
>>be present in this list....
>
> At least two P4 laptops are known to require the 2.5.74 patch, and
> they do work with the local APIC.

After a second though I think this kind of justification is not
appropriate :
- If we play this game of counting the machines that works with your
patch and the machines that breaks, we may end up removing this patch as
I have seen other with other laptop model also failing while executing
the _STA and _INI initialization...
- Anyway, there are already 3 machines in the black list includings two
very popular old dells...

> - in what way is ACPI mandatory? does it fail to boot, or does it
> just lose some specific feature? If you just want suspend support,
> try APM if the machine has it

Come on, APM is a thing from the past and any recent laptop does not
even care of supporting it now that Windows XP is bundled... And in any
case it is not supported by this particular machine...

> A question for the ACPI people:
> - Does the Linux kernel ACPI code ever transfer control to BIOS,
> explicitly or implicitly via SMIs triggered by the interpreter?
> If you do transfer control, do you disable interrupts and/or
> the interrupt controllers before transferring control?

While I tried to read the ACPI specs for the fisrt time this morning
searching for the meaning of _STA and _INI (and found the section
related to INI rather unclear) I suspect the _INI is just dedicated to
that purpose for escaping from legacy mode. But frankly, I got lost in
the code trying to see when and how the function is really called... I
would really like to have some help from ACPI development team on this
one...

But if a BIOS function is called and the BIOS expects the APIC disabled,
I would not blame BIOS writer if calling the function fails... So either
the APIC should be disabled again or the ACPI initialisation should be
done before turning the APIC on. But I have no idea about feasability...


> Entering BIOS with the local APIC live, in particular the timer,
> is a known hang-generator with APM.

My experienec 6 years ago writing a floppy network boot loader (in 32
bit mode with a BIOS trampoline) is that this is not sufficient : before
calling the BIOS, you should also restore the interrupt controller
status in the legacy mode you got when entering (e.g 8259 programmation
and especially PIC masks or any other legacy emultation). While this is
not required on many machines, on some machines others, the bootloader
just do not work without...



--
__
/ ` Eric Valette
/-- __ o _. 6 rue Paul Le Flem
(___, / (_(_(__ 35740 Pace

Tel: +33 (0)2 99 85 26 76 Fax: +33 (0)2 99 85 26 76
E-mail: [email protected]

2003-07-21 16:00:26

by Karol Kozimor

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [ACPI] Re: [PATCH] Linux 2.6-pre-mm2 Fix crash on boot on ASUS L3800C if enabing APIC => add this machine to DMI black list

Thus wrote Eric Valette:
> Come on, APM is a thing from the past and any recent laptop does not
> even care of supporting it now that Windows XP is bundled... And in any
> case it is not supported by this particular machine...

While I agree with your first statement, I must object to the second: this
laptop, contrary to what the manual says, supports APM quite well indeed.
Anyway, turning ACPI off is not a solution.
Best regards,

--
Karol 'sziwan' Kozimor
[email protected]

2003-07-25 20:37:44

by Andrew Grover

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: RE: [PATCH] Linux 2.6-pre-mm2 Fix crash on boot on ASUS L3800C if enabing APIC => add this machine to DMI black list

> From: Mikael Pettersson [mailto:[email protected]]
> On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 21:48:24 +0200, Eric Valette wrote:
> >The following patch integrated in 2.5.74,
> >
> ><http://lists.insecure.org/lists/linux-kernel/2003/Jun/5840.html>

> At least two P4 laptops are known to require the 2.5.74 patch, and
> they do work with the local APIC.
>
> While I don't dispute your machine has some problem, please
> do the following first before we completely blacklist it:
> - ensure you have the latest BIOS (ftp.asuscom.de has the ones for
> their desktop mainboards, presumably the laptop BIOSen are
> also there)
> - in what way is ACPI mandatory? does it fail to boot, or does it
> just lose some specific feature? If you just want suspend support,
> try APM if the machine has it
>
> A question for the ACPI people:
> - Does the Linux kernel ACPI code ever transfer control to BIOS,
> explicitly or implicitly via SMIs triggered by the interpreter?
> If you do transfer control, do you disable interrupts and/or
> the interrupt controllers before transferring control?
> Entering BIOS with the local APIC live, in particular the timer,
> is a known hang-generator with APM.

Yes, some OEMs (IBM, for one. I'm sure there are more) enter SMM when
executing control methods. The interpreter is just blithely going along
and writing values to mem and io ports -- it doesn't know it just
invoked SMM. Nothing is disabled.

BTW I'm getting a bunch of other reports starting with 2.5.74 (see
"linux laptop keyboard problem since 2.5.74").

So let me get this straight -- because 2 machines require this patch,
you want all the OTHER machines to go on the blacklist? Shouldn't the 2
machines get special-cased?

All these machines work under Windows, so there has to be a solution
that enables everyone to work.

Regards -- Andy