Dell Inspiron 8200

Hi,

I just tried 2.6.0-test9 on my Dell Inspiron 8200 Laptop with Debian unstable; it seems like I don't get the full speed any more. The system has a 1.7 GHz Mobile P4, but /proc/cpuinfo only shows 1196.593 MHz (cpu MHz). Any idea what I could try?

Robert

 Dipl.-Ing. Robert Schwebel | http://www.pengutronix.de
 Pengutronix - Linux Solutions for Science and Industry
   Handelsregister:  Amtsgericht Hildesheim, HRA 2686
     Hornemannstra�e 12,  31137 Hildesheim, Germany
    Phone: +49-5121-28619-0 |  Fax: +49-5121-28619-4

I had that problem before with my Dell Inspiron 4150. I was using an older (late 2.5 iirc) kernel. I've found that the ACPI frequency scaling driver was crashing on startup and my 2GHz Pentium 4M was running at 700MHz (which could be a BIOS default for saving power, maybe?).

In any case, it would be useful if you could tell us what cpufreq related settings you configured in your kernel, and any related output from dmesg. It's no point speculating without more information.

Regards,
Vik

#
# CPUFreq processor drivers
#
CONFIG_X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ=m
CONFIG_X86_ACPI_CPUFREQ_PROC_INTF=y
# CONFIG_X86_POWERNOW_K6 is not set
# CONFIG_X86_POWERNOW_K7 is not set
# CONFIG_X86_POWERNOW_K8 is not set
# CONFIG_X86_GX_SUSPMOD is not set
CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO=m
CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_ICH=m
# CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_SMI is not set
CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_LIB=m
CONFIG_X86_P4_CLOCKMOD=m
# CONFIG_X86_LONGRUN is not set
# CONFIG_X86_LONGHAUL is not set

----------8<----------

Linux version 2.6.0-test9 (root@europa) (gcc version 3.3.2 (Debian)) #3 Fri Nov 7 13:16:49 CET 2003 [...]
DMI 2.3 present.
Dell Inspiron with broken BIOS detected. Refusing to enable the local APIC.
ACPI: RSDP (v000 DELL ) @ 0x000fde50
ACPI: RSDT (v001 DELL CPi R 0x27d20811 ASL 0x00000061) @ 0x000fde64
ACPI: FADT (v001 DELL CPi R 0x27d20811 ASL 0x00000061) @ 0x000fde90
ACPI: DSDT (v001 INT430 SYSFexxx 0x00001001 MSFT 0x0100000e) @ 0x00000000
Building zonelist for node : 0
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=2.6.0-test9 ro root=302 video=vesa:791
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 1024 (order 10: 8192 bytes)
Detected 1198.979 MHz processor.
[...]
Calibrating delay loop... 2351.10 BogoMIPS

Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
CPU:     After generic identify, caps: 3febf9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU:     After vendor identify, caps: 3febf9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Trace cache: 12K uops, L1 D cache: 8K
CPU: L2 cache: 512K
CPU:     After all inits, caps: 3febf9ff 00000000 00000000 00000080

Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU#0: Intel P4/Xeon Extended MCE MSRs (12) available
CPU#0: Thermal monitoring enabled
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 Mobile CPU 1.70GHz stepping 04
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
NET: Registered protocol family 16
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfbfee, last bus=2
PCI: Using configuration type 1
mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20031002
ACPI: IRQ 9 was Edge Triggered, setting to Level Triggerd
ACPI: Interpreter enabled
ACPI: Using PIC for interrupt routing
ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (00:00)
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
Transparent bridge - 0000:00:1e.0
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 9 10 *11)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs 5 7)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 9 10 *11)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 5 7 9 10 *11)
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.AGP_._PRT]
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.PCIE._PRT]
ACPI: Power Resource [PADA] (on)
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver usbfs
drivers/usb/core/usb.c: registered new driver hub
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] enabled at IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] enabled at IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] enabled at IRQ 11
ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] enabled at IRQ 11
PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing
PCI: if you experience problems, try using option 'pci=noacpi' or even 'acpi=off'
vesafb: framebuffer at 0xe0000000, mapped to 0xd0807000, size 16384k
vesafb: mode is 1024x768x16, linelength=2048, pages=1
vesafb: protected mode interface info at c000:f120
vesafb: scrolling: redraw
vesafb: directcolor: size=0:5:6:5, shift=0:11:5:0
fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
Machine check exception polling timer started.
ikconfig 0.7 with /proc/config*
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 [email protected]).
Initializing Cryptographic API
ACPI: AC Adapter [AC] (off-line)
ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT0] (battery present)
ACPI: Battery Slot [BAT1] (battery present)
ACPI: Lid Switch [LID]
ACPI: Power Button (CM) [PBTN]
ACPI: Sleep Button (CM) [SBTN]
ACPI: Processor [CPU0] (supports C1 C2, 8 throttling states)
ACPI: Thermal Zone [THM] (25 C)
[...]
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.5 to 64
intel8x0: clocking to 48000
drivers/usb/host/uhci-hcd.c: bf80: suspend_hc
drivers/usb/host/uhci-hcd.c: bf20: suspend_hc
mtrr: 0xe0000000,0x2000000 overlaps existing 0xe0000000,0x1000000
spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.
ACPI-0277: *** Error: Looking up [BST1] in namespace, AE_ALREADY_EXISTS
ACPI-1120: *** Error: Method execution failed [\_SB_.BAT1._BST] (Node cffd0a60), AE_ALREADY_EXISTS
[...]

Robert

 Dipl.-Ing. Robert Schwebel | http://www.pengutronix.de
 Pengutronix - Linux Solutions for Science and Industry
   Handelsregister:  Amtsgericht Hildesheim, HRA 2686
     Hornemannstraße 12,  31137 Hildesheim, Germany
    Phone: +49-5121-28619-0 |  Fax: +49-5121-28619-4

  Visit us at the SPS/IPC/Drives in Nuernberg, H10/340!

Hi Robert,

The DSDT table supplied by the Dell BIOS (which describes the available ACPI functions) is buggy, so you'll need to replace it with a custom one. This will probably solve your problem.

There are some instructions on how to do that at http://www.cpqlinux.com/acpi-howto.html, but they're somewhat out of date, so here's the simplified version of what I did (I left out the editing of the ASL source since your model already has a fixed source available).

1. You can download the ASL source of a replacement table for the 8200 from here: http://acpi.sourceforge.net/dsdt/tables/Dell/Inspiron_8200/Dell-Inspiron_8200-A07-custom.asl.gz

2. You'll need to get intel's ASL compiler from http://www.intel.com/technology/iapc/acpi/downloads/iasl-linux-20030523.tar.gz

For simplicity's sake, I keep my ASL source file at /usr/src/dsdt.asl (and the compiled table at /usr/src/dsdt.hex).

3. Compile the DSDT table by running /path/to/iasl -tc dsdt.asl This will leave a file called dsdt.hex, which is your replacement table.

4. Now you need to patch your kernel (drivers/acpi/osl.c) to use the new DSDT table:

# cd /usr/src/linux/drivers/acpi/
# patch -p1 < /usr/src/custom-dsdt.patch (see attachment)

Note that this patch expects to find dsdt.hex in /usr/src, which is IMHO a pretty good place for it since you'll need to compile it into every new kernel you build until Dell releases a bug-free BIOS.

5. Recompile your kernel. You won't need CONFIG_X86_SPEEDSTEP_CENTRINO, since you have a Pentium 4-M chip (not Pentium M aka Centrino). You can either use the speedstep-ich, acpi or p4-clockmod cpufreq drivers.

6. Boot with the new kernel, load one of the above driver modules, and keep your fingers crossed ;)

Note on the cpufreq drivers: Speedstep-ich and acpi are the best for saving power (because they also scale the CPU voltage), but p4-clockmod lets you drastically lower the effective frequency of the CPU (about 10% of maximum speed) so it can be useful for keeping the CPU cool or reducing the peak power consumption allowing you to run longer on a flat battery.

Unfortunately you can't really use more than one driver at the same time. I've found that it's possible to scale down the cpu speed using the speedstep-ich or acpi driver module, then remove the module, load p4-clockmod and lower the cpu speed even further, but this is a bit of a hack. At one time there was a CPUFreq FAQ in the making, but I couldn't find it. Perhaps someone on the list would be kind enough to post the link?

Hope this helps. Let us know if you're still having problems or mail me off the list if you're having problems with my instructions.

Regards,
Vik

@@ -224,6 +224,9 @@
 	return AE_OK;
 }
 
+static const
+#include "/usr/src/dsdt.hex"
+ 
 acpi_status
 acpi_os_table_override (struct acpi_table_header *existing_table,
 			struct acpi_table_header **new_table)

@@ -231,7 +234,9 @@
 	if (!existing_table || !new_table)
 		return AE_BAD_PARAMETER;
 
-	*new_table = NULL;
+	if (strncmp(existing_table->signature,"DSDT",4))
+		*new_table = NULL;
+	else *new_table = (struct acpi_table_header *) AmlCode;
 	return AE_OK;
 }
 

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