ACPI Battery status on Acer TravelMate a-550XV

ACPI Battery status on Acer TravelMate a-550XV

[Ciro Mattia Gonano]

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Hi all.
I'm quite a newbie in kernel hacking, and the same (and maybe more ;) ) in acpi
hacking.
So, that's my problem: with vanilla kernel acpi support I was not able to see my
laptop's battery status, and for acpi AC Adapter was online all the time (it
showed me on-line also if really the cable was not on).
So, I tried to apply acpi-20021101-2.4.20-rc1.diff.gz to a 2.4.20-rc1 kernel,
and something seemed to have changed...
The AC Adapter status works fine (it reflects the real status on/off-line of the
cable), the power button also works fine, but the battery still doesn't work :(
I use "acpi" cmd to view the status, and, while the first time I run it, it
always outputs me:

lilith:~# acpi -V
     Battery 1: charging, 98%, charging at zero rate - will never fully charge.
     Thermal 1: ok, 37.0 degrees C
  AC Adapter 1: on-line

starting from the second time, it outputs me the real status, something like
this:

lilith:~# acpi -V
     Thermal 1: ok, 50.0 degrees C
  AC Adapter 1: off-line

..and the battery couldn't be viewed anymore.
I tried to unplug the battery, and then replug in (while the laptop was on AC,
obviously), and I received some error messages:

    ACPI-0251: *** Error: Looking up [STAT] in namespace, AE_ALREADY_EXISTS

..and obviously the battery still doesn't exists, for acpi.
I tried to look in the drivers/acpi/ dir, and to work around the error, but I
couldn't be able to do much... :(
Some hints?

My laptop's an Acer TravelMate a-550XV, some OLD informations about what I done
on it can be found on http://www.CS.UniBO.It/~gonano/a-550XV.htm , and at the
moment I run on it Debian unstable, with acpid-1.0.1 and acpi 0.06.

Thanks in advance...

Adieu,
-- 
Lestat de Lioncourt  -- a.k.a --  Ciro Mattia Gonano
 Undergraduate student in Computer Science at University of Bologna
 IHGGer #1049   <=>  ICQ#: 52631406   <=>   URL: http://www.CS.UniBO.It/~gonano
 Debian admin at Students.CS.UniBO.It <=> look at headers for my JabberID & GPG

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

RE: ACPI Battery status on Acer TravelMate a-550XV

[Moore, Robert]

>From looking at your disassembled dsdt, I think that there is a problem with
the _BIF method:

                    Method (_BIF, 0, NotSerialized)
                    {
                        Name (STAT, Package (0x0D)
                        {
                            0x01, 
                            0x1194, 
                            0x1194, 
                            0x01, 
                            0x39D0, 
                            0x01A4, 
                            0x9C, 
                            0x0108, 
                            0x0EC4, 
                            "PXBAS008", 
                            "3658Q", 
                            "NiMH ", 
                            Zero, 
                            "PANASONIC"
                        })
                        ...

                            Sleep (0x64)
                        ...

                        Return (STAT)
                    }

1) The sleep within the method will allow another thread to begin execution
of the same method -- because the method is declared "NotSerialized"

2) The declaration of the "STAT" package in the namespace will fail with
AE_ALREADY_EXISTS if a second thread reenters the method (exactly the
problem you are seeing when you pop the battery back in.)

My suggested fix:
Disassemble the dsdt (iasl -d dsdt.dat)
Change "NotSerialized" to "Serialized" in the declaration of _BIF.
Recompile and install the new dsdt (Override the BIOS dsdt)

Bob



-----Original Message-----
From: Ciro Mattia Gonano [mailto:lestat-oqfuaKpTAUt/+UGKtYOvpA@public.gmane.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 2:54 AM
To: acpi-devel-5NWGOfrQmneRv+LV9MX5uipxlwaOVQ5f@public.gmane.org
Subject: [ACPI] ACPI Battery status on Acer TravelMate a-550XV

Hi all.
I'm quite a newbie in kernel hacking, and the same (and maybe more ;) ) in
acpi
hacking.
So, that's my problem: with vanilla kernel acpi support I was not able to
see my
laptop's battery status, and for acpi AC Adapter was online all the time (it
showed me on-line also if really the cable was not on).
So, I tried to apply acpi-20021101-2.4.20-rc1.diff.gz to a 2.4.20-rc1
kernel,
and something seemed to have changed...
The AC Adapter status works fine (it reflects the real status on/off-line of
the
cable), the power button also works fine, but the battery still doesn't work
:(
I use "acpi" cmd to view the status, and, while the first time I run it, it
always outputs me:

lilith:~# acpi -V
     Battery 1: charging, 98%, charging at zero rate - will never fully
charge.
     Thermal 1: ok, 37.0 degrees C
  AC Adapter 1: on-line

starting from the second time, it outputs me the real status, something like
this:

lilith:~# acpi -V
     Thermal 1: ok, 50.0 degrees C
  AC Adapter 1: off-line

..and the battery couldn't be viewed anymore.
I tried to unplug the battery, and then replug in (while the laptop was on
AC,
obviously), and I received some error messages:

    ACPI-0251: *** Error: Looking up [STAT] in namespace, AE_ALREADY_EXISTS

..and obviously the battery still doesn't exists, for acpi.
I tried to look in the drivers/acpi/ dir, and to work around the error, but
I
couldn't be able to do much... :(
Some hints?

My laptop's an Acer TravelMate a-550XV, some OLD informations about what I
done
on it can be found on http://www.CS.UniBO.It/~gonano/a-550XV.htm , and at
the
moment I run on it Debian unstable, with acpid-1.0.1 and acpi 0.06.

Thanks in advance...

Adieu,
-- 
Lestat de Lioncourt  -- a.k.a --  Ciro Mattia Gonano
 Undergraduate student in Computer Science at University of Bologna
 IHGGer #1049   <=>  ICQ#: 52631406   <=>   URL:
http://www.CS.UniBO.It/~gonano
 Debian admin at Students.CS.UniBO.It <=> look at headers for my JabberID &
GPG


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Re: ACPI Battery status on Acer TravelMate a-550XV

[Ducrot Bruno]

Hi Robert,

On Fri, Nov 15, 2002 at 10:45:38AM -0800, Moore, Robert wrote:
> >From looking at your disassembled dsdt, I think that there is a problem with
> the _BIF method:
> 
>                     Method (_BIF, 0, NotSerialized)
>                     {
>                         Name (STAT, Package (0x0D)
>                         {
>                             0x01, 
>                             0x1194, 
>                             0x1194, 
>                             0x01, 
>                             0x39D0, 
>                             0x01A4, 
>                             0x9C, 
>                             0x0108, 
>                             0x0EC4, 
>                             "PXBAS008", 
>                             "3658Q", 
>                             "NiMH ", 
>                             Zero, 
>                             "PANASONIC"
>                         })
>                         ...
> 
>                             Sleep (0x64)
>                         ...
> 
>                         Return (STAT)
>                     }
> 
> 1) The sleep within the method will allow another thread to begin execution
> of the same method -- because the method is declared "NotSerialized"
> 
> 2) The declaration of the "STAT" package in the namespace will fail with
> AE_ALREADY_EXISTS if a second thread reenters the method (exactly the
> problem you are seeing when you pop the battery back in.)
> 
> My suggested fix:
> Disassemble the dsdt (iasl -d dsdt.dat)
> Change "NotSerialized" to "Serialized" in the declaration of _BIF.
> Recompile and install the new dsdt (Override the BIOS dsdt)
> 

Just for your info.  You should look at 
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=acpi4linux&m=101586220402069&w=2

with also this s/must be declared/should be declared/
BTW, I think that it is more likely an ACPI spec issue, and it should be
clarified in other release of the spec.


-- 
Ducrot Bruno
http://www.poupinou.org        Page profaissionelle
http://toto.tu-me-saoules.com  Haume page


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Re: ACPI Battery status on Acer TravelMate a-550XV

[Ciro Mattia Gonano]

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> So, that's my problem: with vanilla kernel acpi support I was not able to see my
> laptop's battery status, and for acpi AC Adapter was online all the time (it
> showed me on-line also if really the cable was not on).
> So, I tried to apply acpi-20021101-2.4.20-rc1.diff.gz to a 2.4.20-rc1 kernel,
> and something seemed to have changed...
>
I'm proud to announce to all of you that kernel 2.4.20 patched with
acpi-20021205-2.4.20.diff.gz works fine in my laptop, now. The battery status
reflects the real status, as the AC Adapter status, thermal and processor :)
Thanks a lot for your great work!!!
Now, my next goal is to write a kernel module to make the launchkeys work... ^_^
Thanks again!

Adieu,
-- 
Lestat de Lioncourt  -- a.k.a --  Ciro Mattia Gonano
 Undergraduate student in Computer Science at University of Bologna
 IHGGer #1049   <=>  ICQ#: 52631406   <=>   URL: http://www.CS.UniBO.It/~gonano
 Debian admin at Students.CS.UniBO.It <=> look at headers for my JabberID & GPG

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