Re: [alsa-devel] [PATCH v2 3/3] ALSA: hda: Disabled unused audio controller for Dell platforms with Switchable Graphics

[Lukas Wunner <lukas@wunner.de>]

On Thu, Mar 08, 2018 at 06:38:45PM +0800, Kai Heng Feng wrote:
> >On Mar 8, 2018, at 5:38 PM, Lukas Wunner <lukas@wunner.de> wrote:
> >On Thu, Mar 08, 2018 at 05:10:23PM +0800, Kai-Heng Feng wrote:
> >>Some Dell platforms (Preicsion 7510/7710/7520/7720) have a BIOS option
> >>"Switchable Graphics" (SG).
> >>
> >>When SG is enabled, we have:
> >>00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 591b (rev 04)
> >>00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation CM238 HD Audio Controller (rev 31)
> >>01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
> >>[AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Polaris10]
> >>01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere
> >>[Radeon RX 580]
> >>
> >>The Intel Audio outputs all the sound, including HDMI audio. The audio
> >>controller comes with AMD graphics doesn't get used.
> >>
> >>When SG is disabled, we have:
> >>00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation CM238 HD Audio Controller (rev 31)
> >>01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
> >>[AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Polaris10]
> >>01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere
> >>[Radeon RX 580]
> >>
> >>Now it's a typical discrete-only system. HDMI audio comes from AMD audio
> >>controller, others from Intel audio controller.
> >>
> >>When SG is enabled, the unused AMD audio controller still exposes its
> >>sysfs, so userspace still opens the control file and stream. If
> >>userspace tries to output sound through the stream, it hangs when
> >>runtime suspend kicks in:
> >>[ 12.796265] snd_hda_intel 0000:01:00.1: Disabling via vga_switcheroo
> >>[ 12.796367] snd_hda_intel 0000:01:00.1: Cannot lock devices!
> >
> >This should be fixed by the following series:
> >https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2018-March/168012.html
> >
> >Please verify that by testing the series on the machine in question.
> >I'm hoping to get those patches in for 4.17.  I suspect that your
> >patch may not be necessary then.
> 
> I no longer see the warning message with your patch. Thanks!

Awesome, thanks for testing!


> >>Since the discrete audio controller isn't useful when SG enabled, we
> >>should just disable the device.
> >
> >I don't quite follow, when SG is enabled but hda_intel doesn't bind
> >to the AMD audio device, how are you going to stream audio to
> >external displays?  Are external DP/HDMI ports muxed to the integrated
> >GPU when SG is enabled?
> 
> Yes. It's a muxed port.
> The can directly output via integrated Intel GPU when SG is enabled.
> The discrete audio controller never gets used when SG is enabled.

Okay, that's a crucial piece of information which I think should be
made more explicit in the commit message and probably also in a code
comment so that someone reading through hda_intel.c doesn't have to
look in the git history to understand what's going on.

I'd remove the portion of the commit message pertaining to runtime
suspend and instead write something like:

    If Switchable Graphics is enabled, external DP/HDMI ports are
    muxed to the Intel GPU and HDA controller and therefore those
    on the AMD HDA controller shouldn't be exposed to user space.

Thanks,

Lukas