Re: [PATCH] hwmon: (dell-smm-hwmon) Disable BIOS fan control on SET_FAN

[Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>]

On Thu, Nov 14, 2019 at 10:14:08PM +0100, Giovanni Mascellani wrote:
> On some Dell laptops the BIOS directly controls fan speed, ignoring
> SET_FAN commands. Also, the BIOS controller often happens to be buggy,
> failing to increase fan speed when the CPU is under heavy load and
> setting fan at full speed even when the CPU is idle and relatively
> cool.
> 
> Disable BIOS fan control on such laptops as soon as a SET_FAN command
> is issued, and re-enable it at module unloading, so that a userspace
> controller like i8kmon can take control of the fan.
> 
> There is a missing feature: interaction with PM; I think that when
> suspending on RAM the fans should be stopped (this BIOS doesn't always
> do this automatically, neither when fan control is enabled nor when it
> is disabled); when recovering from hibernation to disk, also, the
> command to disable BIOS fan control should be issued again, because
> the computer will have had a power cycle in the meantime.
> 
> I don't know how to implement these two actions; can someone suggest a
> way? Also, I would be happy to know from more experienced people if
> these actions are sensible.
> 

I think this is too drastic: Not everyone wants to use this driver for
fan control, and even automatic switching to manual mode on write
operations may be unexpected.

I can see two possibilities: Either add a pwm1_enable attribute to
be able to set manual/automatic fan control, or add a module parameter
to enable manual fan speed control on affected systems.

As for PM support, this would have to be implemented using the standard
PM functions.

Guenter

> Signed-off-by: Giovanni Mascellani <gio@debian.org>
> ---
>  drivers/hwmon/dell-smm-hwmon.c | 64 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 64 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/hwmon/dell-smm-hwmon.c b/drivers/hwmon/dell-smm-hwmon.c
> index 4212d022d253..6d72e207076f 100644
> --- a/drivers/hwmon/dell-smm-hwmon.c
> +++ b/drivers/hwmon/dell-smm-hwmon.c
> @@ -32,6 +32,12 @@
>  
>  #include <linux/i8k.h>
>  
> +/*
> + * The code for enabling and disabling BIOS fan control were found by
> + * trial and error with the program at
> + *  https://github.com/clopez/dellfan.
> + */
> +
>  #define I8K_SMM_FN_STATUS	0x0025
>  #define I8K_SMM_POWER_STATUS	0x0069
>  #define I8K_SMM_SET_FAN		0x01a3
> @@ -43,6 +49,8 @@
>  #define I8K_SMM_GET_TEMP_TYPE	0x11a3
>  #define I8K_SMM_GET_DELL_SIG1	0xfea3
>  #define I8K_SMM_GET_DELL_SIG2	0xffa3
> +#define I8K_SMM_DISABLE_BIOS	0x30a3
> +#define I8K_SMM_ENABLE_BIOS	0x31a3
>  
>  #define I8K_FAN_MULT		30
>  #define I8K_FAN_MAX_RPM		30000
> @@ -68,6 +76,8 @@ static uint i8k_pwm_mult;
>  static uint i8k_fan_max = I8K_FAN_HIGH;
>  static bool disallow_fan_type_call;
>  static bool disallow_fan_support;
> +static bool disable_bios;
> +static bool bios_disabled;
>  
>  #define I8K_HWMON_HAVE_TEMP1	(1 << 0)
>  #define I8K_HWMON_HAVE_TEMP2	(1 << 1)
> @@ -419,6 +429,26 @@ static int i8k_get_power_status(void)
>  	return (regs.eax & 0xff) == I8K_POWER_AC ? I8K_AC : I8K_BATTERY;
>  }
>  
> +/*
> + * Disable BIOS fan control.
> + */
> +static int i8k_disable_bios(void)
> +{
> +	struct smm_regs regs = { .eax = I8K_SMM_DISABLE_BIOS, .ebx = 0 };
> +
> +	return i8k_smm(&regs) ? : regs.eax & 0xff;
> +}
> +
> +/*
> + * Enable BIOS fan control.
> + */
> +static int i8k_enable_bios(void)
> +{
> +	struct smm_regs regs = { .eax = I8K_SMM_ENABLE_BIOS, .ebx = 0 };
> +
> +	return i8k_smm(&regs) ? : regs.eax & 0xff;
> +}
> +
>  /*
>   * Procfs interface
>   */
> @@ -488,6 +518,13 @@ i8k_ioctl_unlocked(struct file *fp, unsigned int cmd, unsigned long arg)
>  		if (copy_from_user(&speed, argp + 1, sizeof(int)))
>  			return -EFAULT;
>  
> +                if (disable_bios && !bios_disabled) {
> +			val = i8k_disable_bios();
> +			if (val < 0)
> +				return val;
> +			bios_disabled = true;
> +                }
> +
>  		val = i8k_set_fan(val, speed);
>  		break;
>  
> @@ -1135,6 +1172,22 @@ static struct dmi_system_id i8k_blacklist_fan_support_dmi_table[] __initdata = {
>  	{ }
>  };
>  
> +/*
> + * On some machines the BIOS disregards all SET_FAN commands unless it
> + * is explicitly disabled.
> + * See bug: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=200949
> + */
> +static struct dmi_system_id i8k_disable_bios_dmi_table[] __initdata = {
> +	{
> +		.ident = "Dell Precision 5530",
> +		.matches = {
> +			DMI_MATCH(DMI_SYS_VENDOR, "Dell Inc."),
> +			DMI_EXACT_MATCH(DMI_PRODUCT_NAME, "Precision 5530"),
> +		},
> +	},
> +	{ }
> +};
> +
>  /*
>   * Probe for the presence of a supported laptop.
>   */
> @@ -1169,6 +1222,11 @@ static int __init i8k_probe(void)
>  			disallow_fan_type_call = true;
>  	}
>  
> +	if (dmi_check_system(i8k_disable_bios_dmi_table)) {
> +		pr_warn("broken Dell BIOS detected, will disable BIOS fan control\n");

The above is your interpretation: Since there is a command to enable/disable
BIOS fan control, we can not just claim that it is broken because we don't like
how it works.

> +		disable_bios = true;
> +	}
> +
>  	strlcpy(bios_version, i8k_get_dmi_data(DMI_BIOS_VERSION),
>  		sizeof(bios_version));
>  	strlcpy(bios_machineid, i8k_get_dmi_data(DMI_PRODUCT_SERIAL),
> @@ -1241,6 +1299,12 @@ static void __exit i8k_exit(void)
>  {
>  	hwmon_device_unregister(i8k_hwmon_dev);
>  	i8k_exit_procfs();
> +
> +	if (bios_disabled) {
> +		pr_warn("re-enabling BIOS fan control\n");

I don't see the point of this warning.

> +		if (i8k_enable_bios())
> +			pr_warn("could not re-enable BIOS fan control\n");
> +	}
>  }
>  
>  module_init(i8k_init);
> -- 
> 2.24.0
>