expresscard hotplug not working

expresscard hotplug not working

[Mike Mohr]

Hi,

I think I'm having a similar problem to the fellow listed here:

http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2007/10/16/344543

The only difference is that no card will work at all unless it is
inserted before system power is turned on.  If the card is removed
while the system is running it stops working and will never return to
life unless the system is rebooted with the card in the slot.

My kernel is configured exactly as this page describes:

http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/ExpressCard

However, I do not receive anything in dmesg except the reports of the
driver being unloaded and/or loaded.  Attempts to insert the card
after the machine is up elicit no kernel messages.  I'm thinking there
may be a missing PCI ID somewhere in the pciehp/pci_hotplug driver(s),
but I could well be mistaken.

Can anyone offer me a suggestion or two?

Thanks,
Michael

Re: expresscard hotplug not working

[Greg KH]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 06:17:28PM -0700, Mike Mohr wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I think I'm having a similar problem to the fellow listed here:
> 
> http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2007/10/16/344543
> 
> The only difference is that no card will work at all unless it is
> inserted before system power is turned on.  If the card is removed
> while the system is running it stops working and will never return to
> life unless the system is rebooted with the card in the slot.
> 
> My kernel is configured exactly as this page describes:
> 
> http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/ExpressCard
> 
> However, I do not receive anything in dmesg except the reports of the
> driver being unloaded and/or loaded.  Attempts to insert the card
> after the machine is up elicit no kernel messages.  I'm thinking there
> may be a missing PCI ID somewhere in the pciehp/pci_hotplug driver(s),
> but I could well be mistaken.

Do you have the acpiphp or pciehp driver loaded before trying to insert
your card?

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: expresscard hotplug not working

[Mike Mohr]

acpiphp fails to load (claiming no such device).  pciehp is loaded but
dmesg doesn't indicate that any hardware is found by the driver -- it
only shows a status message stating that the driver is loaded.

Thanks,
Mike

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 11:45 PM, Greg KH<greg@kroah.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 06:17:28PM -0700, Mike Mohr wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I think I'm having a similar problem to the fellow listed here:
>>
>> http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2007/10/16/344543
>>
>> The only difference is that no card will work at all unless it is
>> inserted before system power is turned on.  If the card is removed
>> while the system is running it stops working and will never return to
>> life unless the system is rebooted with the card in the slot.
>>
>> My kernel is configured exactly as this page describes:
>>
>> http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/ExpressCard
>>
>> However, I do not receive anything in dmesg except the reports of the
>> driver being unloaded and/or loaded.  Attempts to insert the card
>> after the machine is up elicit no kernel messages.  I'm thinking there
>> may be a missing PCI ID somewhere in the pciehp/pci_hotplug driver(s),
>> but I could well be mistaken.
>
> Do you have the acpiphp or pciehp driver loaded before trying to insert
> your card?
>
> thanks,
>
> greg k-h
>

Re: expresscard hotplug not working

[Greg KH]

A: No.
Q: Should I include quotations after my reply?

http://daringfireball.net/2007/07/on_top

On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 11:19:11AM -0700, Mike Mohr wrote:
> acpiphp fails to load (claiming no such device).  pciehp is loaded but
> dmesg doesn't indicate that any hardware is found by the driver -- it
> only shows a status message stating that the driver is loaded.

Sounds like broken hardware.  I'd bring it up on the linux-pci list,
along with all kernel log messages that might be relevant.

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: expresscard hotplug not working

[Mark Lord]

Mike Mohr wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I think I'm having a similar problem to the fellow listed here:
> 
> http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2007/10/16/344543
> 
> The only difference is that no card will work at all unless it is
> inserted before system power is turned on.  If the card is removed
> while the system is running it stops working and will never return to
> life unless the system is rebooted with the card in the slot.
..

It's probably the b0rked PCIe hotplug support.
The driver is way too strict about things at times,
and as a result it doesn't work "out of the box" on
a huge number of Dell notebooks (and possibly others).

Just create a file called /etc/modprobe.d/pciehp,
and stick this one line into it:

   options pciehp pciehp_force=1

See if that works.

Re: expresscard hotplug not working

[Mark Lord]

Mark Lord wrote:
> Mike Mohr wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I think I'm having a similar problem to the fellow listed here:
>>
>> http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2007/10/16/344543
>>
>> The only difference is that no card will work at all unless it is
>> inserted before system power is turned on.  If the card is removed
>> while the system is running it stops working and will never return to
>> life unless the system is rebooted with the card in the slot.
> ..
> 
> It's probably the b0rked PCIe hotplug support.
> The driver is way too strict about things at times,
> and as a result it doesn't work "out of the box" on
> a huge number of Dell notebooks (and possibly others).
> 
> Just create a file called /etc/modprobe.d/pciehp,
> and stick this one line into it:
> 
>   options pciehp pciehp_force=1
> 
> See if that works.
..

Oh, one other thing is also needed:
    add a line for pciehp to /etc/modules
    to ensure the driver gets loaded at boot time.

Cheers

Re: expresscard hotplug not working

[Matthew Garrett]

On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 08:52:45AM -0400, Mark Lord wrote:

> Just create a file called /etc/modprobe.d/pciehp,
> and stick this one line into it:
>
>   options pciehp pciehp_force=1
>
> See if that works.

It's worth noting that Windows didn't support native pcie hotplug until 
Vista, and so any hardware that works with XP (ie, basically all of it, 
including Dells) is supposed to be using acpi hotplug instead. I've 
fixed one bug that led to acpiphp not working on some hardware, but if 
anyone's still running with pciehp_force=1 then please send me the 
output of acpidump so it can be fixed properly.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org

Re: expresscard hotplug not working

[Mark Lord]

Matthew Garrett wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 08:52:45AM -0400, Mark Lord wrote:
> 
>> Just create a file called /etc/modprobe.d/pciehp,
>> and stick this one line into it:
>>
>>   options pciehp pciehp_force=1
>>
>> See if that works.
> 
> It's worth noting that Windows didn't support native pcie hotplug until 
> Vista, and so any hardware that works with XP (ie, basically all of it, 
> including Dells) is supposed to be using acpi hotplug instead. I've 
> fixed one bug that led to acpiphp not working on some hardware, but if 
> anyone's still running with pciehp_force=1 then please send me the 
> output of acpidump so it can be fixed properly.
..

My Dell works fine with PCIe hotplug under XP,
but not under Linux without pciehp=1.

I have not retested without that parameter for quite some time, though.
What do I have to do to retest with "acpihp" ?

Thanks.

Re: expresscard hotplug not working

[Mark Lord]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1391 bytes --]

Mark Lord wrote:
> Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 08:52:45AM -0400, Mark Lord wrote:
>>
>>> Just create a file called /etc/modprobe.d/pciehp,
>>> and stick this one line into it:
>>>
>>>   options pciehp pciehp_force=1
>>>
>>> See if that works.
>>
>> It's worth noting that Windows didn't support native pcie hotplug 
>> until Vista, and so any hardware that works with XP (ie, basically all 
>> of it, including Dells) is supposed to be using acpi hotplug instead. 
>> I've fixed one bug that led to acpiphp not working on some hardware, 
>> but if anyone's still running with pciehp_force=1 then please send me 
>> the output of acpidump so it can be fixed properly.
> ..
> 
> My Dell works fine with PCIe hotplug under XP,
> but not under Linux without pciehp_force=1.
> 
> I have not retested without that parameter for quite some time, though.
> What do I have to do to retest with "acpihp" ?
..

Okay, I figured it out.  Not very difficult, either.  :)

With acpiphp loaded, hotplug works on the ExpressCard slot
of my Dell i9400 notebook.  Well, it *mostly* works.

The part that is still b0rked is that inserted cards get
"forgotten" about over suspend/resume (RAM) cycles.

With pciehp + pciehp_force=1, everything works properly,
including keeping devices around over suspend/resume.

I am attaching the output of "acpidump -b | gzip" to this message.

Cheers


[-- Attachment #2: acpidump.out.gz --]
[-- Type: application/x-gzip, Size: 8851 bytes --]

Re: expresscard hotplug not working

[Matthew Garrett]

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 08:45:47AM -0400, Mark Lord wrote:

> With acpiphp loaded, hotplug works on the ExpressCard slot
> of my Dell i9400 notebook.  Well, it *mostly* works.

Ok, that's good.

> The part that is still b0rked is that inserted cards get
> "forgotten" about over suspend/resume (RAM) cycles.

I can entirely believe that that's broken. Thanks, I'll take a look at 
that.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org

Re: expresscard hotplug not working

[Mark Lord]

Matthew Garrett wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 08:45:47AM -0400, Mark Lord wrote:
> 
>> With acpiphp loaded, hotplug works on the ExpressCard slot
>> of my Dell i9400 notebook.  Well, it *mostly* works.
> 
> Ok, that's good.
> 
>> The part that is still b0rked is that inserted cards get
>> "forgotten" about over suspend/resume (RAM) cycles.
> 
> I can entirely believe that that's broken. Thanks, I'll take a look at that.
..

Great!  Email me directly (or CC: me) if/when you'd like some more testing.

Another thing that could be a factor here, is that neither method
(acpiphp or pciehp) seems "automatic".  The user has to know to load
one or the other module, or at least manually add them to /etc/modules.

This could account for some reports of the mechanism failing.

Shouldn't one or the other module be loaded automatically somehow
when a system has hotpluggable slots?

Probably a chicken-and-egg issue, I suppose, or something for a distro to fuss over.

Cheers

Re: expresscard hotplug not working

[Matthew Garrett]

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 09:11:39AM -0400, Mark Lord wrote:

> Another thing that could be a factor here, is that neither method
> (acpiphp or pciehp) seems "automatic".  The user has to know to load
> one or the other module, or at least manually add them to /etc/modules.

Yes. There's no reasonable way of dealing with this - even if you came 
up with some sort of modaliases, the order in which the drivers are 
probed is significant (some hardware will work with both pciehp and 
acpiphp, but prefers the former). The only real way to handle this is to 
build them both in.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59@srcf.ucam.org