QMI protocol error (3): 'Internal' when running dms-set-operating-mode

[Dan Williams]

On Mon, 2015-01-26 at 14:42 -0600, Isaac Raway wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015, at 09:22 AM, Dan Williams wrote:
> > On Mon, 2015-01-12 at 07:15 -0600, Isaac Raway wrote:
> >> On Wed, Jan 7, 2015, at 09:55 AM, Dan Williams wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 2014-12-30 at 11:37 -0600, Isaac Raway wrote:
> >>>> One interesting note, this card works perfectly if I boot into
> >>>> Windows from a USB drive (Windows was banished from the internal
> >>>> SSD on purchase), connect via Dell's "SkyLight" program, then
> >>>> warm-boot back to Fedora 20. In that case, the initial power mode
> >>>> read from dms-get-operating-mode is "online" rather than
> >>>> "low-power".
> >>>
> >>> This smells like rfkill driver issues. What do you get for 'rfkill
> >>> list' run in a terminal under Linux from cold-boot, and does that
> >>> change if you boot windows, then warm-boot to Linux?
> >>
> >> Cold boot and wam boot both seem to respond with the same results for
> >> rfkill list and do not seem to mention the WWAN card. Although it is
> >> interesting that the ID numbers(?) are different and the order has
> >> changed. Not sure if that is significant.
> >>
> >> Cold boot:
> >>
> >> 1: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no
> >> 2: hci0: Bluetooth Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no
> >>
> >>
> >> Warm boot:
> >>
> >> : hci0: Bluetooth Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no
> >> 3: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no
> >
> > Is this a Dell 5570 (Sierra 8805)? Also, which specific Windows kernel
> > version is this machine using?
> >
> > If it is a Sierra 8805, can you run 'minicom -D /dev/ttyUSBx' (where
> > 'x' is one of the serial ports exposed by the modem, if any) and then
> > run "at!pcinfo". Try all the ports, one of them may respond even
> > though the modem is usually driven by QMI.
> 
> Got this to work after a reboot:
> 
> at!pcinfo? State: LowPowerMode LPM force flags - W_DISABLE:0, User:0,
> Temp:0, Volt:0, BIOS:1, GOBIIM:0 W_DISABLE: 0 Poweroff mode: 0 LPM
> Persistent: 0
> 
> I checked BIOS settings and was able to find only these, none of which
> seem to impact the state of this result:
> 
> Wireless Radio Control -- Control WWAN radio checkbox disabled -- was
> enabled, no change Wireless Device Enable -- WWAN checkbox enabled
> Wireless Switch -- WWAN checkbox disabled -- was enabled, no change

So it's not really something in the BIOS setup that the modem is talking
about here.  It's actually just that BIOS has told the modem (somehow)
to put itself into airplane mode, and that is actually controlled from
the OS via special calls.  These calls are usually ACPI.  On Linux,
there are special drivers for various vendors (hp-wmi, thinkpad-acpi,
acer-laptop, etc) that do the same things, but when the vendor updates
their BIOS then the Linux drivers lag behind.

So my guess here is that even the BIOS setup doesn't affect anything,
Windows still has a driver that is poking values into the BIOS/NVRAM on
the laptop and the BIOS is still using those to disable the WWAN card.
The next step is to get ACPI dumps so that kernel developers can try to
update the Linux drivers.  Filing a bug on https://bugzilla.kernel.org/
is probably the best way to do that.

Dan

> >
> > Dan
> >
> >>>
> >>> The other possibility is firmware incompatibility, if the device you
> >>> have requires loading firmware with gobi_loader. But that's only for
> >>> older non-LTE cards usually so I don't think this is too likely.
> >>
> >> I think that the fact we can interrogate the modem means that
> >> firmware is in fact installed. We believe that it did require
> >> installation in Windows but that it remains in non-volatile memory.
> >> The Windows installer did have a long period of activity that looked
> >> like a firmware flash.
> >
> >
> >
> 
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