HOWTO: Fix Common ACPI Problems (DSDT, ECDT, etc.)

phuber · Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 11:36 am Post subject:

These here explain it
- https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=1310340#1310340 (The blue text)
- http://gaugusch.at/kernel.shtml

=> You can use initrd and a custom dsdt

truekaiser · l33t Joined: 05 Mar 2004 Posts: 801

i just want to make sure if i should use this guide sence i get the following.

acpi stuff at boot from dmesg

X-Drum · Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 10:33 pm Post subject:

please post a

truekaiser · l33t Joined: 05 Mar 2004 Posts: 801

here you go

X-Drum · Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2004 12:05 pm Post subject:

MerlinTheWizard · Apprentice Joined: 06 Apr 2003 Posts: 270

Hi,

no ACPI thermal zone is detected on my ASUS CUSL2-C upon booting. Kernel 2.6.8.1 (ck-sources).

Here is an extract of dmesg:

metalPhantom · n00b Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 1 Location: Malta

Hi.

Great Guide!
I am trying to use ACPI on an Acer Travelmate 291LCi laptop.
Everything works except for FAN and THERMAL_ZONE.
During boot-up all ACPI modules are loaded normally.
I fixed my DSDT and I am now using my custom version, but nothing seems to have changed.

Under /proc/acpi the fan and thermal_zone directories have nothing under them.

lsmod indicates that all ACPI modules are running.

acpi -V returns:
Battery 1: charging, 73%, charging at zero rate - will never fully charge.
No support for device type: thermal
AC Adapter 1: on-line

Anybody have a clue on how to fix this?

Thanks.

Avatar1983 · n00b Joined: 22 Apr 2004 Posts: 21 Location: Sheffield, UK

Hi all,
I have a problem with my Acer Extensa 3001WLMI laptop. I can't read battery and ac adaptor status, i.e. the /proc/acpi/battery and ac_adaptor directories are empty. Everything else works. I've googled and tried all sorts of things to try and diagnose the reason for this, but I've come up empty so far. I've investigated dsdt table, OS name and ecdt. My dsdt table, to be found here dsdt disasembled, had three warnings in it, which I've fixed, and then included the table in the kernel. This makes no diffrence, nor does setting the acpi_os_name boot parameter, or applying the ecdt workaround.

What I currently suspect is a seriously broken dsdt, since I can't find a battery device defenition in it at all. However, in windows everything works.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Avatar

truekaiser · l33t Joined: 05 Mar 2004 Posts: 801

well i went as far as extracting a copy and compiling it to see what errors it has and this is what i got.

YR · n00b Joined: 08 Sep 2004 Posts: 2

Thank's, BUT need I KERNEL PATCH for "Read DSDT from initrd" enable in kernel config for THIS (BOOTSPLASH loading) method? Or in this case kernel recompiling is not necessarily?

Clansman · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 10 Jan 2004 Posts: 140

Avatar1983 · n00b Joined: 22 Apr 2004 Posts: 21 Location: Sheffield, UK

I've now worked out what the problem is on Acer Extensa 3001 and TravelMate 4001. They have what is called a smart battery system, which linux does not support yet. This means that there is currently no way to read battery and ac adaptor status on these laptops. Here is an extract from an email I got in reply to my query on the acpi-devel list:

Clansman · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 10 Jan 2004 Posts: 140

ok. we're stuck then. thanks for the information.

[]

kwenspc · Advocate Joined: 21 Sep 2003 Posts: 4954

hello,

I've tried this trick on a 2.6.8-r3 kernel and it seems to work (though it didn't change anything for me except that acpi_power_off is working now)

Inspiron 5100
BIOS A31 -> 6 warnings on dsdt

hiroki · Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 1:06 pm Post subject:

once upon a time... i HAD a running system with ACPI and corrected DSDT. I'm using an ASUS M6800N laptop. everything was fine until I (today) upgraded my RAM! so, does upgrading RAM (from 512 to 768) change the dsdt and make all my previous reparations useless? do i really have to redo all the stuff with correcting my dsdt???
by the way. i already started correcting.. but then the following kind of error appears severyl times, how can i fix it? (if possible... :roll:

)

inode77 · Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 3:28 pm Post subject:

To jetblack:
The acpi patch 20040816 from acpi.sourceforge has a dsdt override patch already included next to some other benefits compared to std linux-2.6.8-gentoo-r3 acpi. Maybe it would be a good idea to add this to your howto section 9.

baeksu · l33t Joined: 26 Sep 2004 Posts: 609 Location: Seoul, Korea

I don't know if this issue has come up for anyone else, but there seems to be some problems with the static dsdt override and compiling acpi parts as modules.

It seems that compiling acpi parts as modules works only when using dsdt override from the initrd. If you use static dsdt overrise (i.e. compiled into the kernel), at least I needed to change my config to compile the acpi parts into the kernel as well (meaning not as modules) to get a working acpi.

I don't know if I'm the only one who encountered this issue, or even if I just made some mix up myself. I have a Samsung X10, and am using a vanilla 2.6.7 kernel.
_________________
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2. A never ending quest to make unix friendly to people who don't want unix and excruciating for those that do.

Sgeorg · Apprentice Joined: 01 Apr 2003 Posts: 152

Hi folks!

Have curred my my Ibm R51 from it's dstd illness, three bugs/compiling errors in the dsdt, how could ibm compile that thing without noticing anything?

But have one problem left, there is no fan, there was no fan and fan doesn't work right, not that it did ever before.

So does anybody now how to hack in a fan controll in the dsdt, since there is none!

Thanks
Georg

PS: had read a few threads in the forum about ibm fan controll, but none of them satisfied my needs.

spqr · n00b Joined: 29 Sep 2004 Posts: 4

Hi, I have two problems:

1. Finding the right initrd patch for my kernel

The list of initrd patches in the HOWTO does not include a 2.6.8 patch. Can I find one somewhere? If not, will either the 2.6.7 or 2.6.9 patches work on my 2.6.8 kernel? Finally, do I even need an initrd patch since I am using Mandrake (the initrd patch page mentions something about Mandrake 9.2. already having integrated the patch).

2. A "Looking in initrd for dsdt...not found!" error on boot

Yes, after having spent days installing acpi, acpid, the acpi patch, recompiling my kernel and debugging my dsdt, I suddenly realised that my system has never been able to find my dsdt in initrd.

1st question is:
Does this error mean that dsdt hasn't been found at all, or that it has been found in another place (say in /proc/acpi/dsdt, which I can actually see). I'm saying this because my ACPI works almost completely except for the fan and it would seem odd for ACPI to work with no dsdt table.

2nd question:
If the error truly means that the system can't find the DSDT, how can Ihelp it find it. (as I said it's in proc/acpi: I can see it and I can manipulate it)

Thanks!

spqr · n00b Joined: 29 Sep 2004 Posts: 4

I think I've got the answer to part 2. Should go like this:

Normally, the BIOS provides the DSDT.
But if you compile "read dsdt from initrd" into the kernel, the system bypasses the BIOS and goes looking for the DSDT in initrd
However, if it does not find a DSDT in initrd, it goes back to the BIOS and gets it there.

If my reasoning is correct, I have a DSDT...I just need to find a way to get the corrected version into my initrd. If somebody has any info about the initrdpatch I am searching for that will help a bunch. Otherwise I think I will have to compile the new DSDT statically.

Thanks again!

Sgeorg · Apprentice Joined: 01 Apr 2003 Posts: 152

Here's the link for the patches
http://gaugusch.at/kernel.shtml
btw it's in THIS tutorial (FIRST PAGE)!!!!!!!!!!!

as far as I'm aware of there are no other sites that provide this kind of patches, so use the kernels or the patches which match together.
the alternative is to try to patch the wrong versions together and be lucky or not --> patch works or it doesn't, give it a try!
but be warned the exact definition of the version of kernels and the patches isn't for nothing. (but you only lose some time playing around)

but keep an working kernel, if you don't want to use the livecd to recompile an working one

GEorg

spqr · n00b Joined: 29 Sep 2004 Posts: 4

Thanks Sgeorg,

I was aware of the link but I was looking for the 2.6.8 version of the patch which unfortunately does not exist.

So I tried with the 2.6.7 and 2.6.9 patches. Neither of them compiled "out if the box", so I looked inside the patches and tried to apply the modifications manually to each of my files. The modifications in the 2.6.9 patch would not compile, but the ones in the 2.6.7 patch did.

I'm now able to use custom dsdts.

The problem is that although I have a clean dsdt, my fan still won't work (and my proc/acpi/fan directory is still empty).

There are no references to Microsoft in my dsdt and no Embedded Controller errors on boot. The only error that I have in /var/log/messages is

evregion-0347: *** Error: Handler for [SystemMemory] returned AE_NO_MEMORY
psparse-1133: *** Error: Method execution failed [\_SB_.ACAD._PSR] (Node dbe97ea8), AE_N

Could this be the cause of my problem?
It looks an awful lot like the ECDT error in the Howto, except that [Embedded Control] has been replaced by [System Memory]

The acpi.sourceforge page mentions something about DSDTs only being abe to work for a specific System Memory. It says you should go inside your dsdt and apply the Sysytem Memory value relevant to your computer. I'm not sure how to do that: although "SystemMemory" appears a couple times in my dsdt, there is never anything like "SystemMemory=X". The value is never set, so how could I change it?

If System Memory is no the problem, I have one more idea. I could be missing a method for my fan in my dsdt. Indeed, the word "fan" only appears in the DSDT's initial list of "Embedded Control" values. There is no actual method that addreses it.

Please let me know if you have any ideas.

Sgeorg · Apprentice Joined: 01 Apr 2003 Posts: 152

the problem is, if there is no fan controll in dsdt than there is none in acpi!

that's the same problem on my ibm r51 there is no fan controll in dsdt.
(fan controll is HW, and scpi needs an interface, ports or mem adr. to interface the fan controll)

the sysmemory, don't know, don't have this problem, but since sysmem is changeable (at least in size) it would be read out from bios I think, so "sysmem = x" wouldn't be the wisest idea.

hm, ideas, it's thing of testing probing and mainly a matter of time!

Georg

ps: don't really have a clue now, sorry!

spqr · n00b Joined: 29 Sep 2004 Posts: 4

Right, so you seem to agree: there's no method in the dsdt that describes the fan, which explains why the latter does not get picked up by ACPI.

I'm wondering how that can be since I took the dsdt from the list of "corrected" tables at acpi.sorceforge...but I guess the dsdts listed there have just been "improved", as opposed to perfected.

Anyway, at this point my question would be: are there ANY laptops whose fans work well with linux ACPI?? My fan is on at max speed all the time and the sound is just unbearable. Having tried everything I possibly could to get my fan to work on my laptop (short of creating a new method in my dsdt which I'm not qualified to do), I'm seriously considering selling it and buying another one...but which one?

Thanks again for your help Georg.