i386/158200: wifi doesn't work on Acer AO751h, maybe WMI needs to be ported

[Majdi S. Abbas]

>Number:         158200
>Category:       i386
>Synopsis:       wifi doesn't work on Acer AO751h, maybe WMI needs to be ported
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    freebsd-i386
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Thu Jun 23 10:30:14 UTC 2011
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Majdi S. Abbas
>Release:        -HEAD as of 22-JUN-2011
>Organization:
Lattice, L.L.C.
>Environment:
FreeBSD 9.0-CURRENT #1: Wed Jun 22 14:55:31 MST 2011
    root@:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/AO751h i386

(-HEAD as of 22-JUN-2011; this is a custom build but this is reproducible with GENERIC as well.)
>Description:
The Atheros driver correctly picks up the presence of the card, and we can attach it to wlan0:

ath0: <Atheros 5424/2424> mem 0xd0000000-0xd000ffff at device 0.0 on pci3
ath0: AR2425 mac 14.2 RF5424 phy 7.0
wlan0: Ethernet address: 00:25:56:0c:4e:88

However, since the card is not actually powered on (soft power switch that does not work under FreeBSD), we can't use it -- scan results (either via ifconfig or wpa_supplicant) in:

ath0: device timeout
ath0: device timeout
ath0: device timeout
ath0: device timeout
ath0: device timeout
ath0: device timeout

Additional information:

Kernel config file: (reproducible under GENERIC as well)
http://puck.nether.net/~majdi/acer/AO751h

acpidump -dv:
http://puck.nether.net/~majdi/acer/acpidump-dv

dmesg:
http://puck.nether.net/~majdi/acer/dmesg3.txt

pciconf -l:
http://puck.nether.net/~majdi/acer/pciconf-l

wmistat:
http://puck.nether.net/~majdi/acer/wmistat

>How-To-Repeat:
Take any soft WiFi power Acer netbook or notebook, add FreeBSD (-HEAD is probably required since the ath driver in 7.x and 8.x did not work without patching.)


>Fix:
Works under Linux 2.6, using the acer-acpi module:

http://repo.or.cz/w/acer_acpi.git/tree

Card is automatically powered on boot under Linux 2.6.x kernels, and functions correctly, using that module.

FreeBSD has an ACPI-WMI module now, as well as ACPI modules for other vendors, and appears to just needs an implementation of the Acer bits.  

I am available for testing.

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: