ACPI problems with Dell laptops

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Saturday, 26 November 2005 at 20:25:58 -0600, Eric Anderson wrote:
> Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>> I've had both Dell and ThinkPad (no longer IBM).  I prefer Dell,
>> despite their attempts to convince me otherwise.
>>
>> However, we currently seem to have significant ACPI problems with Dell
>> laptops.  I'm writing this on an Inspiron 6000 running 7-CURRENT, but
>> the same problems occur with 6.0: if I enable ACPI, timing goes to
>> hell, and some things just time out.  There was a similar message a
>> couple of days ago from an owner of (I think) the latest Latitude
>> machine, which sounded even worse.  My requests for feedback about how
>> to solve the problem have so far not been resolved.  If you're
>> otherwise tending towards Dell, I'd suggest you watch this space until
>> there's some indication that the problems will be resolved.
>
> Which scheduler are you using?

The standard (ULE).  I don't think the problem's related to the
scheduler: it shows all the signs of being an interrupt space problem.

> Also, have you tried disabling apic?

I think you mean ACPI.  This machine doesn't have an APIC.

To answer the presumed question: Yes, as I said above, the problems
only occur when I enable ACPI.

Since then I've also discovered that the builtin wireless card doesn't
work either.  It's:

  iwi0: <Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2915ABG> mem 0xdfcfd000-0xdfcfdfff irq 10 at device 3.0 on pci3
  iwi0: Ethernet address: 00:13:ce:46:28:49

After downloading the firmware, I can set IP addresses and such, but
I always get "no carrier":

  iwi0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        ether 00:13:ce:46:28:49
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect
        status: no carrier
        ssid "" channel 1 (2412)
        authmode OPEN privacy OFF deftxkey UNDEF powersavemode OFF
        powersavesleep 100 txpowmax 100 txpower 100 rtsthreshold 2346
        fragthreshold 2346 -pureg protmode CTS -wme roaming AUTO bintval 0

When I run dhclient on the interface, I get:

  DHCPDISCOVER on iwi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 6
  DHCPDISCOVER on iwi0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 15
  send_packet: Network is down

On the console I get the detailed error message:

  iwi0: fatal error

This machine also has Linux on it, and the card works fine with Linux,
so it's obviously a FreeBSD-related problem.

Greg
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