ichwd: option to globally disable SMI

[Andriy Gapon]

on 06/04/2009 19:04 Poul-Henning Kamp said the following:
> In message <49DA1173.1080606 at icyb.net.ua>, Andriy Gapon writes:
> 
>> I am attaching a patch that makes ichwd check and report result of SMI bit
>> operations and also try to disable SMI globally if permitted by
>> hw.ichwd.use_global_smi tunable.
> 
> Disabling SMI globally is incredibly ill-advised, for one thing it
> may cause your laptop to autowarnerize, but it can also ruin your
> batteries, prevent ACPI from working etc.
> 
> Under no circumstances should FreeBSD attempt to disable SMI globally
> without explicit instruction from a knowledgeable and informed user.
> 

Well, this is a mistake on my part, I am using ichwd on a desktop and so I
completely missed the fact that somebody might think of trying this on a laptop.
Thank you for this prominent warning.
In any case, a user has first to apply the patch, set hw.ichwd.use_global_smi
tunable and the normal way of disabling TCO SMI should fail in order for global
SMI disabling to be attempted.

-- 
Andriy Gapon