Dell laptops

[Gary Palmer]

On Thu, Jul 13, 2006 at 11:48:16AM +0200, Bruno Ducrot wrote:
> It has been useful for me.  Thanks.
> 
> First, this information confirm one bug present in all Dell laptops
> I'm aware of (including but not limited to D600, D610, inspiron 6000)
> The bug is ACPI related, and concern how a particular event is
> handled.  To be short, the ASL contain this method (example for
> the D820):
> 
>     Method (SMIE, 0, NotSerialized)
>     {
>         Store (SMI (0x96, 0x00), Local0)
>         If (And (Local0, 0x01))
>         {
>             Notify (\_TZ.THM, 0x80)
>         }
> 
>         Notify (\_SB.PCI0.VID, 0x81)
>         Notify (\_SB.PCI0.AGP.VID, 0x81)
>     }
> 
>     If (And (Local0, 0x02))
>     {
>         Store (SMI (0x6D, 0x00), Local0)   <--- BUG.  Local0 will
>                                                 change in
>                                                 that case!!!
>         ...
>         ...
>     }
> 
>     If (And (Local0, 0x04))   <--- We may not have the correct value for
>                                    Local0 in that case...
>     {
>         Notify (\_SB.BAT0, 0x81)
>         Notify (\_SB.BAT1, 0x81)
>     }
> 
>     If (And (Local0, 0x08))
>     {
>         Notify (\_PR.CPU0, 0x80)
>         Notify (\_PR.CPU1, 0x80)
>     }
> 
>     If (And (Local0, 0x10))
>     {
>         ...
>         ...
>     }
>     ...
> 
> This method possibly can change in the middle the value of Local0
> and in that case the other If() statements are broken.
> 
> This method is called in order to handle an SCI interrupt, specifically
> by \GPE._L19() (it will call in fact NEVT() which may call NEVT()).

Hi Bruno,

Forgive my ignorance, but what is a SCI interrupt?  I.e. what could the 
outcome of the above bug in the ASL code be?  Could it be related
to the failure to properly sleep on these laptops?

Thanks,

Gary