[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
[Expired for xorg (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.] ** Changed in: xorg (Ubuntu) Status: Incomplete = Expired -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
Right now, I'm downloading http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current /vivid-desktop-amd64.iso and soon will be posting the apport-collect reports: one during operation above the vendor-induced custom throttle threshold and another after it kicks in. On Friday, I contacted ASUS for a third time and a couple of hours ago they replied via e-mail that the battery was replaced on my second visit to their customer support center, although their tests revealed no defect in the previous battery or any other hardware component. So now I'm 200% sure it's not a hardware fault. Overnight I tested with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 (with the appropriate drivers and Asus Hybrid Engine software downloaded from the official support website) In Windows 7, everything works all right. In Windows 8.1 the shutdowns follow exactly the same pattern as in Ubuntu: once the battery charge approaches 7000 mW, the CPU is forcibly throttled down to 800 MHz. If there's a combination of Flash Player running and an above- than-average power consumption, a shutdown happens. If the CPU successfully throttles to 800 MHz without shutting down, everything continues to work as expected regardless of further CPU load or overall power consumption. Another important thing I discovered is that the backlight level does not contribute to the probability of shutdown, although all other power- related Windows options do. Windows 8.1 is much more susceptible to the issue than Ubuntu is. Again, much like in Ubuntu, once there was a shutdown, CMOS data becomes compromised and further shutdowns follow in a totally chaotic fashion until I detach the BIOS battery from the motherboard for a few minutes. I spent hours looking through the manuals but wasn't able to discover a kernel boot flag or something that would ward off any attempts by the BIOS to override the current CPU frequency set by the CPU governor. It appears that this custom throttling mechanism is masquerading as the one activated when CPU becomes critically overheated, so both Windows and Ubuntu see no fault and have to comply. Now I understand this is clearly not a fault of Ubuntu, but still cross my fingers for someone who has the knowledge to create a more streamlined, trusted workaround than the one I'm currently using. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
The above reports are collected while running above the vendor's custom throttle throttle threshold. Right now: waiting for the battery to discharge. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
apport information ** Tags added: apport-collected compiz-0.9 ubuntu vivid ** Description changed: SUMMARY: On the ASUS UX21E ultrabook, enabling SNA graphics acceleration leads to spontaneous shutdowns while watching Flash video in full screen AND using the battery as the power source, the problem starts surfacing once the battery charge level drops below 33%. The issue affects both x86 and x64 platforms, affects at least the 14.04 and 14.10 Ubuntu versions, affects at least the regular Ubuntu and its Kubuntu and Lubuntu flavors, affects at least kernels 3.13, 3.14, 3.15, 3.16, 3.17, 3.18, 3.19 and 4.0. The issue can't be fixed by changing the various i915 driver options like rc6 and semaphores, neither does PCIE_ASPM play a role. Repetitive triggering of the bug runs the machine into an even weirder state where it would chaotically reboot every time a higher- than-moderate strain is put on the GPU, and the only way to fix this is to detach both battery connectors from the motherboard for a while (CMOS battery and the main power source battery) The issue surprisingly disappears after a hard CMOS reset AND setting the acceleration method to UXA. The BIOS version of my UX21E is 214. I've also taken my UX21 to the official ASUS service center and after running the tests they replied that the unit has no hardware issues, so it is a Linux issue. A vaguely similar issue is reported to affect UX21E running Windows 8, so it may be a crippled DSDT after all. THE LONG STORY: = IMPORTANT UPDATE! As of 14.04 and 14.10 using the default SNA graphics acceleration instead of UXA leads to unexpected shutdowns and/or CMOS settings corruption. To activate the bug, one must be: -- Using the battery as the power source -- Having the battery charge below 33% -- Watching a FULLSCREEN video in Flash Player (e.g. youtube) -- Both Pepper Flash in Chrome/Chromium and the regular Adobe Flash in Firefox/Chromium are affected This is the most typical scenario for triggering an unexpected shutdown, but other variants do exist. Certain Flash-heavy sites like speedtest.net can trigger this, as well as KDE's KWin window compositor with certain GLX-accelerated eye candy options turned on. The bug also affects at least Kubuntu and Lubuntu, but that's just what I was able to confirm. Most likely it affects all other Ubuntu flavors and even other distributions that use the latest Intel video drivers AND employ SNA as the default acceleration method. The issue persists with various Ubuntu versions (at least 14.04 14.10), various kernel versions (I tried almost every kernel from 3.13 to 4.0) and even using the cutting-edge drivers from the xorg-edgers PPA does nothing to fix this. Both x86 and x64 platforms are affected. Flash Player version plays no role, either. The bug apparently happens because the ultrabook's ACPI-based power management mechanisms just can't get on terms with the latest implementation of SNA. Something happens when the battery charge drops below 1/3 -- and once SNA draws too much power from the GPU, a shutdown happens. The various i915.* driver options like rc6 and semaphores do nothing to fix this! The worst thing is that after you get several unexpected shutdowns, your UX21E may start rebooting chaotically whenever any program tries to use graphics acceleration, be it Chromium's accelerated canvas rendering or simply the window manager using transparency. This further leads to file system corruption up to the point when you can no longer boot into your user profile. You can still create another user profile via the terminal, but this does not get rid of the reboot glitch. If you happen to run into this, you must perform a hard CMOS reset. To do this, one must unscrew the twelve torx screws and remove the bottom part of the casing, then detach *BOTH* the main battery connector and the CMOS battery connector from the motherboard, then wait for a few minutes and attach them back. Flushing CMOS programmatically with a command-line utility like CmosPwd does not fix this issue! If you are unsure how to open your UX21E or detach the battery connectors, search youtube for an UX21E disassemby guide -- detaching the battery on this model used to be a popular trick a few years ago when a certain Windows glitch caused similar behavior and required hard CMOS reset as well, so there are a number of videos and forum threads on this issue across the web. Once you have made sure your CMOS is okay (that is, you don't get frequent shutdowns shortly after logging into the system while working on battery with a charge below 33%) you can proceed to fix the ultimate cause of this issue. If it exists, delete the /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf file then create a
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
Simon, given the issue happens in both Windows and Ubuntu, have you had a chance to discuss this in more depth with ASUS so they may address it more properly at the BIOS level as applicable? -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
Here's a short video I recorded for the ASUS Support service. It gives a good illustration of what happens on Windows 8.1. This is also exactly what I get with the latest Ubuntu LiveCD. In the video, I say in Russian: Now I'm plugging in the AC... Rebooting the device... And it works perfectly... but only as long as AC is plugged in. So it goes, guys. Now I'm unplugging AC and this crap will start all over again http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IP3h3x4CoU Things are much better with SSD-intalled Kubuntu or Lubuntu, with them this only starts if I get a shutdown at the moment when CPU gets throttled down to 800 Mhz at 20% battery and only then does CMOS become scrambled to the point when further shutdowns start coming in dozens in a totally random fashion until I do a hard CMOS reset. P.S. I'm currently studying the ACPI Source Language (it has a thousand pages long manual) but I don't think that a Bachelor of Arts like me will tackle this issue any time soon. The latest official BIOS comes with a DSDT table that doesn't compile back after being decompiled, it gives me about 120 warnings about possible infinite loops, unserialized methods where a serialized method is expected, and such like things... -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
** Tags added: latest-bios-214 ** Tags added: kernel-bug-exists-upstream kernel-bug-exists-upstream-4.0 -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
That's exactly what I tried on my second RMA Attempt. I was trying to use Windows 8.1 and had intermittent shutdowns. It was all like: -- I downloaded all the official drivers and power management software from your website. It hangs. -- We do all the testing on Windows 7. This model does not support Windows 8. -- Why I am able to select Windows 8 in the Downloads section for my model and download W8-only driver packages then? Why is there a Super Hybrid Engine package specifically for Win8 listed for my model? -- Does this mean UX21E *officially* supports Windows 8? Stop being a jerk and use Windows 7. We don't support Win 8. -- I'd rather stick with Linux but it also hangs. -- Just remember we ran every factory test possible and all hardware components are in perfect health. There's no need to return to us for a third time. Bye. It was Microsoft support who told me to do a hard CMOS reset. Microsoft says that there were numerous complaints about this behavior from people who tried to use Windows 8 on ASUS Zenbooks (not only UX21E) They told me some people claimed that the issue was gone forever after a single CMOS reset. This wasn't my case, though. I wasn't able to make a report with http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily- live/current/vivid-desktop-amd64.iso during the vendor custom throttle engaged stage because with this LiveCD, my netbook starts shutting down erratically iunder zero load at about 27% charge and ASUS's built-in throttle only activates at 19-20%. Resetting the CMOS does not help. Besides UEFI boot, I also tested with legacy boot (to eliminate the possibility of a faulty EFI OPROM) and it is still all the same. Ubuntu is much more lighter on resources (especially GPU) than Kubuntu so I can't explain this. I used to install the vanilla Ubuntu out of curiousity back when 14.04 was released and only had shutdowns according with the Flash Player + high power consumption scenario. I sincerely hope there is way to block BIOS from interfering with the power management in vendor-specific ways, rather handing it off onto the Linux kernel. So far I use the Native ASPM and Native PCI-E BIOS options (they prevent BIOS from doing anything with ASPM and PCI-E runtime PM) -- I get lower temps, better battery time and slightly lower shutdown probability. I mentioned the situation in my e-mail to ASUS on Friday, their response is still Linux is bad for your ASUS device -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
Simon, your best bet to bypass ASUS tier 1 altogether by requesting an escalation. I always contain the discussion with vendors to the factory operating system that came pre-installed when purchased, as they tend to use any deviation from this (even just using a scratch install of the same Windows operating system from MSDN) as an excuse not to provide support for their buggy firmware (ASUS, Lenovo, Toshiba, just to name a few). I would mention the linux reproducibility only as an after thought. The fact you have to do a CMOS reset points to WORKAROUND the problem points to a BIOS bug, versus hardware failure, operating system bug, etc. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
UPDATE: The system is fully stable only if I both use a modded overclocker edition Sandy Bridge CPU microcode (Rev. 28) embedded into the BIOS and set the kernel boot arg i915.enable_rc6=5. The modded microcode allegedly allows the CPU to consume less power when operating at higher frequencies, but it's not so clear why rc6 has to be set to 5 and no other value (otherwise I get a very occasional shutdown when running on low battery) -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
I'll be able to do it some time before Monday. Sorry for not doing so right away. Meanwhile, bad news. This behavior is by design. Running custom microcode and setting rc6 to 5 does not fix the issue, it's just an ugly workaround. One thing I've been missing all these weeks which I discovered about three hours ago: When /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_now drops below 7000 mW, /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/power_now takes an instant dive from about 16000 mW to 12000 mW and at the same time, all CPU cores are throttled down to 800 Mhz. No kernel or BIOS setting seems to be able to circumvent this. Even pinning the minimum CPU frequency at 1200 Mhz via TLP only works until the battery charge keeps above 7000 mW. Then it's forcibly reduced to 800 Mhz. The boot flag acpi=off seemingly fixes this but quite expectedly breaks dozens of vital functions. If there's Flash Player running at the moment of throttling AND the current power consumption rate is high enough, a shutdown happens. Pinning the maximum CPU frequency at the same 800 Mhz while on battery does not help -- even if the frequency does not change, when the battery charge drops below the above mentioned threshold, the system may crash. If there's no Flash Player running (both Pepper and the regular Adobe Flash are affected), even a 100% CPU load does not result in a crash. If there's Flash Player running, but the power consumption rate at the moment is relatively low, there's no shutdown. Once the threshold is passed and the CPU is forcibly downclocked to 800 Mhz, I can watch as many Flash Videos in highest resolutions at 100% CPU load and... nothing happens. Almost anything that affects power consumption -- be it a custom-made CPU microcode, newer VBIOS, hidden BIOS options or simply a specific RC6 setting -- automatically affects the probability of shutdown. SNA acceleration spawns rather small but frequent peaks of power consumption, which kinda provoked the issue. Currently I experience no shutdowns with RC6=5 and a custom CPU microcode, but I'm inclined to think that it's a poor solution and there's still something terribly screwed up inside the UEFI BIOS. In understand this emergency throttling thing was meant, uh, as an emergency measure for a Windows-based environment to give the user as much time to save his work as possible. In Linux, it's just a pain in the butt. So, this bug needs reassignment. Now it looks more like a hardware quirk which begs for a workaround. So far we have: -- The bug is hardware-specific. It affects at least the UX21E Asus Zenbook. -- The cause of the bug is a low-level, BIOS-based service which uses ACPI to simultaneously downclock the CPU and reduces the battery power output once the battery charge drops below 7000 mW. -- For a shutdown to happen, a relatively high power consumption level and a running instance of Flash player must coincide at the moment when the forced downclock happens. Just having high CPU usage OR just running Flash isn't enough. -- Anything that affects power consumption does affect the probability of shutdown. Enabling features which result in power consumption peaks (even small ones) greatly increases the chances. Various power saving techniques play towards reducing the probability. SNA acceleration seems to be the most provoking factor. -- The issue affects a wide range of kernels at least from 3.13 to 4.1, i686 and amd64 versions are equally affected. Installing the cutting- edge Intel graphics drivers and xorg from the xorg-edgers PPA does not affect the frequency of shutdowns. At least Ubuntu, Lubuntu and Kubuntu are affected. P.S. I've just rolled back to the good old BIOS 214 (the latest official one) and checked -- this weird downclocking-when-on-low-battery feature is still there and it's official! -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
Simon, great! Are you able to execute the apport-collect in a live environment via http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ ? -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
After enabling the hidden BIOS options for Native ASPM and Native PCIE Runtime PM and disabling the C-states, I got rid of the issue (a hard CMOS reset was necessary for the BIOS modification to fully kick in) The C-states continued to work in Ubuntu, though, due to the nature of the intel_idle built-in driver. I am currently investigating which one of the above mentioned three BIOS settings triggers on the issue. Even if they aren't part of the problem, Native ASPM and PCIE PM gave me much better CPU temps (seem to require the pcie_aspm=force and pcie_aspm.policy=powersave kernel boot flags to work, otherwise neither BIOS nor the OS perform power management) Modifying a Zenbook BIOS turned out to be very simple -- you simply download the latest official BIOS, open it in an AMI APTIO BIOS modification utility, look for the hidden options you want to enable and finally change their access level from Default to User. Then you flash the modified BIOS file using either AFUDOS with /X flag or ASUS Emergency BIOS Restore (rename UX21EAS.214 to UX21E.BIN, put it on a flash stick formatted as FAT16 with a partition size 1Gb, insert it in a USB 2.0 slot and power on the ultrabook while pressing Ctrl + Fn + Home, release the said buttons after the ASUS logo appears -- the device will force-reflash its BIOS with the file from the flash stick) -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
Okay, I'll download a regular Ubuntu 14.04.2 LiveCD and use it to prepare the diagnostics info. I won't be using a modified BIOS at that time. I'm currently switching between the latest official and my custom BIOS. The latest BIOS 214 is known to have caused similar behavior in WIndows 8.1, and earlier BIOS versions are sheerly unusable because they cause a shutdown every time AC is unplugged while CPU is under strain (that's why they had to make the 214 version) BTW, when running on AC, Kubuntu 14.10 Plasma Next boots some three seconds faster off an SSD with my modified BIOS, as compared to the vanilla BIOS. Also no shutdowns so far. Prompts me thinking it was buggy CPU microcode that under certain conditions provoked abnormal power consumption peaks / some other undesirable effects that backfied when running on low battery. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
Simon, you may have more success using a Unity live environment, versus KDE. As well, if it's a BIOS problem, it would be best to start with the latest, unmodified BIOS from the vendor (despite it appearing to be older/buggy), as they tend not to indulge BIOS modifications. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
SImon, thank you for reporting this and helping make Ubuntu better. Could you please execute the following command in http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ , as it will automatically gather debugging information, in a terminal: apport-collect 1446027 Please ensure you have xdiagnose installed, and that you click the Yes button for attaching additional debugging information. ** Changed in: xorg (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided = Low ** Changed in: xorg (Ubuntu) Status: New = Incomplete -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
Here is what I get when I execute apport-collect 1446027 in terminal with xdiagnose installed: ERROR: Could not import module, is a package upgrade in progress? Error: No module named PyQt4.QtCore I'm currently running Kubuntu 14.10 Plasma Next technical preview. I've got a working Kubuntu 14.04.2 disk image, so if there's no way to circumvent this in 14.10 Plasma Next, I could quickly restore the image and try the trick again. Or should I better try the same command in a 14.04 LiveCD environment? The bug can be reproduced on any Ubuntu flavor and kernel version. (Un)fortunately, it turns out this is not an X.org bug. Somehow I had a sudden shutdown while on UXA acceleration and low battery -- in fact, just a single shutdown in two days and a half though I'm intentionally running the battery as low as possible and watching lots of online videos -- but it's clearly not X.org itself. Switching back to SNA, however, immediately resulted in multiple shutdowns. I was able to dump and tear down the BIOS portion of the netbook's UEFI BIOS and edit it to enable access to lots of hidden power management options. I also updated the CPU microcode and I'm currently struggling to inject a newer VBIOS OROM based off a generic Sandy Bridge VBIOS. The latest official BIOS seems to contain some really dated OROMs. I'm almost sure we have to blame BIOS, not Linux. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
[Ubuntu-x-swat] [Bug 1446027] Re: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04
** Package changed: ubuntu = xorg (Ubuntu) -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xorg in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1446027 Title: SNA acceleration causes sudden shutdowns and corrupts CMOS data on the the Asus UX21E ultrabook on a wide variety of kernels since at least Ubuntu 14.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1446027/+subscriptions ___ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
