Acer Aspire A515-41G-T48Q, Problems and question about bios and acpi

I am currently using Xubuntu 18.10 and Manjaro on my computer, but for trouble shooting i have a separate windows 10 october version with graphics drivers installed from Acer website https://www.acer.com/ac/en/GB/content/support-product/7298?b=1 , i also downloaded bios from there too.

Currently at old 4.16 kernel, xubuntu work out-of-the box with all features and graphics acceleration is perfect (benchmarked)

Currently i have 1.09 version of bios and it has a problem with allocating too much memory to decided graphics card:

utku@utku-Linux:~$ glxinfo -B<br>name of display: :0.0<br>display: :0  screen: 0<br>direct rendering: Yes<br>Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):<br>    Vendor: X.Org (0x1002)<br>    Device: AMD CARRIZO (DRM 3.23.0, 4.16.18-041618-generic, LLVM 7.0.0) (0x9874)<br>    Version: 18.2.2<br>    Accelerated: yes<br>    Video memory: 1024MB<br>    Unified memory: no<br>    Preferred profile: core (0x1)<br>    Max core profile version: 4.5<br>    Max compat profile version: 4.4<br>    Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1<br>    Max GLES[23] profile version: 3.2<br>Memory info (GL_ATI_meminfo):<br>    VBO free memory - total: 993 MB, largest block: 993 MB<br>    VBO free aux. memory - total: 3062 MB, largest block: 3062 MB<br>    Texture free memory - total: 993 MB, largest block: 993 MB<br>    Texture free aux. memory - total: 3062 MB, largest block: 3062 MB<br>    Renderbuffer free memory - total: 993 MB, largest block: 993 MB<br>    Renderbuffer free aux. memory - total: 3062 MB, largest block: 3062 MB<br>Memory info (GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info):<br>    Dedicated video memory: 1024 MB<br>    Total available memory: 4096 MB<br>    Currently available dedicated video memory: 993 MB<br>OpenGL vendor string: X.Org<br>OpenGL renderer string: AMD CARRIZO (DRM 3.23.0, 4.16.18-041618-generic, LLVM 7.0.0)<br>OpenGL core profile version string: 4.5 (Core Profile) Mesa 18.2.2<br>OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.50<br>OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)<br>OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile<br><br>OpenGL version string: 4.4 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 18.2.2<br>OpenGL shading language version string: 4.40<br>OpenGL context flags: (none)<br>OpenGL profile mask: compatibility profile<br><br>OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 18.2.2<br>OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20

As seen integrated graphics card have 1024mb of ram

utku@utku-Linux:~$ dmesg | grep -i memory:<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0x00000000-0x00000fff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0x0009f000-0x0009ffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0x000a0000-0x000dffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0x000e0000-0x000fffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xb93b5000-0xb9db4fff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xbefbe000-0xbf8bdfff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xbf8be000-0xbfbbdfff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xbfbbe000-0xbfbfefff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xbfc00000-0xbfffffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xc0000000-0xd0ffffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xd1000000-0xd10fffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xd1100000-0xf7ffffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xf8000000-0xfbffffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xfc000000-0xfebfffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xfec00000-0xfec00fff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xfec01000-0xfec0ffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xfec10000-0xfec10fff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xfec11000-0xfed7ffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xfed80000-0xfed80fff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xfed81000-0xfedfffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xfee00000-0xfee00fff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xfee01000-0xff7fffff]<br>[    0.000000] PM: Registered nosave memory: [mem 0xff800000-0xffffffff]<br>[    0.000000] Memory: 7049984K/7296372K available (12300K kernel code, 2478K rwdata, 4248K rodata, 2404K init, 2416K bss, 246388K reserved, 0K cma-reserved)<br>[    0.041993] Freeing SMP alternatives memory: 36K<br>[    1.088936] Freeing initrd memory: 36744K<br>[    2.322755] Freeing unused kernel memory: 2404K<br>[    2.331386] Freeing unused kernel memory: 2008K<br>[    2.338985] Freeing unused kernel memory: 1896K<br>[   25.213905] [TTM] Zone  kernel: Available graphics memory: 3579512 kiB<br>[   25.213908] [TTM] Zone   dma32: Available graphics memory: 2097152 kiB<br>

And only 7gb of ram reversed to operating system, the same problem happens with windows too where total ram is shown as 6.8gb

utku@utku-Linux:~$ free<br>              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available<br>Bellek:     7159024     1850412     3529024       96468     1779588     4951844<br>Takas:      4194292           0     4194292<br>utku@utku-Linux:~$ free -h<br>              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available<br>Bellek:       6,8Gi       1,8Gi       3,4Gi        94Mi       1,7Gi       4,7Gi<br>Takas:        4,0Gi          0B       4,0Gi

I also found someone else having the same problem with the same bios version: https://www.technopat.net/sosyal/konu/acer-a515-41g-bios-ram-sorunu.656525/

I also had a gpu related problem here (this doesn't necessarily enter to acer support, but its for informing): https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201077

I bisected the kernel and reported the problem to amd,amd got the bug report and probably going to do something about it, but its possible that buggy acpi code in bios can also be causing these issues. So i have questions:

Which operating system bios acpi currently supports most? (for spoofing purposes)

Can i obtain the acpi table?

Will there be a fix, or memory configuration setting added to the bios?

Also people at https://www.technopat.net/sosyal/konu/acer-a515-41g-t48q-alinir-mi.511255/page-3 complain about weird graphics drivers on windows which i can confirm is very buggy and doesn't allow graphics card selection, its not a problem for me since i only use linux but i just wanted to tell.

Have a nice day!

Accepted answers

All comments

Commodore_1995#

Verify here my friend: https://www.mail-archive.com/kernel-packages@lists.launchpad.net/msg291863.html

tuxutku

egydiocoelho said:

Verify here my friend: https://www.mail-archive.com/kernel-packages@lists.launchpad.net/msg291863.html

I tried and and it only caused glitches, my problem is not about cpu or booting at all, its about RX 540 gpu.

as i bisected: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/e1deba285156fb4023bb48f22068de5b60e34e15 is the responsible commit and they start to use amdgpu acpi helper functions and remove the old one, i will try to re-implement older one to modern kernel and try my chance, And this is can be a problem related to amd.

For bios, i will just overwrite it since it fixed the case on other user.

Thanks for the help anyways!

P.S: Here are test logs anyways: https://github.com/tuxutku/rx_540_kernel_bisecting_files/tree/master/test/acer_manual__acpi_4.17_ubuntu_with_ac

tuxutku

Btw the kernel regression is fixed bu 5.3.0-rc1 https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=201077 , bios problem is not yet resolved, an option to select integrated gpu ram amount with warranty warning would be great

Commodore_1995#

How much dedicated memory is being allocated to the video card?

tuxutku

1024 mb

Commodore_1995#

Is this memory dedicated or shared?

tuxutku

carrizo gpu (integrated gpu) takes 1gb of ram from system memory (bios allocates it), Dedicated gpu has its own memory.

tuxutku

@egydiocoelho having Advanced settings unlocked would let me fix this issue, also cpu throttling. I now what happens with a custom bios (my laptop is already modified a lot so i don't think and care about warranty anyways).

From what i have seen from internet, some stock bios versions on some curtain laptop models expose advanced settings via a "secret" key combination. It would be great to have a feature like that.