Problems with Acer Nitro 5 AN515-45-R715 in Ubuntu 21.04

AlexB75

Hello everyone just got my first Acer. Got a few problems that hinder me from keeping it, which I would actually like to do because the specs are really great.
I need the laptop also for datascience and development which is why the GPU is a big plus. I use mainly Ubuntu for development where I have the most problems so far.

Specs: 
AMD Ryzen 9-5 5900HX
32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX3080 

Ubuntu (installed on a second SSD, windows untouched):
First problem was that the wifi was not working even after upgrades. Only when upgrading the Kernel manually (searching and downloading it) the wifi startet working. Upgraded Kernel to 5.12.9.
However, the Bluetooth is still not working. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1344604/wifi-and-bluetooth-not-working-on-acer-nitro-5-an515-45-r715-clean-install-of-21

Another problem on Ubuntu is the battery life, I get around 1 hour, which is unfeasible for me as I will need to go to meetings when using the laptop for work.
I suspect that in Ubuntu not the low-power GPU of the CPU is used but instead the more power hungry RTX3080 and the power-saving switch logic between those two is not there or functional.

On Windows everything works fine, Wifi, Bluetooth, Performance, only the battery life could be better. Starting at full, watching Netflix or some youtube videos, the expected remaining battery time drops to around 2-3h. Considering the battery is suposed to be new, this is too little, also considering that the low-power AMD GPU is used and not the RTX.

I would really like to keep the laptop as the specs are great and I like the display and speed. The responsiveness is also great on Windows, the delay between control input and effect on screen is minimal, something I don't even feel on my Desktop PC (which actually has a Ryzen 5900X).

Maybe some of you can help me fix some of the Problems.

• No Bluetooth Ubuntu
• Low Battery Life Ubuntu (1h)
• Mediocre Battery Life Windows (2-3h) (no gaming, just browsing)

batmalin

1. "sudo systemctl start bluetooth" then check the state with "sudo systemctl status bluetooth" and post the result
2. Install TLP and Laptop Mode Tools you might be able to bring it to Win result
3. This is a gaming laptop so you can`t expect more from the battery

AlexB75

Thanks for the reply.

sudo systemctl status bluetooth

● bluetooth.service - Bluetooth service

     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/bluetooth.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)

     Active: active (running) since Thu 2021-06-10 10:03:20 CEST; 2min 28s ago

       Docs: man:bluetoothd(8)

   Main PID: 787 (bluetoothd)

     Status: "Running"

      Tasks: 1 (limit: 37683)

     Memory: 1.7M

     CGroup: /system.slice/bluetooth.service

             └─787 /usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd

Jun 10 10:03:20 alex-Nitro-AN515-45 systemd[1]: Starting Bluetooth service...

Jun 10 10:03:20 alex-Nitro-AN515-45 bluetoothd[787]: Bluetooth daemon 5.56

Jun 10 10:03:20 alex-Nitro-AN515-45 systemd[1]: Started Bluetooth service.

Jun 10 10:03:20 alex-Nitro-AN515-45 bluetoothd[787]: Starting SDP server

Jun 10 10:03:20 alex-Nitro-AN515-45 bluetoothd[787]: Bluetooth management interface 1.19 initialized


Settings Bluetooth options unchanged though:

AlexB75

Apparently the Nvidia X Server on Ubuntu defaults PRIME mode to performance. After changing to "on demand" AMD-GPU is used. Got a nice plus to battery life (I activated tlp as well)

batmalin

May I see the output of "rfkill list all"

AlexB75

0: acer-wireless: Wireless LAN

Soft blocked: no

Hard blocked: no

1: acer-bluetooth: Bluetooth

Soft blocked: no

Hard blocked: no

2: phy0: Wireless LAN

Soft blocked: no

Hard blocked: no

3: hci0: Bluetooth

Soft blocked: no

Hard blocked: no

batmalin

This is strange.... hciconfig -a  and dmesg |grep bluetooth please.

AlexB75

hciconfig -a

hci0: Type: Primary  Bus: USB

BD Address: 00:00:00:00:00:00  ACL MTU: 0:0  SCO MTU: 0:0

DOWN 

RX bytes:0 acl:0 sco:0 events:0 errors:0

TX bytes:3 acl:0 sco:0 commands:1 errors:0

Features: 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00

Packet type: DM1 DH1 HV1 

Link policy: 

Link mode: SLAVE ACCEPT

sudo dmesg | grep bluetooth 

[   57.767503] Modules linked in: ccm bnep btusb uvcvideo btrtl btbcm videobuf2_vmalloc btintel videobuf2_memops videobuf2_v4l2 bluetooth videobuf2_common videodev ecdh_generic ecc mc intel_rapl_msr nls_iso8859_1 intel_rapl_common joydev edac_mce_amd amdgpu snd_hda_codec_realtek snd_hda_codec_generic ledtrig_audio snd_hda_codec_hdmi snd_hda_intel kvm_amd snd_intel_dspcfg snd_intel_sdw_acpi nouveau snd_hda_codec mt7921e kvm mt76_connac_lib mt76 snd_hda_core snd_hwdep crct10dif_pclmul ghash_clmulni_intel mac80211 snd_pcm iommu_v2 mxm_wmi gpu_sched aesni_intel drm_ttm_helper snd_seq_midi crypto_simd snd_seq_midi_event ttm snd_rawmidi cryptd rapl drm_kms_helper input_leds cfg80211 snd_seq hid_multitouch cec efi_pstore serio_raw rc_core snd_seq_device acer_wmi snd_timer i2c_algo_bit libarc4 sparse_keymap wmi_bmof fb_sys_fops syscopyarea sysfillrect sysimgblt snd ccp soundcore mac_hid acer_wireless sch_fq_codel msr parport_pc ppdev lp drm parport ip_tables x_tables autofs4 hid_generic r8169

[   57.775676] Modules linked in: ccm bnep btusb uvcvideo btrtl btbcm videobuf2_vmalloc btintel videobuf2_memops videobuf2_v4l2 bluetooth videobuf2_common videodev ecdh_generic ecc mc intel_rapl_msr nls_iso8859_1 intel_rapl_common joydev edac_mce_amd amdgpu snd_hda_codec_realtek snd_hda_codec_generic ledtrig_audio snd_hda_codec_hdmi snd_hda_intel kvm_amd snd_intel_dspcfg snd_intel_sdw_acpi nouveau snd_hda_codec mt7921e kvm mt76_connac_lib mt76 snd_hda_core snd_hwdep crct10dif_pclmul ghash_clmulni_intel mac80211 snd_pcm iommu_v2 mxm_wmi gpu_sched aesni_intel drm_ttm_helper snd_seq_midi crypto_simd snd_seq_midi_event ttm snd_rawmidi cryptd rapl drm_kms_helper input_leds cfg80211 snd_seq hid_multitouch cec efi_pstore serio_raw rc_core snd_seq_device acer_wmi snd_timer i2c_algo_bit libarc4 sparse_keymap wmi_bmof fb_sys_fops syscopyarea sysfillrect sysimgblt snd ccp soundcore mac_hid acer_wireless sch_fq_codel msr parport_pc ppdev lp drm parport ip_tables x_tables autofs4 hid_generic r8169

...

AlexB75

sudo hciconfig hci0 up

Can't init device hci0: Connection timed out (110)

batmalin

Is this intel ax200 wifi/bt? If so download latest intel bt firmware and put it in /lib/firmware , reboot and attach as txt file the full dmesg

AlexB75

As far as I know the wifi is Mediatek mt7961 (I think it also handles Bluetooth?!)
05:00.0 Network controller: MEDIATEK Corp. Device 7961

sudo dmesg | grep -i blue

[sudo] password for alex: 

[    2.585280] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.22

[    2.585299] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized

[    2.585302] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized

[    2.585304] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized

[    2.585306] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized

[    3.644821] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3

[    3.644825] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast

[    3.644831] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized

[   82.059626] Modules linked in: ccm bnep btusb btrtl uvcvideo btbcm btintel videobuf2_vmalloc videobuf2_memops bluetooth videobuf2_v4l2 videobuf2_common ecdh_generic videodev ecc mc intel_rapl_msr joydev intel_rapl_common snd_hda_codec_realtek snd_hda_codec_generic edac_mce_amd amdgpu ledtrig_audio snd_hda_codec_hdmi snd_hda_intel snd_intel_dspcfg snd_intel_sdw_acpi snd_hda_codec kvm_amd snd_hda_core nouveau nls_iso8859_1 snd_hwdep mt7921e snd_pcm kvm mt76_connac_lib snd_seq_midi iommu_v2 snd_seq_midi_event gpu_sched mxm_wmi mt76 crct10dif_pclmul drm_ttm_helper ghash_clmulni_intel snd_rawmidi ttm aesni_intel mac80211 drm_kms_helper snd_seq crypto_simd cryptd snd_seq_device rapl snd_timer input_leds cec hid_multitouch cfg80211 rc_core snd acer_wmi i2c_algo_bit serio_raw sparse_keymap fb_sys_fops syscopyarea sysfillrect soundcore sysimgblt efi_pstore libarc4 ccp wmi_bmof mac_hid acer_wireless sch_fq_codel msr parport_pc ppdev lp parport drm ip_tables x_tables autofs4 hid_generic

batmalin

What is lsusb showing? The attached dmesg is not full, type dmesg only and attach again.

batmalin

Download BT_RAM_CODE_MT7961_1_2_hdr.bin from here - https://kernel.googlesource.com/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/iwlwifi/linux-firmware/+/refs/heads/master/mediatek/
and put it in /lib/firmware and reboot

AlexB75

lsusb

Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub

Bus 003 Device 002: ID 04f2:b64f Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd HD User Facing

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 04ca:3802 Lite-On Technology Corp. Wireless_Device

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

AlexB75

did reboot, no bluetooth

[email protected]:/lib/firmware$ ls | grep BT

BT_RAM_CODE_MT7961_1_2_hdr.bin

batmalin

There are no errors regarding BT in dmesg only Nvidia driver issues, but there is no entry that fw for bt is loaded so there is something fishy. Let me research a bit.

batmalin

Seems that the current driver does not support your BT device, but there is already a patch - https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-bluetooth/msg91078.html so you either have to wait the driver update/patch to be included in the mainline kernel or get like me an Intel AX200 for 15$-20$ and you will be fine. AX200 should work out of the box as your model is offered in some regions with AX200.

This is how my dmesg  looks like:

[email protected]:~$ dmesg |grep -i blue
[    4.484557] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.22
[    4.484591] Bluetooth: HCI device and connection manager initialized
[    4.484596] Bluetooth: HCI socket layer initialized
[    4.484599] Bluetooth: L2CAP socket layer initialized
[    4.484604] Bluetooth: SCO socket layer initialized
[    4.533788] Bluetooth: hci0: Firmware revision 0.0 build 127 week 48 2020
[   14.311243] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3
[   14.311250] Bluetooth: BNEP filters: protocol multicast
[   14.311256] Bluetooth: BNEP socket layer initialized
[   19.943008] Bluetooth: RFCOMM TTY layer initialized
[   19.943022] Bluetooth: RFCOMM socket layer initialized
[   19.943031] Bluetooth: RFCOMM ver 1.11

AlexB75

Thanks for the help

batmalin

You are welcome mate!

JesseBusman

Thank you!!

I had the same problem on Manjaro Gnome (kernel 5.13).

Updated my kernel to experiment kernel 5.14-rc6, and bluetooth worked immediately.

kintawer

Thanks a lot!

Updated my kernel to Linux version 5.16.0-051600rc3-generic, and BT worked.