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XPS 9530 Firmware bug prevents releasing audio fix for Linux devices
Hi,
As you may be familiar, when running Linux on XPS 9530 series, audio is horrible. This is because only two tweeters (top firing speakers) work, while woofers (down firing speakers) which provide the most volume, and bass do not. Me and fellow XPS users have worked hard to add support for this, (see github thread, and discord server), and managed to make it work!
Background info:
Bottom speakers are connected via active amplifier by Cirrus Logic, which requires to be properly initialized, and loaded firmware. There are multiple patches to Linux kernel required for this (quirk was added, missing properties patch is ready but not published yet, see below) , as well as addition of Cirrus amp firmware (PR pending).
With all of these changes applied, all 4 speakers are finally working on Linux, sound is significantly louder, and there is finally some bass.
Problem:
Communication with Cirrus amp is happening over SPI, and is meant to be at 4Mhz. However, in present state, the process of firmware loading to amplifier takes ~3 minutes. During first boot during this 3 minutes, sound is extremely buggy. Even worse, upon wake up, system is completely unavailable for the same 3 minutes. It appears reason is, SPI speed is capped at 3051Hz, due to the bug in Dell Firmware (UEFI): one of registers incorrectly sets required clock divider parameters to 0x7FFF0003; This value is picked by `intel-lpss.c` driver, which enables divider with ratio of 1/32767. As source clock is 100Mhz, diving it by 32767 results in unusable rate of 3051Hz, and bug described above.
Due to this issue, we are unable to propose sound fixing patch upstream. Solution for this is to either:
a) Create bypass in `intel-lpss.c` driver. I got in contact with Intel developer (Andy Shevchenko) and was pointed out that this is indeed a firmware bug, and normally shall be solved in firmware. Me and fellow XPS users have locally tested patch which conditionally disables clock divider in intel lpss driver, and it fixed slow firmware loading, everything works flawlessly.
b) Dell to release UEFI BIOS update, with corrected value: 0x7FFF0003 shall become 0. As also confirmed by Andy Shevchenko, Intel Lpss is currently not using clock divider for SPI mode, and thus Dell's firmware should absolutely not attempt to enable this divider. I have tested a patch that forcefully sets 0x7FFF0003 to 0, and it also works perfectly, SPI is able to operate at requested speed of 4Mhz, and with above mentioned patches all 4 speakers perfectly work on this machine.
There are more bugs in Dell firmware, eg. ACPI tables are missing SPI's chip select pins definitions for right amplifier, as well as device specific properties. All these however can be set with a simpler kernel patch (linked above), and are awaiting to be upstreamed once SPI speed issue is resolved.
It seems that on Windows, custom Realtek driver handles both the missing _DSD properties, as well as wrongly configured intel's lpss clock divider.
On behalf of all Linux users and fans of Dell XPS 9530 series, I thus kindly request Dell to look into this issue, and correct this firmware bug. I also ask all fellow XPS 9530 users to like this post, as indication for Dell moderators of how many people are affected by this issue.
This is an amazing machine, and even though Dell officially does not support Linux on it, a lot of use it as one of the best devices in the industry. We have already done enormous work to get sound fix by means of community, however it seems for particular issue, there is really required an input from Dell's officials.
Thank you in advance,
Kind Regards,
Alex Vinarskis (and others rest of XPS 9530 users)
UPDATE: As it seems Dell does not consider this an issue to be fixed, appropriate change was submitted to Linux kernel (patch1, patch2) which shall ignore BIOS's set parameters for SPI clock speed. This change is expected to arrive in kernel 6.9. If/When that takes place, it can potentially be backported to stable kernel (6.7.X). Since this is still months out, current solution is to manually apply required patches, as per this guide. With these changes, SPI and thus sound system works as expected.
Bogdan K
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February 2nd, 2024 14:55
It will be my first and last Dell if they reject to fix it. I expected to have a Macbook equivalent for Linux after Torwald's recommendation of XPS but now I can see that Dell does not care about its customers. Begging them for years does not make much sense to me.
Already had a similar experience with ASUS, since then I haven't bought anything from them ...
mcharzar
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February 11th, 2024 19:15
I was unaware of this issue when I placed my order recently. Looks like all the engineers have to do is flip a single value in the firmware alongside the next update release?
Hmm... once I recieve the laptop, I guess I'll hold out till the end of the 30 day return window for either a firmware update or strong indication that this will be resolved in a future update.
RoRoo
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February 12th, 2024 14:42
@DELL-Nat M Sooo, you are basically saying that DELL isn't taking any action on a device that should be OS independant? But you are forcing users to work with Windows.
There's got to be a law against such behavior?
Moe Lampe
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February 19th, 2024 16:43
@flmommens Exactly my case. I have a linux friendly XPS 13 Developer and so bought an XPS 15 to set up with linux for my wife, assuming that the only issues would be getting her acclimated to the linux vs windows environment. Fair enough if this particular model isn't tested for linux functionality but it says that learnings from a sister model aren't applied to the rest of the line. And, when a bug is identified and then a solution provided by the linux community in the way of a proposed firmware update but Dell still can't give it prompt attention, it says Dell isn't really linux friendly at all. Considering the bios settings (raid on a single drive!) that make it very difficult for your average user to convert to linux, one might even consider that Dell colludes with MS to create obstacles for OS alternatives.
(edited)
PrecisionTux
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March 9th, 2024 00:09
TO: Dell
RE: Dell's position that the laptop model in question has no official support for Linux
You are missing the point
A clear firmware bug has been identified and reported. That firmware bug exists regardless of the OS loaded on the system.
A bug is a bug is a bug.
There is a clear fix. You might waffle over priority of the fix, but you still need to fix the bug. That's what the honest and reputable manufacturer would do.
jianma00
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March 9th, 2024 14:28
Thanks, Alex and others, for the time and effort you put into this. I was very disappointed by Dell's response; I would expect something better from a company that builds machines for serious usage. Also, somebody did your job for free. Your answer: "We Do NoT oFfIcIaLly SuPpOrT LiNuX". I hope people will remember this next time they have to buy a new PC.
Sleust
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March 15th, 2024 16:18
Dell please fix this.
To everyone reading this thread and encountering the same problem please also post a comment. If this runs dry they aint going to do anything about it...
pioevogel
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March 18th, 2024 16:45
Having the same issue. Bought this quite expensive laptop as it came out multiple test as the best linux laptop.
I understand the fix is really easy, so I really hope Dell will live up to its reputation and fix this and keep the linuxcommunity happy.
elginbeloy
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March 29th, 2024 22:07
Having the same issue even though the 9350 is not "officially supported" the xps series had a lot of models that were and is known to play nice with Linux community. So why do you do us like this? They did all the research and Dell IMO is just ignoring this
jaggies
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March 31st, 2024 04:16
@DELL-Nat M If this is the official stance, then this is the last laptop I buy from Dell. I write software for a living and use Linux exclusively. I always buy the premium devices and support contracts. I represent what I expect is your most profitable market, as do other people here.
Dell has an opportunity to fix this before they become known for poor Linux support. So far, it seems Dell leadership doesn't believe the market is big enough to warrant a fix. Or the message hasn't landed with them.
This is not, "an enhancement request." It represents basic functionality. Please re-open this and find a way to get this and other very basic Ubuntu requirements fixed:
1. deep sleep
2. audio subwoofers
3. battery life and power notification
FWIW, my XPS 15(7590) still runs Linux flawlessly and I prefer to use it when I don't need the NVIDIA 4070 features because of this nonsense. It's as if the 9530 was built by a completely different company, with different standards. Was it?
Ineersa
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April 18th, 2024 05:56
@DELL-Nat M It's not a solution , you just decided to not fix your bugs.
It shows how company treats customers which pay premium for laptop which not even work correctly. I've bought it less then 1 month ago, at least i knew about thermal issues but not working audio was a surprise. I'm just dissapointed, it's my last DELL product purchase...
DamienHaver
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April 19th, 2024 13:12
Another issue is that dell doesn't even release their firmware updates through LVFS, so if you chose to run Linux, you'll be stuck on old firmware versions. And this is a rather trivial thing to do...
DamienHaver
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April 24th, 2024 20:16
Dell doesn't seem to care to distribute the firmware in an accesible way either. We can still update the firmware manually, but looks like this is the hill Dell choses to die on. Unfortunate that it is difficult to get a high end laptop with decent official linux support, I thought that maybe Dell's support of linux on other models would trickle down to higher end models, but I guess not.
thevapeministry16
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May 11th, 2024 11:34
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