XPS 13 and intell Rapid Start Technology

jkreger

Here is a link to the to a previous post asking about setting iRST on the XPS 15z systems

en.community.dell.com/.../19410148.aspx

Here is another article on Notebook Review

forum.notebookreview.com/.../648566-dell-xps-13-ultrabook-review-owners-thread-113.html

I know that Dell is working on a doc on iRST but it isn't available yet.  Intel does have one though and it may be found from the following link.

download.intel.com/.../intel_smart_response_technology_user_guide.pdf

Please let me know if you continue to have problems

TB

Ok got it to go into the no power sleep mode after finding this en.community.dell.com/.../dell-whitepaper-intel-responsiveness-technologies-setup-guide.aspx

But now when it goes to wake up from that mode it hangs the machine

Still trying to find info/advice on resuming from the no-power sleep mode, machines are completely locked up after trying to resume.  The keboard backlight comes on, but the screen doesn't.  It doesn't respond to any commands even trying to change the keyboard backlight brightness/on-off etc...  have power it off and boot the machine from scratch, it displays windows recovery like after a blue screen, but the display never comes back from deep sleep to see if it is posting an error.

So after doing some more probing and trouble shooting I have determined that the Rapid Start Technology is not compatible with having a TPM module activated.  The issue with the system locking up when trying to resume from the low power sleep state went away after deactivating the TPM on the machine I was testing with.  This is something that should be documented/investigated by Dell.

Thanks for the info.  I will pass this on to engineering and see if they have any answers.

TB

I take back what I said last, iRST must be able to work with an active TPM, we have another machine that the user activated iRST on and it works.  I'm testing now to see if there was some other issue causing the device to lockup when resuming with rapid start.

I am checking back if you are still getting the error messages regarding iRST.  Or you where able to install the iRST drivers now, and is the systems still hanging when attempting to resume from standby.

I am wondering if you did regular software troubleshooting if it would make a difference.  Kill everything in msconfig, click start, search msconfig, click service tag, check hide all ms services, click disable all, click startup tab and click disable all. Reboot the system and place the notebook to sleep and try to resume.  Does it make a difference?

TB

I figured out the issue with getting the driver to install, I initially had the sata mode set wrong.  So I was able to get the iRST driver to install.  Got the hibernate parition setup and could get the machine to go into the low power sleep mode.  The next problem I encountered is that the machine would not resume, it would lock up.  I figured out that turning off the TPM in the BIOS would allow the machine to resume correctly with iRST and works great that way.  However the issue for me is that we are encrypting these with bitlocker and need to have the TPM activated for that.  No matter what I try I cannot get iRST to work and resume without locking the machine up when the TPM is enabled.

Terry, is it possible to get the engineers to give some more in depth info about iRST and have they been able to activate it on a machine with an active TPM?  I have also started to wonder about the security of the hibernate state.  As I understand how it works, it will cache everything that is loaded in memory to the required hibernate partition, but that partition is not encrypted.  Would there be potential for data to be read from that parition?  All of our laptops have to be encrypted for security reasons, and I am begining to wonder if iRST would be a potential security compromise.  I don't know if iRST was designed with Enterpise level usage and security in mind so it would be nice to get some kind of official word on that.

So in summary:

TPM on = locked up on resume

TPM off = iRST works flawlessly

I'll try doing some more troubleshooting and see if I can determine anything else

I have the exactly same issue to lock up XPS 13 from the hibernate mode of iRST when TPM is enabled in BIOS. I just used Dell factory image (Win7 Ultimate) then everything's alright for the wake-up from iRST. Once turning TPM ON and activated from BIOS, the issue can be reproduced. I did not even configure BitLocker at all. I think it is a common issue even another new mother board is changed (it was tested by Dell onsite engineer for my notebook, they have no idea at all and just resend a new notebook for me again).

Please kindly clarify if it is a limitation between TPM and iRST in Dell XPS 13. I can't find any related issues for other ultrabook with TPM enabled for iRST from the discussion group except Dell.

I have mentioned the problem with iRST and TPM with engineering.  Since the XPS 13 is primarly a consumer system there wasn't a lot of testing done with TPM but I am hopeful that I will get some information for you soon. I apologize for the lack of answers here but I hope to have something for you once it becomes available.

TB

I did run across something and I wonder if this may help.

Do you have Fast Access Facial Recognition installed on the system?  If so, the program may change how the system behaves as far as going to sleep.  Try this out and see if it makes a difference.

1. Open the Fast Access interface from Start>Programs>Fast Access>Configure Fast Access.

2. Click on the Power Smart tab. Uncheck Enable Power Smart.

This may be a long shot but may help out until I hear more from engineering.

TB

It doesn't help for this case. I checked Face Access that I didn't enable it. I enabled it and found this option is disabled (Power Smart). Then I try to uninstall it. TPM + iRDT can't still wake up. I think it should be TPM chipset conflict with iRST. Can you reproduce it on your machine?

It was a longshot but I know that Fast Access can keep the system from going to sleep so I thought that I would add it.  I am still waiting for more info from engineering to see if TPM is compatible with iRST.

TB

I have just received some information from engineering.  It looks like they have found an incompatibility in the BIOS between TPM and iRST.  So you are very correct, TPM will currently keep iRST from working as it should on the XPS 13.   They are working on a BIOS update to correct this and although I don't have an ETA I hope that it will be released shortly.  I will post here as soon as I hear more on the BIOS update.

TB