Intel® Smart Connect Technology
5.0.10.2832
Release Notes
May 02, 2014
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Notice: The Intel® Smart Connect Technology Software may
contain design defects or errors described as "known issues" which
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characterized known issues are documented in this update.
Features
1. A periodic timer to suspend and resume the platform. The time the machine is in S3 is configurable through the GUI. This sleep time is based on battery level and thermal condition as well as how long the platform is in the S0-ISCT mode.
2. Enabling/disabling periodic wake updated through the GUI (sleep duration)
3. When in S0, if there is any HID activity, the service stops suspending the platform. But once the user suspends the platform, it again begins to suspend/resume the platform until the next user input.
4. The iSCT Agent works for both lid closed/open cases unless the user has configured the lid-close result in the Control Panel for “No Action”.
5. If there is no IP connectivity after resume for a configurable interval, the platform is suspended early to save power.
6. If there is no traffic on the connected NICs, the platform is suspended early to save power.
7. PNP Driver to allow communication between BIOS and iSCT Agent. NOTE: this requires the BIOS to enable and support the iSCT ACPI Virtual Device (INT33A0) or the iSCT Agent will not run (cannot be started).
8. Integration with Intel® Rapid Start Technology (if enabled on the platform) to transition to S4 (Rapid Start S4) during Extended Hours Mode.
9. Support for Intel® Centrino Wireless NetDetect. NetDetect is enabled when no network connects (WWAN/LAN/WLAN) are available prior to the platform entering S3 unattended (non-user requested S3 transition) – see “New Features” section below for further explanation.
10. System Tray icon that provides periodic notification to the user that Intel Smart Connect Technology is installed on the platform and has not been enabled. System Tray icon provides shortcuts to the configuration GUI and new Wizard configuration utility. Wizard configuration utility allows quick configuration of ISCT settings.
11. Thermal and battery life monitor for S0-ISCT session on mobile platforms. ISCT Agent monitors the thermal and battery life every second during the session and if the thermal (CPU TjMax delta of 47) exceeds the default value or the battery life drops below 15%, the Agent asks the OS to return the platform to S3 and updates the sleep duration appropriately.
12. Extended Wake Duration (previously Extended Media Download) allows platform on AC (Desktop and Mobile with power adapter) to have longer S0-ISCT wake duration. Instead of being limited to maximum of 180 seconds on Haswell platforms and 165 seconds in IvyBridge platforms, the wake duration will instead be monitored by network heuristics. The iSCT Agent will transition the platform back to S3 if the network activity drops below 100Kbps for 10 seconds. The sleep and wake duration are further simplified on Haswell platforms. No battery and duty cycle rules are used for sleep duration calculation on Haswell platforms. For mobile platforms on battery power, the Normal Wake Duration (limited to maximum of 180 seconds for Haswell platforms and 165 seconds for IvyBridge platforms) is employed. Agent also monitors thermal and battery life (for mobile platforms) during Extended Wake Duration and if thresholds are exceeded, the Agent asks the OS to return the platform to S3 and updates the sleep duration appropriately.
The Extended Wake Duration works as follows:
· Upon wake of the platform and entering of the S0-ISCT state, the ISCT Agent on a mobile platform will check the AC/Battery indicator. If the platform is on AC, the Agent will then call the GPCS ACPI Control Method and if the method is implemented or the platform is a Desktop platform (set in the SMBIOS table), the Agent will then call the SAOS ACPI Control Method with a value of 0x3 (011b) to requested Extended Wake Duration. If the BIOS returns via the GAOS ACPI Control Method a value of 0x3 (011b), then the Agent will use the Extended Wake Duration. If the BIOS returns 0x1, then Agent will use Normal Wake Duration. The notification via SAOS allows the BIOS to determine if Extended Wake Duration can be supported for this instance of the S0-ISCT state. Additionally it allows the BIOS to implement thermal monitoring of its own to allow longer Extended Wake Duration in addition to the ISCT Agent’s thermal monitoring. This allows the BIOS to turn the fans on to a very low speed if the thermal temperature rises and possibly resulting in a shorter Extended Wake Duration. Having the fans off during the initial entry into S0-ISCT is still required, but allowed if thermal conditions begin rising.
· After IP detection, the ISCT Agent waits 10 seconds before checking for network activity reduction on email ports (Exchange, POP3 and IMAP). Once the network activity subsides for email, then the ISCT Agent waits 10 seconds and checks the network activity on all ports. If the network activity is above 100Kbps, the agent will then check every 10 seconds to see if the network activity is above 100Kbps. If the activity falls below this threshold, the ISCT Agent transitions the platform back to S3.
NOTE: Extended Wake Duration Notification feature is only available if the BIOS implement the GPCS ACPI Control Method and the Extended Mode bits for GAOS (bit 1). This ACPI Control Methods documented in the Intel® Smart Connect Technology 4.0 Platform Design Specification (Section 4). If the BIOS do not implement these methods, then Extended Wake Duration is used and the duration may be limited by thermal conditions.
13. HID activity is ignored if lid is closed on mobile platform and no external monitor connected. If the GPCS ACPI Control Method indicates the Lid State on mobile platforms to be closed, the ISCT Agent determines that no external monitor is connected; the ISCT Agent will ignore HID events and not transition the platform from S0-ISCT to S0. If the lid is closed (and reported by GPCS) and an external monitor is connected, then the ISCT Agent upon detection of a HID event, will transition form S0-ISCT to S0.
14. Support for Enterprise (platform belongs to domain). When the platform is connected to a domain and a VPN connection is detected, an extra 10 seconds is given for the VPN connection to complete.
15. Microsoft* Outlook* (2007, 2010, 2013) Enhanced support via integration of Microsoft* Office SDK for Outlook synchronization when outlook.exe is running. For Exchange servers (enterprise mode) Outlook is allowed 20 seconds to connect.
16. Dashboard for information about the last periodic wake and data transferred
17. Troubleshooting application to assist in resolving content update issues reported by ISCT
Supported Operating Systems
The Intel® Smart Connect Technology is validated on the following Microsoft* operating systems:
New Features from
Previous Versions
·
Periodic Wake from S4 (hibernate)
·
Full Disk Encryption detection and subsequent
actions (disabling S4 wake)
·
Proxy Detection and disabling of remote wake
in enterprise environments
Note:
Remote Wake is not
working with "Wake on WLAN" option disabled in BIOS on PV board. This
issue will NOT be fixed as per a decision made by the engineering team. Please
see the link below for more details:
5248202:
BDW ULX: iSCT RW is not working with "Wake on
WLAN" option disabled in BIOS on PV board
Bugs Fixed from Previous
Release
4635712
- SCT return error return code 8 after reboot after installation
4635718
- "Learn more about Intel Smart Connect Technology" cannot be opened.
Software Sightings and/or Known Issues
|
ID |
Information |
|
High
Number of Wakes due to WoWLAN Bit Pattern |
|
|
"KA
Connection Terminated" KA server close TCP connection not due to
"KA Periodic Cleanup" |
|
|
FHC
II: pnpExerciser Returns “Internal Error occurred”
setting “iSCT Function Status” |
|
|
WiFi
16.8 - waking up by “WoWLANLinkLossAPDeauth” during
RW @S3 [MWG100187721] |
|
|
FHC2:
Media Download event doesn't meet expectations during S0_isct on AC power
mode |
|
|
FHC2:
Power button functionality during S0_iSCT |
|
|
Intel
Wake Agent doesn't schedule a wake before the DHCP lease expires |
|
|
16.7
TIC 685 - BugCheck 133; a prolonged run time at an
IRQL of DISPATCH_LEVEL |
|
|
16.7
TIC 685 Woke up by 0xc (WOWLANServerLinkLoss) 77% |
|
|
Silent
Install fails on some languages |
Languages Supported
|
Language |
Code |
|
Arabic ar |
ar-SA |
|
Bulgarian bg |
bg-BG |
|
Chinese zh-Hans
(Simplified) |
zh-CN |
|
Chinese zh-Hant
(Traditional) |
zh-TW |
|
Croatian hr |
hr-HR |
|
Czech cs |
cs-CZ |
|
Danish da |
da-DK |
|
Dutch nl |
nl-NL |
|
English en |
en-US |
|
Estonian et-EE |
et-EE |
|
Finnish fi |
fi-FI |
|
French fr |
fr-FR |
|
French fr-CA
(Canadian) |
fr-CA |
|
German de |
de-DE |
|
Greek el |
el-GR |
|
Hebrew he |
he-IL |
|
Hungarian hu |
hu-HU |
|
Italian it |
it-IT |
|
Japanese ja |
ja-JP |
|
Korean ko |
ko-KR |
|
Latvian lv |
lv-LV |
|
Lithuanian lt-LT |
lt-LT |
|
Norwegian no |
nb-NO |
|
Polish pl |
pl-PL |
|
Portuguese pt-BR
(Brazil) |
pt-BR |
|
Portuguese pt-PT
(Portugal) |
pt-PT |
|
Romanian ro |
ro-RO |
|
Russian ru |
ru-RU |
|
Serbian sr |
sr-Latn-CS |
|
Slovakian sk |
sk-SK |
|
Slovenian sl |
sl-SI |
|
Spanish es |
es-ES |
|
Swedish sv |
sv-SE |
|
Thai th |
th-TH |
|
Turkish tr |
tr-TR |
Usage Notes
|
Information |
|
To prevent un-intentional connections using prepaid or metered connections (e.g., iPass), users need to shut down such applications before putting the machine into sleep(S3) mode if they do not want Intel Smart Connect Technology to use metered connections in unattended mode. |
|
All applications including instant messaging or location-based software can potentially be active in unattended S0 mode. Users should shut down any applications they don’t want running in unattended mode before putting the machine into sleep (S3) mode. |
|
Users should disable Intel Smart Connect Technology periodic wake before boarding planes to prevent systems powering on in unattended mode. |
|
When NetDetect is enabled, the first
scan in Sx by the NetDetect FW will occur after a
period of time equal to the current sleep duration set in the GUI. This
is called “initial hold-off time”. Once that time has elapsed, the
NetDetect FW will do the first scan for AP’s and if none found, will perform
additional scans every 2 minutes. |
|
The current setting of the “Enable
Updating” and “Disable Updating” button will not change if the “Reset All to
Defaults” button is pressed. This is to maintain the current setting of
the periodic wake enablement. |
|
To prevent race conditions with the
OS in restoring the audio setting, a small delay of 2 seconds (2000 ms) is
used before the Agent restores the audio settings. If the delay period needs
to be adjusted, please add a DWORD registry entry “AudioDelayMilliSeconds”
and set the requested value in milliseconds (e.g. 3000) appropriately for the
audio devices. See the Registry Settings section of the Intel® Smart
Connect Technology Platform Design Specification for more information on
modifying registry values. |
|
If suspend (go to S3) is initiated by
the user, the iSCT Agent will enable periodic wake regardless of network
connect status (connected or not connected). If suspend is issued by
iSCT Agent, then NetDetect will be enabled (if NetDetect supported Intel®
Centrino Wireless Network card present) if no network (WWAN/LAN/WLAN)
connection is available. Not enabling Netdetect on the user transition
to S3 is due to OS constraints. Sometimes when iSCT agent enables Netdetect
in Intel Centrino wireless Lan driver, the driver may be scanning due to OS
initiated scan and since NDIS serializes the oids,
it can take longer than 2 seconds. Windows only allows 2 seconds for
applications to exit and validation revealed that a large percentage of the
time NetDetect was not enabled upon entering S3, for user initiated/activity
timeout suspend operations. |
|
WoWLAN
(Wireless Wake On LAN) is enabled in the Intel® Centrino Wireless Network
driver for NetDetect support. Note this enabling is to allow the OS to
clear the PME WAKE indicator in the PCH. It does not allow magic packet
wakes. Contact Intel WLAN AE for more information on how to enable WoWLAN concurrently with NetDetect. |
|
Circular 5MB log file are now created
in the directory: C:\ProgramData\Intel\iSCT. Note this is a hidden
directory. By default the same messages that appear in the Windows
Event Log are stored in the log file directory. For additional logging,
the registry settings of “LoggingLevel=16” and “LoggingEnabled=7” need to be set in the iSCT Registry
Key. See the Setup&Configuration Guide
for more information on registry settings for iSCT. |
|
When the platform wakes from S3 to S0-ISCT,
any application is given a chance to run. Applications like back-up
applications may block the iSCT Agent from going back to S3 until they have
completed. |
|
To enable co-existence of NetDetect
and Rapid Start, the following registry settings are required: ·
HKLM\Software\Intel\Intel Smart Connect Technology\OEM\NDFFSCoExist = 1 ·
HKLM\Software\Intel\Intel Smart Connect Technology\OEM\NetDetectPref = 1 Additionally you will need the Rapid
Start v1.5 (or later) BIOS reference code integrated into your BIOS for the
co-existence to work |
|
The System Tray icon will display a
balloon reminder the third time the system is booted and Smart Connect
Technology is not enabled. Unless the user invokes the GUI or wizard,
the balloon reminder will occur every 3rd boot or login by a
user. The user may tell the balloon reminder to never remind them or
remind them at a later date (2 weeks). |
|
A valid internet connection
(connection to external network) is required for Periodic Wake. An IP
associated with no external connection is not supported. |
|
It is recommended the BIOS create an
ACPI pseudo device _CID object with a value of PNP0C02 under ACPI device tree
“\_SB.IAOE”. Typically OS will use _HID to locate the matching device driver.
If no matching device driver is found, it will use _CID to locate the
compatible device driver. Since PNP0C02 is pointed to Motherboard
Resources, OS will install the default device drive for the device using the
setup file machine.inf. |