Intel® Smart Connect Technology
4.2.40.2418
Release Notes

August 9, 2013


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Notice: The Intel® Smart Connect Technology Software may contain design defects or errors described as "known issues" which may cause the product to deviate from expected performance. Current 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 HSW platforms and 165 seconds in IVB 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 HSW platforms. No battery and duty cycle rules are used for sleep duration calculation on HSW platforms. For mobile platforms on battery power, the Normal Wake Duration (limited to maximum of 180 seconds for HSW platforms and 165 seconds for IVB 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

ID

Information

4017961

Platform check for Connected Standby and error message “Intel® Smart Connect Technology is not compatible with the currently installed configuration of the OS

N/A

WHCK for Win8.1 release

Bugs Fixed from Previous Release

ID

Information

4017955

Remote Targeted Wake does not work over WLAN

N/A

Added Counters for number of events sent to Remote Wake Applications

N/A

Fixed issues when in Remote Wake eventloop to call NIC selection when retry timer expires

 

Software Sightings and/or Known Issues

ID

Information

4017784

Intel Wake Agent does not schedule a wake before the DHCP lease expires

4017896

“error message:outlook synchronizer has stopped working” popup in S0_ISCT state

4017840

“KA Connection Terminated” KA service close TCP connection not due to “KA Periodic Cleanup”

4017763

The DUT did not wake up after “KA Connection Terminated”

4017945

WP2/WP1 WLAN Driver 16.1.1 waking the system via NetDetect after 2-3 minutes instead of waiting the full timer value.

4017944

Intel® Smart Connect device is still in Device manager even after iSCT uninstalled

4017780

WP2/WP1 WLAN Driver 16.1.1 not connecting to AP  for ~40 seconds during NetDetect wake and arming NetDetect many times in a row.

 

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.