Intel® Smart Connect Technology
2.0.1083.0 Hotfix 4 Release
Release Notes
February 14, 2012
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Copyright © Intel Corporation 2012
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. A more gradual battery level based back off mechanism to enable longer battery life.
9. Integration with Intel® Rapid Start Technology (if enabled on the platform) to transition to S4 (Rapid Start S4) during Extended Hours Mode.
10. 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.
Revision History
|
Date |
Revision |
Draft/Changes |
|
October
20, 2011 |
2.0.796.0 |
Initial
Release |
|
November
2, 2011 November
11, 2011 |
2.0.849.0 2.0.866.0 |
Beta
Release Beta
2 Release |
|
November
21, 2011 |
2.0.895.0 |
Beta
3 Release |
|
December
7, 2011 |
2.0.927.0 |
Pre-PC
Release |
|
December
14, 2011 |
2.0.969.0 |
PC
Release |
|
December
27, 2011 |
2.0.989.0 |
PV
Release |
|
January
10, 2012 |
2.0.1015.0 |
Hotfix
1 Release |
|
January
24, 2012 |
2.0.1051.0 |
Hotfix
2 Release |
|
February
6, 2012 |
2.0.1069.0 |
Hotfix
3 Release |
|
February
14, 2012 |
2.0.1083.0 |
Hotfix
4 Release |
Supported Operating Systems
The Intel Always Updated Software is validated on the following Microsoft operating systems.
New Features from Previous Release
|
ID |
Information |
Bugs Fixed from Previous Release
|
ID |
Information |
|
4016400 |
Setup.exe does not run with an absolute
path like 'c:\temp\1051\setup.exe', if run from any other directory |
Software Sightings and/or Known Issues
|
ID |
Information |
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 the sleep duration is set below 10
minutes, the actual sleep duration may not be the requested. This is
caused by the 10% duty cycle calculation of S0-ISCT + 20/(S3 + S0-ISCT + 20)
cannot be > 10%. The wake period is variable and depends on network
connectivity, email traffic, thermal conditions and duty cycle constraints. |
|
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 |
|
Circular 1MB 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=2” 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. |
|
Whenever Netdetect
is enabled on the platform, Rapid Start Technology is disabled on the
platform. |