ASUS WMI Fix Submitted For Linux 6.12-rc5 To Handle Lunar Lake Performance Issue

Submitted today were a set of x86 platform driver fixes for merging ahead of the Linux 6.12-rc5 release due out on Sunday. For the most part mostly mundane fixes. But notable is an ASUS WMI fix to address the Core Ultra 200V "Lunar Lake" performance issue I've pointed out now in several articles.

Last week I outlined the Intel Posts Patch For Fixing/Boosting Lunar Lake Linux Performance On ASUS Laptops. After finding poor performance of Lunar Lake on an ASUS laptop at launch, Intel investigated and attributed it to the lack of proper ASUS Intelligent Performance Technology (AIPT) handling that led to the Lunar Lake laptop being stuck in the "whisper" mode at launch rather than the "standard" mode used by default on Windows 11.

Intel prepared an AIPT patch addition for that and the performance indeed improved. But while that AIPT patch for ASUS WMI was being reviewed, it was discovered earlier during Linux 6.12 that some similar functionality was worked on for ASUS Vivobook laptops. Now for Linux 6.12-rc5 is a fix for thermal profile initialization.

When support for vivobook fan profiles was added, the initial call to throttle_thermal_policy_set_default() was removed, which however is necessary for full initialization.

Fix this by calling throttle_thermal_policy_set_default() again when setting up the platform profile.

Fixes: bcbfcebda2cb ("platform/x86: asus-wmi: add support for vivobook fan profiles")
Reported-by: Michael Larabel
Closes: https://www.phoronix.com/review/lunar-lake-xe2/5
Signed-off-by: Armin Wolf

More details in the patch.

With that thermal profile initialization fix, the problem is addressed that way rather than the other AIPT patch. I haven't had a chance to confirm yet this works out in my case but the developers seem confident and the patch now queued ahead of Linux 6.12-rc5. If all goes well it will achieve the same effect for a ~22% boost to the Lunar Lake Linux performance for the ASUS Zenbook S 14 and friends. I'll get around to testing the new kernel code in the next day or two.

See this pull request for the ASUS WMI fix and other x86 platform driver fixes for the week.