Dell Latitude 3500

From ArchWiki
Hardware PCI/USB ID Working?
Touchpad Yes
Keyboard Yes
GPU 8086:3ea0 Yes
Webcam 1bcf:2b98 Yes
Ethernet 10ec:8168 Yes
Bluetooth 8087:0aaa Yes
SD-card reader 8086:9dc4 Yes
Audio 8086:9dc8 Yes
Wireless 8086:9df0 Yes
Fingerprint reader 27c6:530c Yes
TPM Untested

Installation

RAID mode is enabled by default. AHCI mode must be used, otherwise the disks will be invisible[1]. Using RAID mode will trigger a relevant log message in the journal.

Accessibility

The appearance of the BIOS is pretty simple and not very colorful, so it might work well with OCR software. However, it requires the user to use a mouse.

Note: Blind users should request the help of a sighted person to change BIOS settings

This device has a diagnostic LED which may visualize beep codes in some cases. See the "Diagnostic LED" section in the service manual for more details. The service manual also contains shortcuts which are needed to trigger certain features, such as the boot menu and settings (F12).

Firmware

fwupd does not support this device yet.

SecureBoot

The BIOS accepts .auth files.

Note: This device does not have a BIOS speaker and uses the built-in speakers instead. Beeps can be louder than expected.

Firmware data path

The BIOS stores logs and recovery images in esp/EFI/dell. Recovery images are stored in esp/EFI/dell/bios/recovery and are 14 MB in size. It appears that there will only be two images at the same time, BIOS_CUR.rcv and BIOS_PRE.rcv. Those files will be created when the BIOS was updated.

Logs

esp/EFI/dell/logs contains XML files which contain diagnostics data (SupportAssist). It appears that there will only be two logs at the same time, diags_previous.xml and diags_current.xml. Those files will be created when an error happened.

Example log (diags_previous.xml): 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <SupportAssistPrebootDiagnosticLog>
    <Schema>1.0.0</Schema>
    <LogNumber>2</LogNumber>
    <LogTimeStamp>02/05/2020 00:06:43</LogTimeStamp>
    <ePSA_Data>
      <Result>Not Reported</Result>
      <ReturnCode>BOOT_F2</ReturnCode>
      <ePSAFullVersion>2.55</ePSAFullVersion>
      <ePSAInvocationCount>2</ePSAInvocationCount>
    </ePSA_Data>
    <BIOS_Data>
      <ErrorCategory>DISPLAY_ONLY</ErrorCategory>
      <ErrorMessage><![CDATA[Time-of-day not set - please run SETUP program.
]]></ErrorMessage>
      <SOS_Available>FALSE</SOS_Available>
      <TimeOutSeconds>0</TimeOutSeconds>
    </BIOS_Data>
  </SupportAssistPrebootDiagnosticLog>

Another example log (diags_current.xml): 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <SupportAssistPrebootDiagnosticLog>
    <Schema>1.0.0</Schema>
    <LogNumber>1</LogNumber>
    <LogTimeStamp>04/17/2020 09:41:58</LogTimeStamp>
    <ePSA_Data>
      <Result>Abort</Result>
      <ReturnCode>BOOT_HOST_OS</ReturnCode>
      <DevicesTested>Memory, Hard Drive</DevicesTested>
      <ePSAFullVersion>2.51</ePSAFullVersion>
      <ePSAInvocationCount>1</ePSAInvocationCount>
    </ePSA_Data>
    <BIOS_Data>
      <ErrorCategory>NO_BOOT</ErrorCategory>
      <ErrorMessage><![CDATA[No bootable devices found.
]]></ErrorMessage>
      <Flags>BIOSCONNECT_ENABLED</Flags>
      <SOS_Available>FALSE</SOS_Available>
      <TimeOutSeconds>0</TimeOutSeconds>
    </BIOS_Data>
  </SupportAssistPrebootDiagnosticLog>

Fingerprint reader

Install libfprint-2-tod1-xps9300-binAUR.

The fingerprint reader requires a proprietary driver.[2]

Bluetooth

Bluetooth works out of the box. Append --plugin=* to bluetoothd's arguments to fix some problems with headset buttons. 

/etc/systemd/system/bluetooth.service.d/override.conf
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/lib/bluetooth/bluetoothd --plugin=*

After suspending, especially when using #Unmarked keybinds, Bluetooth may stop working. Restart bluetooth.service to fix it.

Power management

After waking up the device from suspend, input lag will occur for approximately 5-10 seconds. Sometimes it will even repeat a key press for up to 32 times but only within this timespan. There is no known fix for this.

Power buttons

Merge-arrows-2.pngThis article or section is a candidate for merging with Help:Laptop page guidelines#Capturing function keys.Merge-arrows-2.png

Notes: This section and the next one duplicate the explanation of how to capture keys. They seem to have been copied and pasted blindly on many other laptop pages since this one is cited as a reference in Help:Laptop page guidelines. (Discuss in Talk:Dell Latitude 3500)

This device has two detected power buttons and one sleep button. 

$ loginctl seat-status
├─/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXPWRBN:00/input/input3
│ input:input3 "Power Button"
├─/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0A08:00/LNXVIDEO:00/input/input6
│ input:input6 "Video Bus"
├─/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0C:00/input/input1
│ input:input1 "Power Button"
├─/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0D:00/input/input0
│ input:input0 "Lid Switch"
├─/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0C0E:00/input/input2
│ input:input2 "Sleep Button"
[...]

In this case, LNXPWRBN:00 (/dev/input/event3) is the "real", physical power button. You can verify this by inhibiting the handling of the power button 

# systemd-inhibit --what=handle-power-key sleep 1h

and recording the events: 

# stdbuf -o0 evemu-record /dev/input/event3 > event3

Pressing the power button should log an event.

The other detected power button seems to be a virtual, firmware-handled button. This power button will be triggered when your device runs out of battery. The firmware will send many power button presses, so your machine will most likely only take a few seconds to power off because systemd kills the process/unit it is waiting for when the power button is pressed.

See logind.conf(5) for more information on handling specific keys.

Sleep button

There is also a sleep button/suspend key. It is a virtual, firmware-handled key and will be triggered when using one of the #Unmarked keybinds, which would suspend your device. Use this to inhibit the handling of the suspend key. 

# systemd-inhibit --what=handle-suspend-key sleep 1h

Function keys

Key Visible?1 Marked?2 Effect
Fn+Esc No Yes Enables Fn lock
Fn+F1 Yes Yes XF86AudioMute
Fn+F2 Yes Yes XF86AudioLowerVolume
Fn+F3 Yes Yes XF86AudioRaiseVolume
Fn+F4 Yes Yes XF86AudioPrev
Fn+F5 Yes Yes XF86AudioPlay
Fn+F6 Yes Yes XF86AudioNext
Fn+F7 No No See #Unmarked keybinds
Fn+F8 Yes Yes Inputs Super+p
Fn+F9 Yes Yes XF86Search
Fn+F10 No Yes Enables/disables keyboard backlight
Fn+F11 Yes Yes XF86MonBrightnessDown
Fn+F12 Yes Yes XF86MonBrightnessUp
Fn+Print Yes3 Yes XF86RFKill, will hard-block wifi and soft-block Bluetooth. Press again to disable
Fn+Ins Yes3 No XF86Sleep, see #Unmarked keybinds
Fn+NumPad0 Yes3 No XF86Sleep, see #Unmarked keybinds
  1. The key is visible to xev and similar tools
  2. The physical key has a symbol on it, which describes its function
  3. systemd-logind handles this by default

Unmarked keybinds

There are several keybinds handled by the BIOS

Key Effect
Fn+F7 Unobtrusive mode. Has to be enabled in the BIOS in order to work. Deactivates all LEDs and turns off display and sound. Press again to disable.
Fn+Ins Suspends device. See #Sleep button. Can not be disabled/configured
Fn+NumPad0 Same as Fn+Ins[3]. May be an unintended feature

See also