SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don't dept.
Computerworld has just posted a story warning that you should immediately hold off installing any of Intel's Meltdown/Spectre microcode fixes.
From Belay That Order: Intel Says you Should NOT Install its Meltdown Firmware Fixes:
The warning, which encompasses just about every Intel processor out there, from all PC manufacturers, takes effect immediately. And there's no indication when it will get fixed.
You know how you're supposed to flash the BIOS or update the UEFI on all of your Intel machines, to guard against Meltdown/Spectre? Well, belay that order, private! Intel just announced that you need to hold off on all of its new patches. No, you can't uninstall them. To use the technical term, if you ran out and applied your Intel PC's latest firmware patch, you're hosed.
In what appears to be a catastrophic curtain call to the "oops" moment that I discussed ten days ago, it now seems that the bright, new firmware versions — which Intel has had six months to patch — have a nasty habit of causing "higher system reboots."
According to executive vice president Navin Shenoy, on the Intel Newsroom site, the current advice is:
We recommend that OEMs, cloud service providers, system manufacturers, software vendors and end users stop deployment of current versions, as they may introduce higher than expected reboots and other unpredictable system behavior.
And that covers just about everybody in the sentient non-ARM universe.
While the affected products site[*] doesn't list individual chips, the breadth of the recall is breathtaking — second-, third-, fourth-, fifth-, sixth-, seventh- and eighth-generation Core processors, Xeon, Atom, and lesser Core i3, i5 and i7 processors — they're all in the bin.
From Intel Root Cause of Reboot Issue Identified; Updated Guidance for Customers and Partners:
As we start the week, I want to provide an update on the reboot issues we reported Jan. 11. We have now identified the root cause for Broadwell and Haswell platforms, and made good progress in developing a solution to address it. Over the weekend, we began rolling out an early version of the updated solution to industry partners for testing, and we will make a final release available once that testing has been completed.
Based on this, we are updating our guidance for customers and partners:
- We recommend that OEMs, cloud service providers, system manufacturers, software vendors and end users stop deployment of current versions, as they may introduce higher than expected reboots and other unpredictable system behavior. For the full list of platforms, see the Intel.com Security Center site.
- We ask that our industry partners focus efforts on testing early versions of the updated solution so we can accelerate its release. We expect to share more details on timing later this week.
- We continue to urge all customers to vigilantly maintain security best practice and for consumers to keep systems up-to-date.
[*] Intel's updated security advisory lists the affected processors:
The following Intel-based platforms are impacted by this issue. Intel may modify this list at a later time. Please check with your system vendor or equipment manufacturer for more information regarding updates for your system.
- Intel® Core™ i3 processor (45nm and 32nm)
- Intel® Core™ i5 processor (45nm and 32nm)
- Intel® Core™ i7 processor (45nm and 32nm)
- Intel® Core™ M processor family (45nm and 32nm)
- 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processors
- 3rd generation Intel® Core™ processors
- 4th generation Intel® Core™ processors
- 5th generation Intel® Core™ processors
- 6th generation Intel® Core™ processors
- 7th generation Intel® Core™ processors
- 8th generation Intel® Core™ processors
- Intel® Core™ X-series Processor Family for Intel® X99 platforms
- Intel® Core™ X-series Processor Family for Intel® X299 platforms
- Intel® Xeon® processor 3400 series
- Intel® Xeon® processor 3600 series
- Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series
- Intel® Xeon® processor 5600 series
- Intel® Xeon® processor 6500 series
- Intel® Xeon® processor 7500 series
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 v2 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 v3 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 v4 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 v5 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 v6 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 v2 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 v3 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 v4 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E7 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E7 v2 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E7 v3 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor E7 v4 Family
- Intel® Xeon® Processor Scalable Family
- Intel® Xeon Phi™ Processor 3200, 5200, 7200 Series
- Intel® Atom™ Processor C Series
- Intel® Atom™ Processor E Series
- Intel® Atom™ Processor A Series
- Intel® Atom™ Processor x3 Series
- Intel® Atom™ Processor Z Series
- Intel® Celeron® Processor J Series
- Intel® Celeron® Processor N Series
- Intel® Pentium® Processor J Series
- Intel® Pentium® Processor N Series
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday January 22 2018, @10:51PM (15 children)
> What is the number of Unexpected Reboots that I am supposed to consider NORMAL when using Intel processors?
Intel hopes that you have used Windows 9x/ME a lot.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday January 22 2018, @11:22PM (9 children)
I definitely did, but have come to expect better. Who am I kidding, Windows is always screwed up. Repeat after me, The Blue Screen of Death is your friend.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @11:34PM
Wintel strikes back, now with 73% more Micro$oft Windows on any operating system.
(Score: 3, Funny) by MostCynical on Monday January 22 2018, @11:37PM (7 children)
Not *that* long ago, one place I worked referred to it as "the blue screen of coffee time"
I doubt that the local coffee place realised how much it owed windows.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Monday January 22 2018, @11:47PM (6 children)
Lucky them, that was long before IoT, they didn't use an internet-connected coffee machine, much less one running windows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Informative) by MostCynical on Tuesday January 23 2018, @12:19AM (5 children)
Looks like intel do supply affected chips for IoT devices, so some poor coffee shop may be unhappy..
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/internet-of-things/building-blocks-things.html [intel.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 23 2018, @12:40AM (4 children)
Nitpicking: BSoD was over (in the original incarnation) before IoT became, well, a thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday January 23 2018, @01:03AM (3 children)
Hey, I was back on-topic* referring to Specte/Meltdown/firmware-borked IoT devices.
*has to happen somtimes!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 23 2018, @01:16AM (2 children)
How boring; better later than sooner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Tuesday January 23 2018, @01:31AM (1 child)
https://qz.com/901823/the-easy-way-your-smart-coffee-machine-could-get-hacked-and-ruin-your-life/ [qz.com]
https://www.gemalto.com/m2m/customer-cases/iot-cloud--coffee-machine [gemalto.com]
https://getpiper.com/nespresso-joins-the-iot-with-a-connected-coffee-machine/ [getpiper.com]
Wonder if a smart cup can talk to a smart coffee machine? Add drone delivery and remove all human inteaction from your morning caffeine hit.
(Sounds horrible, but I'm sure it will appeal to some)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 23 2018, @01:49AM
Oh, so last season.
You forgot the blockchain, quantum key distribution and in-vivo CRISPR realtime editing functionalities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Monday January 22 2018, @11:46PM (1 child)
Linux users are likely to notice new reliability problems... (not to mention VMware etc)
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday January 23 2018, @02:31PM
So Intel is simply trying to even the playing field so that Linux users can experience the unexpected reboots that Windows users take for granted.
The people who rely on government handouts and refuse to work should be kicked out of congress.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @12:18AM (2 children)
Based on my experience here, the figure for normal 'unexpected reboots' of my servers would be at worst once in 200 days, as I've had Intel based servers with uptimes measured in years in the past, I'd say the normal figure would be one unexpected reboot per 700 days.
My current primary server uptimes are 38 and 42 days (new hardware installed), as one server is 'sort of 'critical (it handles offsite backups, I think that's critical, the PHB thinks backups are a waste of money...) until this clusterfuck is resolved I'll be a wee bit more paranoid wrt applying system updates to these boxes, so rather than my usual 'apply changes to the VM image of the system and see what breaks' I think it's time to clone the disk, case up one of the spare populated replacement motherboards and fire it up as a 'live' guinea pig.
As to the Win9x reference...I know what you're getting at, but I never experienced this, and I used to run both DAW and CAD software on 95 and then 98 machines and never had any BSODs or 'unexpected reboots' on them, I won't deny I've seen them happen on other 95/98 systems, but my boxes were rock-solid. Now, if we're talking unexpected reboots on Win2k, NT, Win7...(only three days ago, one Win7 box fell over and died for no good reason...other than maybe Coreldraw, the memory and CPU guzzling ass it usually is, doing something really stupid...)
ME...I've heard tell of such an OS, one so rare and shrouded in myth and legend that I've never seen a live system running it (and I've been futzing about with computers in one form or another since 1978..) mind you, it was June last year when I first actually used a real live Vista system...for 10 minutes before I trashed the disk and installed Linux on it.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday January 23 2018, @01:36AM (1 child)
I used to fix my very frequent 95 crashes using dual boot to OS2 Warp (3, then 4). OS2 was rock solid on the same HW.
Win "97" (we also had NT5.0), then Win98, were not difficult to crash at all.
It was in a home/school environment, so uptimes never exceeded a couple days (even had to power-cycle the box before burning CDs, to limit the risk of coasters).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @08:11AM
Oh, that's a given, once you actually got it to work 100% with your hardware that was..(it was the favoured OS for running a number of experimental rigs in the labs I worked in for a while, replaced mainly with Linux boxes eventually).
I suppose the difference was that my CAD and DAW boxes were, more or less, single function boxes..longest uptime I can recall for a recording session was three days, the last incarnation of the Win98 DAW box is probably still functional (it was working about 9 months ago..I fired it up for 'nostalgia') and is gathering dust up in the loft, c/w multiple milled slots in the case to allow the breakout of various cables.
My current DAW boxes are XP systems, I'm not changing that anytime soon...