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from the more-lock-in-is-just-what-we-needed dept.
FuckBeta writes:
"Guido Stepko reports - In an GOLEM interview at CEBIT 2014 fair, Frank Kuypers, technical account manager at INTEL corp., proudly presented a new feature in INTEL processors, called "hooks", beginning with the new 2014 "Merrifield" 64 bit SoC chip generation.
In the Intel network only mobiles with certain Android versions are allowed to use certain functionalities. If you then replace your Android version, e.g. by a free Cyanogenmod Android kernel, not only some chips would stop working, e.g. LTE/UMTS, but also mails from your employer would be blinded out, because now the processor itself would 'classify' the new software as 'risk'.
Now, beginning with the new 2014 power efficient mobile "Merrifield" processor generation, this functionality will be used to lock the processor for certain OS'es or OS versions. Whether there will be a SDK or use of this 'functionality' will be kept a secret, still is undecided, Kuypers said.
Ryan O'Dell sees a potential abuse of the technology: "You'll buy a computer from a shop with Windows OS and not be able to change to Linux or another OS in the future. You may be able to buy the processor unlocked for a sum. With mobile phones/tablets it can be worse with phone networks also potentially have a lock-in. It's a disaster for the consumer"
Google translation from German: (Google)
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday March 17 2014, @01:36PM
That's great to know -- I'll give them another chance, then!! (I'd not been burned by the old TD, but I knew plenty of folks who had been.) I hadn't heard a word about the death and resurrection, but that had to be the best thing that coulda happened to 'em.
Living near Los Angeles, I had such good access to parts at wholesale thru various good clone shops, that I hardly ever bothered to look at the online marketers, other than Geeks before they shut their doors to the public (they just do B2B now). Now back in Montana and... well, there ain't nothin' here, other than captive-market pricing. :(
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday March 18 2014, @07:19AM
If you are looking for a super cheap system you can't beat the AMD hexacore/mobo combos at Tiger, Mine has lasted nearly 5 years and still kicks ass to this very day. games, transcoding, hell I've burnt DVDs while transcoding AND playing a FPS and its been smooth as butter, for an upgrade that cost less than $150 as a set? You just can't beat that.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:42PM
Pretty good price, but I'm reluctant to pay money for AMDs. I'll take one if it falls on my head, but I've never been impressed with 'em outside of gaming (which I really don't do, other than DOOM -- I have a 3GHz system on an MB-800 industrial mobo with ISA slots, just for DOOM!!) AMDs run too hot, they're too sensitive to heat (I've seen fried AMDs, I've never seen a fried Intel... and I've seen Intels survive long-term with dead fans and buried in cig sludge and getting hot enough the mobo was *warped* and the bakelite was crumbly), and the AMD mobos don't seem to have the lifespan either (seen lots of deaders, while dead clone-market Intels are rare). Speaking from 10+ years as the hardware dude for the local user group -- I vetted tons [literally] of EOL'd donations, and that made it real clear what survives and what doesn't. You get a different picture at that point than from doing repairs (did that for some years too).
And AMD's errata sheet has historically been 3x the size of Intel's, meaning 3x more unfixed bugs in an average CPU. I recall one in particular because a friend spent 6 months chasing it before AMD admitted (well, one of their engineers did, the company never made good) -- what do you mean it doesn't handle a 32bit bus, WTF?? There really wasn't much excuse for that, considering at the time they were just one generation beyond building off Intel's code. More recently, AMD64 was incompatible with some common higher-end nVidia chip (I don't recall which exactly) -- locked up the moment you went above the default resolution. The fix? Replace with an AMD32, or find a lesser vidcard. (Which mightily pissed off the clone-server dealer where I watched this debacle unfold.)
TFA seems to say that Intel CPUs for one particular vendor and purpose will be locked, not that all of 'em will be locked. Considering how many wind up in server racks (which is where the real money is) with about half of those destined to run *NIX, OS locking across the board would be corporate suicide.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday March 19 2014, @06:55AM
Dude that is like saying you won't buy Intel because of the P2 division bug. The first gen Barton Athlons had a defective thermal monitor (which I've seen the exact same bug in C2D based pentiums, only reason you didn't hear more about it was they were used in low end systems with no ability to OC, but block the fan and watch 'em cook) but that was nearly half a decade ago. I frankly don't game much either but honestly you don't have to game to enjoy having 6 real cores.
As far as dead boards? Avoid MSI and Foxconn, but those boards are junk on both sides of the fence. For a good cheap board look at the Asrock or Asus boards, just remember to set the Asrock memory manually as it tends to be aggressive on its RAM timings. I've been building and selling AMDs exclusively for nearly half a decade and I haven't seen a single dead one where it wasn't killed by PEBKAC like plugging straight into an outlet and not unplugging during storms, but as long as you don't buy junk (which the junk OEMs have pretty much died out, even the cheapos use solid caps and decent traces now) an AMD will last for years and the money you save will let you have a better overall system.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday March 19 2014, @01:33PM
Didja know Foxconn makes the huge majority of odds and ends that go into any mobo? :) But yeah, their own-bran mobos have always been shit. If I have a choice I'm rather a Tyan bigot, followed by SuperMicro and perhaps iBase (http://www.ibase.com.tw/mb800.htm)
MSI's older Pentium boards were crap, but up about the P3 era they got good -- stable and durable so long as you didn't go with the cheaper models. I haven't seen their current crop... but it wouldn't surprise me if their AMD boards were lower-quality than their Intel boards; I've seen that a lot from various companies across the years (started building these buggers ~1994).
That shitty mobo in low-end eMachines was reportedly made by Asus (tho toward the end they actually got decent). And it looked like an Asus, so I tend to believe it. It's building to spec that counts, not so much brand.
I'd have to check AMD's errata sheet to see how they're really doing (assuming it's still public, which hasn't always been the case either). But LIS it's historically been 3x the length of Intel's, and that disturbs me, especially having run into unfixed major bugs in flagship products... and I mean fatal bugs you could hardly avoid tripping over with everyday OSs, not minor things most people would never notice.
Only reason I'd buy a new mobo again is cuz having moved back to the sticks, salvage isn't so readily available. I think I last bought new in 1998. At least this way I get what I pay for. ;)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by Hairyfeet on Thursday March 20 2014, @12:22AM
The way I look at it is this...if a company can't be trusted then they can't be trusted, end of story. Foxconn only makes decent shit for other people because those other people make sure there are riders in the contracts, look at how many tales of defective hardware have ben traced back to them over the years. And as for MSI? They are fucking liars that do zero QA, period. For an example they will list chips released nearly 2 years after a board has been released as compatible when THEY NEVER TESTED IT because ALL they do is look at the watts, PERIOD. You find this out soon enough when their boards say they support the i Series or FX series but you find out it'll never even post, the reason being as late Phenom II and the i Series all have turbo which requires more voltage than the stock watts and their older boards just can't give it the power.
As far as the OEMs..they are cheap, don't matter who makes 'em they penny pinch the living fuck out of 'em. Doesn't always make 'em shit, just severely limits what you can do with them but as long as you know that they are okay. The MSI and Asus boards made for HP make just fine office boxes or netboxes, just don't try to add more cores than it came with or turn it into a gaming PC and they are often adequate for your day to day tasks, they generally won't last as long as the mainstream offerings but that usually isn't much of a problem with the average lifespan of a PC being 7 years they are usually able to go 3-6 which is fine for the price.
As for the errata...unless you are doing particle simulations or other extreme number crunching (which frankly if that is the case you should be running a workstation chip anyway) then the odds of you running into one of those bugs is about the same as you winning $2500 playing a scratch off ticket, not impossible but highly unlikely. Take the Phenom I bug that was so famous, I bought a ton of those chips, never applied the patch (which would cause a 10% hit in windows) and I never actually saw the bug in action, not once. The same goes for Intel errata, the odds of you hitting the P2 bug was insanely low.
BTW true fact, the reason you saw all those burnt Athlon boxes? The first gen Athlons were able to be unlocked by pencil tracing a couple spots on the board and it was simple as hell to change a few reg settings and have Windows "lie" about which chip was in it so unscrupulous dealers would often unlock the Athlons and OC the living hell out of them so they could sell them as premium models for premium prices. I don't know how many systems I got in the shop during that period because "it was acting funny" or "it crashes a lot" only to go into BIOS and find it had as high as a 60% OC. I'd talk to the owner and sure enough they had paid as much as $1500 for a $500 system. Can't blame AMD for shitheads being shitty though and if I got to it in time before the chip was cooked I could reset the clock and they would often last for years.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.