----- Original Message ---- > I have two questions: > > 1) Do I have to enable microcode updates in the BIOS of my Crosshair > IV Formula to activate microcodes push in the CPU by the module > "microcode" ? (AMD Phenom X6 1090T)
Not sure about BIOS, but the Linux Kernel you are running will certainly need support enabled too. > 2) Does anyone know, what these microcodes do? They are fixes for... > ...what? The Intel and AMD processors are more abstract than physical now. With i486 and earlier the processors were typically hard wired; hardware "bug" fixes could not be pushed out. Intel's Pentium (and I don't know which AMD) started using micro-code to program the processor. This enabled them to push out "hardware" bug fixes for the processors. So what happens is the x86 instruction (e.g. mov ax, bx) gets translated to micro-code first, then it gets processed, and the result translated back to the expected instruction result - essentially, emulating the x86 instruction set in the processor. That's the simple version. So now when they discover a bug in the hardware they can push out a micro-code update to either fix the "hardware" (microcode) bug or work around a hardware (physical hardware) bug. Ben
