On Monday 17 January 2011 10:48:36 Mark Knecht wrote: > On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 10:10 AM, BRM <bm_witn...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > ----- 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 > > Ben, > Do you know how security on these updates is handled? Seems to me > this is an area rife for exploitation so I've been very hesitant to > use them until I understood more.
you can not not use them because alsmost all bios load the microcode automatically.
