On 01/12/2018 12:42 PM, Mick wrote: > On Friday, 12 January 2018 17:47:46 GMT Rich Freeman wrote: >> On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 11:23 AM, Corbin Bird <corbinb...@charter.net> > wrote: >>> On 01/11/2018 05:02 PM, Rich Freeman wrote: >>>> IMO Spectre is going to drive some microcode updates for relatively >>>> recent CPUs, compiler improvements, and some hand-tuning of >>>> particularly critical code. >>> The microcode updates pushed out for AMD by Gentoo seem to be only for : >>> Fam16h, Fam17h CPUs. >> FWIW even the 17h microcode doesn't seem to be updating on my Ryzen: >> >> dmesg | grep microco >> [ 0.989279] microcode: CPU0: patch_level=0x08001129 >> [ 0.989421] microcode: CPU1: patch_level=0x08001129 >> [ 0.989565] microcode: CPU2: patch_level=0x08001129 >> [ 0.989708] microcode: CPU3: patch_level=0x08001129 >> [ 0.989857] microcode: CPU4: patch_level=0x08001129 >> [ 0.990001] microcode: CPU5: patch_level=0x08001129 >> [ 0.990183] microcode: CPU6: patch_level=0x08001129 >> [ 0.990332] microcode: CPU7: patch_level=0x08001129 >> [ 0.990475] microcode: CPU8: patch_level=0x08001129 >> [ 0.990619] microcode: CPU9: patch_level=0x08001129 >> [ 0.990764] microcode: CPU10: patch_level=0x08001129 >> [ 0.990905] microcode: CPU11: patch_level=0x08001129 >> [ 0.991095] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.2. > My AMD: > > [ 0.025000] smpboot: CPU0: AMD A10-7850K Radeon R7, 12 Compute Cores 4C+8G > (family: 0x15, model: 0x30, stepping: 0x1) > > is similarly failing to show signs of early microcode update, as it always > did: > > $ dmesg | grep -i microcode > [ 1.348991] microcode: CPU0: patch_level=0x06003106 > [ 1.349718] microcode: CPU1: patch_level=0x06003106 > [ 1.350434] microcode: CPU2: patch_level=0x06003106 > [ 1.351158] microcode: CPU3: patch_level=0x06003106 > [ 1.351879] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.2. > > >> That said, there still isn't any AMD documentation around the >> microcode updates that I've been able to find, so I have no idea what >> the correct patch level is even supposed to be. I just know that I'm >> not getting a message about early updates. I do have linux 4.4.13 >> which includes the family 17h patch. > I'm on 4.14.12-gentoo now. > > >> The other odd thing is that a firmware update was released for my >> motherboard (ASRock AB350 Pro4) on the 10th, and if I flash it grub >> will no longer boot the linux kernel, and it is pretty slow overall, >> but it will still boot memtestx86 just fine. I figured I'd wait a few >> days and see if there is any further info on it. > No Asus MoBo firmware updates here ... but would they be even required/ > necessary for the CPU bugs?
In the old days, Windows / DOS, did not have any "microcode update loader". For those old versions of Windows / DOS, an updated BIOS was the only way to update the CPU microcode. I have seen something calling itself the "microcode update loader" in Win 7 x64. Have no idea what it is really doing. ------- The Fam16h and Fam17h microcode updates were new to Gentoo? I don't recall ever seeing them before. Corbin
