[GTALUG] Skylake bug

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 09:41:11AM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> <http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/01/intel-skylake-bug-causes-pcs-to-freeze-during-complex-workloads/>
> Skylake CPUs can hang during certain computations.  Prime searching folks 
> found this.
> 
> Interesting that Intel says that new firmware can fix it.

Firmware updates have been available for all intel CPUs since the
Pentium Pro.  I think they learned the hard way on the Pentium which
did not have that feature and needed it.

> (The article reminds us that Haswell CPUs had a but in the TSX feature and 
> that the firmware fix just removed TSX.  I felt robbed because one reason 
> I bought a system with that processor was that I wanted to play with 
> TSX.))

At least by turning it off on the broken ones, it means software can
safely use it on the new ones where it is fixed.  Better than having to
declare the feature permanently broken.

-- 
Len Sorensen