Re: Description of the Intel CPU bugs

[Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu]

On Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:05:04 CDT, Gadi Evron said:

> These patches in most cases would be work-arounds for
> stability/replacement functionality. They can be bypassed. This is a
> real patch, band-aid like. Or am I wrong?

All the patch does is upload the microcode if your BIOS hasn't already.

So, for example, my laptop has a T7200 in it - one of the affected chipsets. At
BIOS release A04, the BIOS would upload the then-current release into the CPU,
which didn't address the problem.  

If I then install the Microsoft patch (or more likely, update the Linux
microcode_ctl to include Intel's April 27 microcode update), the system will
boot, the BIOS would upgrade the microcode with an older update, and then
microcode_ctl would load *newer* code.

Then I update to Dell's A06 BIOS released May 7, which included the April 27
microcode.  At boot, the BIOS would load that release, and then when the MS
patch or microcode_ctl run, it would say "Oh, that one's already loaded". (and
in fact, that's what my laptop is doing at the moment...)

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