KVR Audio

Zombie Queen · Post by **Zombie Queen** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 7:29 pm

Spectre attack check:
http://xlab.tencent.com/special/spectre ... check.html

I'm on un-patched Windows and not-updated Firefox. Result: not vulnerable. Hmmm....

jdnz · Post by **jdnz** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 8:30 pm

Zombie Queen wrote:I'm not gonna touch firmware.

if you’re running a haswell or broadwell cpu it’s even worse - looks like the updated anti-spectre firmware is buggy and causing more issues than it fixes!

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3 ... stems.html

jdnz · Post by **jdnz** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 8:34 pm

Zero dB wrote:Thanks jdnz. I had a go with this but it's a little beyond my knowledge - I can't make out what it all actually means! Here's a screengrab: https://imgur.com/a/hrrhY

Any idea what this means?

Thanks again.

that indicates you HAVE correctly disabled both the spectre and meltdown mitigations (BTIWindowsSupportEnabled=FALSE and KVAShadowWindowsSupportEnabled=FALSE)

so your speed should be back to where it was - unless microsoft have done something silly in the updated BIOS which even without the BTI mitigations active is wrecking performance (entirely possible given the trainwreck that is the new broadwell/haswell microcode)

Zombie Queen · Post by **Zombie Queen** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 9:12 pm

jdnz wrote:if you’re running a haswell or broadwell cpu it’s even worse....

I've seen reports on Woody's. It getting more and more embarrassing for Intel, and it looks like it's dragging Microsoft with it. Time to relax, grab some popcorn and see how it unrolls.

jdnz · Post by **jdnz** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 2:04 am

Zombie Queen wrote:
jdnz wrote:if you’re running a haswell or broadwell cpu it’s even worse....
I've seen reports on Woody's. It getting more and more embarrassing for Intel, and it looks like it's dragging Microsoft with it. Time to relax, grab some popcorn and see how it unrolls.

my current daw pc is an i7-4770 - it’s just over 4 years old so I did contemplate building a new machine with an 8 series cpu, but now I’m gonna wait for the 9 series in the hope that by then intel MIGHT have got things together (other possibility is it goes bankrupt from all the lawsuits/class actions)

right now the cure is definitely worse than ‘risk’ of running unprotected

Zero dB · Post by **Zero dB** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 2:16 am

jdnz wrote:
Zero dB wrote:Thanks jdnz. I had a go with this but it's a little beyond my knowledge - I can't make out what it all actually means! Here's a screengrab: https://imgur.com/a/hrrhY

Any idea what this means?

Thanks again.
that indicates you HAVE correctly disabled both the spectre and meltdown mitigations (BTIWindowsSupportEnabled=FALSE and KVAShadowWindowsSupportEnabled=FALSE)

so your speed should be back to where it was - unless microsoft have done something silly in the updated BIOS which even without the BTI mitigations active is wrecking performance (entirely possible given the trainwreck that is the new broadwell/haswell microcode)

Thanks for the info. That IS super weird as the performance has definitely be decimated since I ran the patches and I notice no improvement whatsoever having tried to undo with the registry. Something does seem to be very rotten here - seems something awry with the BIOS update (undone from a protection point of a view but not a performance point of view?!).

Fingers crossed they patch the, erm, patches...

ZdB

aciddose · Post by **aciddose** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 7:14 am

Here in the tech industry we only hire talent under 30 because well, experience is expensive.

PapaLazarou · Post by **PapaLazarou** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 2:24 pm

Can anyone confirm how the Haswell microcode updates are being distributed? Is it through Windows/Linux updates, or via manual BIOS updates?

I have a Haswell system, currently doing duty as a spare. The motherboard manufacturer has not released a new BIOS since all this blew up.

gnu23 · Post by **gnu23** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 2:54 pm

Zombie Queen wrote:Spectre attack check:
http://xlab.tencent.com/special/spectre ... check.html

I'm on un-patched Windows and not-updated Firefox. Result: not vulnerable. Hmmm....

I'm not sure I'd trust an "attack check" from Tencent..

jdnz · Post by **jdnz** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 7:11 pm

PapaLazarou wrote:Can anyone confirm how the Haswell microcode updates are being distributed? Is it through Windows/Linux updates, or via manual BIOS updates?

only via BIOS updates (via the system vendor)

HP is being pretty good about it’s business machines and some consumer oriented motherboard makers are on to it (ASUS), but Gigabyte are shockers - basically only updated BIOS for intel 1xx series boards and later

for my h87 gigabyte board I’ll have to build a custom bios with the new microcode, which is always somewhat fraught

PapaLazarou · Post by **PapaLazarou** » Sun Jan 14, 2018 9:14 pm

Thanks jdnz. Yes I've actually got a Gigabyte and MSI Z97 boards here, neither have released any updates yet. Not that I really want the microcode update if it's causing problems.

for my h87 gigabyte board I’ll have to build a custom bios with the new microcode, which is always somewhat fraught

Sounds a bit advanced and scary

I did some digging myself and found this - https://downloadcenter.intel.com/downlo ... -Data-File - of any interest? Also - https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums ... ?p=4420456 Seems you can update it via Linux at least.

jdnz · Post by **jdnz** » Mon Jan 15, 2018 1:12 am

PapaLazarou wrote:I did some digging myself and found this - https://downloadcenter.intel.com/downlo ... -Data-File - of any interest? Also - https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums ... ?p=4420456 Seems you can update it via Linux at least.

on linux you can d/l the updated microcode during boot, on windows it HAS to be updated in BIOS so it's available whilst booting

PapaLazarou · Post by **PapaLazarou** » Mon Jan 15, 2018 8:59 am

I see. Thanks. I think that was something I was misunderstanding about these updates - nothing is updated on the processor itself, correct? It's not like a "firmware" update exactly. If I moved a CPU from a system with a microcode update applied in BIOS to another system which didn't have that update applied, the CPU would revert to it's pre-update behaviour presumably?

Patrice Brousseau · Post by **Patrice Brousseau** » Mon Jan 15, 2018 5:02 pm

You can update the microcode yourself in the BIOS but I'll wait as the 23h for Haswell looks buggy...

MFXxx · Post by **MFXxx** » Mon Jan 15, 2018 9:12 pm

Fwiw uplate bios to 1004 on the Asus x299a board with 7820x cpu. The Intel checker still reports system as vulnerable. So no idea what's going on?

'Kernel memory leaking' Intel processor -- a serious cpu bug!?!