SPECTRE and MELTDOWN: Bug rocks Intel / ARM CPUs

[segfaulted]

Kinda glad I bought AMD this round. For those who don't know there is a new bug affecting just about every SKU from Intel made in the last .. ohh.. _DECADE_ or so. It's actually worse then F00F or FDIV. Only mitigation appears to castrate the CPU upward of 30%! (depending on processes).

Can Asus confirm AMD and more importantly for me, this or any AMD motherboard are not affected? If so, will there be RMAs?

Fun fact, Intel's CEO dumped stock back in November before they started issuing gags on people from even talking about it.

*****ASUS advisory page(may get updated): https://www.asus.com/News/V5urzYAT6myCC1o2 ******

[mscaf]

My Z97 Mark S purchased in early 2015 has a FIVE YEAR warranty.

I expect a fix, or I will see them in small claims court.

[Brighttail]

mscaf wrote:
My Z97 Mark S purchased in early 2015 has a FIVE YEAR warranty.

I expect a fix, or I will see them in small claims court.

LOL good luck with that. Without going into the fact that small claims probably lacks the jurisdiction of a lawsuit in this matter, the five year warranty is LIMITED. Meaning it is limited to issues that are basically Asus' fault.

This is an Intel debacle not Asus. I would be very surprised if they have a legal obligation to do anything. A company could point you to Intel's microcode release and relevant websites for users to fix themselves. I'm in NO way suggesting that Asus will do this as it would be bad business, but I think some folks need to take a step or two backwards and be a little more realistic. Yes this is something that Intel and certain manufacturers have known about for a while, but the code to FIX the issue (or at least make it more secure) has to come from Intel, NOT Asus. Asus then has to take that code and actually test it on all those motherboards they have listed to see if anything breaks because they put in the new code. To see how much things slow down and if there are other tweaks they can make to make the BIOS update better. A BIOS update does no one any good if, like in some cases reported by Apple, the fix suddenly prevents a person from booting into Windows.

[firefox2026]

well got home and my girlfriend's AMD machine wouldn't load anymore.. Then later I found this on the web below about the patch being pulled.. What a mess this is turning out to be and I wonder how many people don't even know they need the BIOS updated.

http://bgr.com/2018/01/09/microsoft-meltdown-spectre-patches-amd-bricking-pcs/

[raximus21]

firefox2026 wrote:
well got home and my girlfriend's AMD machine wouldn't load anymore.. Then later I found this on the web below about the patch being pulled.. What a mess this is turning out to be and I wonder how many people don't even know they need the BIOS updated.

http://bgr.com/2018/01/09/microsoft-meltdown-spectre-patches-amd-bricking-pcs/

MS said:

Explaining why the patches had caused certain AMD PCs to crash, Microsoft said that it had "determined that some AMD chipsets do not conform to the documentation previously provided to Microsoft to develop the Windows operating system mitigations to protect against the chipset vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown".

Personally I think they probably "fudged" the data to MS because they don't want to admit they have a vulnerability to spectre as well. :rolleyes:

[raximus21]

mscaf wrote:
My Z97 Mark S purchased in early 2015 has a FIVE YEAR warranty.

I expect a fix, or I will see them in small claims court.

:cool: :cool: :cool:

Brighttail wrote:
LOL good luck with that. Without going into the fact that small claims probably lacks the jurisdiction of a lawsuit in this matter, the five year warranty is LIMITED. Meaning it is limited to issues that are basically Asus' fault.

This is an Intel debacle not Asus. I would be very surprised if they have a legal obligation to do anything. A company could point you to Intel's microcode release and relevant websites for users to fix themselves. I'm in NO way suggesting that Asus will do this as it would be bad business, but I think some folks need to take a step or two backwards and be a little more realistic. Yes this is something that Intel and certain manufacturers have known about for a while, but the code to FIX the issue (or at least make it more secure) has to come from Intel, NOT Asus. Asus then has to take that code and actually test it on all those motherboards they have listed to see if anything breaks because they put in the new code. To see how much things slow down and if there are other tweaks they can make to make the BIOS update better. A BIOS update does no one any good if, like in some cases reported by Apple, the fix suddenly prevents a person from booting into Windows.

Again you are right, it's going to take a good while to test the bios updates and make sure all of the "latest" mb are ok before they can realistically have a look at the 3 years plus older hardware. That's perfectly understandable, I just really hope they let us know they're "working on it" for us z97 owners at some point.

[restsugavan]

raximus21 wrote:
That's a shame. I've been a loyal Asus customer for over ten years now with three Asus builds.

I'm not getting any responses via social media either.

Pretty weak customer support IMO. :mad:

Hello all. There are lastest Intel ME Firmware 11.11.50.1436 for x299 platform release today. My friends from Intel staff said " This is official ME firmware from us for whole x299 platform ". I think R6E BIOS 1102x64 may use this. So waiting a few days from here there will be good news from ASUS in case of Intel SA-00086.

[pagefault]

I think you guys need to chill out. I am a Z97 owner as well, they are going to fix all the newer stuff first then they will most likely fix the older stuff because there are tons of us. You just need to be patient because all of this crap still needs to be tested and validated before release.

If Asus doesn't release anything i'd be disappointed but there are ways to update it yourself as a last resort so I wouldn't worry too much about it. An official fix is always welcome though.

Just be patient.

[xeromist]

raximus21 wrote:
Thank you for the response on this subject.

@xeromist

What is the best way to ask Asus for help on this topic? Social media? On the forums? Is there some kind of email address that I can contact with my concerns? I want them to know there are people with Z97 boards that want the security update for this issue. Thanks again.

Well, as to the forums anyway you can see who has read a thread by looking at the usernames at the bottom of the page. ASUS people have read this thread so they know there are people with older models that want a fix. ASUS may not have decided anything yet but are just working through various models & chipsets. Hence no ASUS person has posted a definitive yes or no because they don't know either. I'd hesitate to trust that single phone representative saying your board is too old. That could just be a personal assumption on their part rather than an official decision.

Anyway, yeah it couldn't hurt to post on social media and to call ASUS support. Just try to be calm when doing so. As someone who used to work phone support I tried extra hard to help nice people but angry/mean people got the bare minimum of help.

[raximus21]

xeromist wrote:
Well, as to the forums anyway you can see who has read a thread by looking at the usernames at the bottom of the page. ASUS people have read this thread so they know there are people with older models that want a fix. ASUS may not have decided anything yet but are just working through various models & chipsets. Hence no ASUS person has posted a definitive yes or no because they don't know either. I'd hesitate to trust that single phone representative saying your board is too old. That could just be a personal assumption on their part rather than an official decision.

Anyway, yeah it couldn't hurt to post on social media and to call ASUS support. Just try to be calm when doing so. As someone who used to work phone support I tried extra hard to help nice people but angry/mean people got the bare minimum of help.

Thank you! 🙂

This is the most helpful thing I've read so far. I will take this advice and remain hopeful but still vocal, but make every attempt to tone it down and remain calm since I now know the current situation (for older models) is at least on the Asus radar.

[RamGuy]

Tried the VMWare Driver route again on my Server running E3-1275v2 and its still the same with the 20180108 release. The cpumcupdater still claims "No CPUs needed an update. Your system might not need this driver." according to the EventViewer.