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 ******

[Silent_Scone]

Nopitch wrote:
Hi,

I have a 5930k and the Rampage V extreme first version, when i check the list of updated BIOS i can't see my motherboard. Does it means that i will never have the spectre vulnerability mitigated on my system ?

There are 3rd party utilities available that are able to update the ucode without the need to flash the BIOS. However, I would strongly recommend waiting for a BIOS revision containing the updated ucode.

[Nixon2992]

Nopitch wrote:
Hi,

I have a 5930k and the Rampage V extreme first version, when i check the list of updated BIOS i can't see my motherboard. Does it means that i will never have the spectre vulnerability mitigated on my system ?

Never have spectre vulnerability mitigated update potentially all Intel PreWestmare CPUs.
Apart from need update all KMDF device drivers(PCI-E devices, AHCI/NVME controllers, USB Hub devices,chipset comments,SuperIO devices , Network devices (LAN/WLAN/Fibre/Optical) and then firmware for desscrease penalty from VA Shadowing/Spectre vulnerability mitigate.

[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.

[ELIESEH]

Hello all
There will be a *ME firmware + Interface Update for the x99??
I don’t understand what is this? Other update security than a bios update? I am so confused 樂*
*https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?99217-How-to-Patch-Meltdown-and-Spectre

[Boostland]

I did some tests using realbench and found that the patch made my AMD systems slightly faster.

The only intel systems I have are E5300 (OC@3.1G) desktop and P9600 & T6600 laptops to test with and from tests they are taking massive performance hits with kb4056892 installed on the "Image Editing" "Encoding" & "Heavy Multitasking" tests, OpenCL seems to be unaffected.

There has been talk on the ROG forums about possible slow downs for image & video editing / rendering.

My AMD Phenom II x4 840 & FX8350 systems are actually slightly faster post kb4056892.
P9600 15% slower "Image Editing" & 3% slower "Encoding"compared to Pre kb4056892
E5300 (OC@3.1G) 18% slower "Image Editing", 32% slower "Encoding" & "Heavy Multitasking" 31% slower compared to Pre kb4056892

It's kind of interesting to see that I got around 30% less performance in some tests so that 30% figure touted might have been based in reality.

Also I have noticed my P9600 laptop seems to be unstable since the patch as it has shutdown / rebooted and had explorer crashes, remove the patch and it's stable again.

There are some registry settings that can disable the patch apparently I have not retested as yet with it disabled by registry.

[ELIESEH]

conclusion:

do not update the BIOS.
we need a new CPU architecture to fix spectre and meltdown issue completely without loosing performance.
even with the new BIOS, there is no 100% protection against spectre and the disadvantage is the loosing of big performance.

*https://wccftech.com/intel-hardware-changes-new-cpus-fix-meltdown-spectre-2018

if Asus release bios update (1901) for x99 or not, I don’t care, i will not update, i will stay with bios 1701 , even with bios 1801 i lost 30% memory bandwidth .*

[alligator69]

Ok, so you're not happy with your flawed Intel CPU for which you paid top $$$?
No problem!
Intel has the perfect solution: buy a new one, fool!

https://wccftech.com/intel-hardware-changes-new-cpus-fix-meltdown-spectre-2018/

In the meantime, what about all the CPUs you've been selling for the past 20years, Intel?
When do I get my refund?
Where are the lawyers?

[ELIESEH]

alligator69 wrote:
Ok, so you're not happy with your flawed Intel CPU for which you paid top $$$?
No problem!
Intel has the perfect solution: buy a new one, fool!

https://wccftech.com/intel-hardware-changes-new-cpus-fix-meltdown-spectre-2018/

In the meantime, what about all the CPUs you've been selling for the past 20years, Intel?
When do I get my refund?
Where are the lawyers?

because we are living in a miserable world.
I am sure all this propaganda has a purpose of making tonssss of $$$
*

[zvober]

(regarding comment nr. 152: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1653456)

Received Tue, Apr 17, 2018 from Asus Support:

Dear Asus Valued Customer,
Regarding the below described case, we kindly inform you that the responsible department of our HQ is informed about this issue and currently examining the possibility of a new BIOS release update.
Furthermore, we would like to inform you that at the moment, Asus officially will release vulnerability fixes only for 6th, 7th and 8th generation processors.
We invite you to check Asus website periodically in order for new BIOS update releases and latest information about the subject.

https://www.asus.com/News/YQ3Cr4OYKdZTwnQK
https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1034979

Furthermore, we kindly inform you that we do not have any further information regarding the possibility of new BIOS update release containing a fix/patch for ELAN touchpad and we would also like to inform you that your product has not been officially tested by Asus with any OS other than Windows OS.
In case you are not satisfied by our reply above, please inform us accordingly before filling the satisfaction form.
In case you are satisfied by our reply above, we invite you to select 9 or 10 as a positive evaluation.
Should you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to get back in touch with us.

[R5Eandme]

I have an old BIOS (3701) on the R5E that pre-dates the announcement of Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. A year ago GRC InSpectre found that I was vulnerable to Spectre, which requires a cpu microcode update. I was surprised to find recently that InSpectre reports that I am now protected against BOTH Meltdown and Spectre (don't know which Spectre variants)





I know that Windows Updates have provided new cpu microcode to mitigate against both Spectre and Meltdown. Some on this thread has said the BIOS should be updated anyway because Windows OS loads the microcode on each boot in volatile memory. Is that true? I had thought that the OS can in fact re-flash parts of BIOS, and InSpectre reports that the hardware has been updated. Just curious about this. If Windows updates have in fact re-flashed parts of the BIOS, then re-flashing with an older BIOS (e.g. 3902) will wipe out the microcode mitigations that Windows updates have done. With Spectre we are up to at least 4 vulnerability variants and more being discovered, so I am thinking that relying on Windows updates will be more current than flashing with old BIOS images. Any thoughts?

Of interest, here are Windows documents titled "Windows UEFI firmware update platform" and "Updating Device Firmware using Windows Update"

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/bringup/windows-uefi-firmware-update-platf...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/install/updating-device-firmware-using-win...