Meltdown and Specter - Everyone is in trouble

[Prophet]

This NOT what I posted before. This is even bigger and effects ALL modern computers. Intel gets the worst end though. Meltdown effects ALL modern Intel chips going back about 15 years. Spectar effects Intel, AMD, and ARM. Fixes have to be run on the OS side since this is a hardware flaw will cause 5-30% performance hits.

Any other chips using speculative processing not listed are also affected. This is not really a problem for us from a security issue. But will have performance impacts as fixes from OS and programs are implemented.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01 ... -about-it/

[Docjon]

Yeah, I've been waiting for you to post on this one. I read about it, but figured you'd describe it more succinctly and correctly.

Not good news for those of us with older machines. One hopes that most of the issues will lay on the 5% side. Maybe it'll take a couple patches to optimize things, and most of us won't get the HEAVY penalty.

Hows this affect the very latest generations of AMD/Intel chips? Any word on that? Hoping they spotted it before production and they're at least exempt.

Guess I gotta get started on the mining. Buying and speculating doesn't seem to be working out for me - I CANNOT do that with a week's delay between my decision to buy and actually being allowed to buy, and barring good news from the lawyers a few months from now, it's gonna be one of the few ways I can ever upgrade my machine once the financial effects of putting Mom in an assisted-care facility, and my big surgery, sets in. I really want to upgrade one more time, as this isn't the computer I want to spend the rest of my life with.

[Prophet]

If you read the article MS, Amazon, and Apple have pushed updates to work around the problem. Apple has more to do, apparently. MS has not fully activated fixes but you can use PowerShell to take care of things. Google is waiting for Linux kernel updates since Chrome and Android are based heavily on Linux.

The security issues are pretty low for end users since there is a LOT of work to pull this off. That said, the fixes will affect us all. The more repetitive calls to the CPU a program makes, the bigger the performance impact.

[Prophet]

Some testing from Gamers Nexus. So far no real effect on gaming performance. Also some rendering test showing no real effects. Looks like things are looking ok for most of us, so far.

   

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[Prophet]

Looks like gamers are now getting hit, but not in the ways many expected. Epic has come out saying that issues with clients logging into their games and services are from the Meltdown and Specter fixes. It has caused a huge spike in CPU usage server side for these services. They are looking for ways to fix the issue.

https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/foru ... ity-update

[Prophet]

[Prophet]

Asus BIOS update list. Only goes back to X99 and 100 series boards. Anything older is not getting updates. Basically only stuff from the last 2-3 years.

https://www.asus.com/News/V5urzYAT6myCC1o2

[Lurchmonster]

So I probably won't be getting a fix, but I think this is an AMD machine, so it shouldn't matter anyway.

Nope, Intel i3...the last machine was an AMD.

[Docjon]

Asus BIOS update list. Only goes back to X99 and 100 series boards. Anything older is not getting updates. Basically only stuff from the last 2-3 years.

https://www.asus.com/News/V5urzYAT6myCC1o2

Wonder if my Gigabyte will get a fix. Probably not - it's almost as old as Lurch's potato computer.
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA ... -rev-10#ov

Guess I better get working on upgrading my machine somehow in the next several months, or the hacker's are gonna eat me up.

[Prophet]

Another round of benchmarks for the "patch." TL:DR Almost no impact on consumer software. Sofar all the real hits have been server side.

https://overclock3d.net/reviews/softwar ... sessment/1

[Prophet]

The fallout continues. An article talking about cloud and data center companies looking to dump Intel for AMD and ARM in the wake of the current issues.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cybe ... SKBN1EZ1A4

[Prophet]

Tool from Gibson Research to test your systems Meltdown and Spectre status.

https://www.grc.com/inspectre.htm

[Docjon]

Tool from Gibson Research to test your systems Meltdown and Spectre status.

https://www.grc.com/inspectre.htm

Wonder if there's a point in running it. The only way mine isn't in trouble is if it's too old to have the problem, and this issue goes back a very long time. Think even my old Core2Duo would be affected. Appreciate the tool though. If I get the other 17 things I'm supposed to be reading and doing done(nursing homes, medical procedures, and now I have Paladin's bitmining library to read), I'll run it. Maybe in a couple days. As I said, little point. It's gonna be broke or not, and I can't do anything at all to fix it. Makes it kind of academic.

Appreciate the update, stuff like this should be more important if I didn't feel so powerless in the face of it.

[Paladin]

Tool from Gibson Research to test your systems Meltdown and Spectre status.

https://www.grc.com/inspectre.htm

Wonder if there's a point in running it. The only way mine isn't in trouble is if it's too old to have the problem, and this issue goes back a very long time. Think even my old Core2Duo would be affected. Appreciate the tool though. If I get the other 17 things I'm supposed to be reading and doing done(nursing homes, medical procedures, and now I have Paladin's bitmining library to read), I'll run it. Maybe in a couple days. As I said, little point. It's gonna be broke or not, and I can't do anything at all to fix it. Makes it kind of academic.

Appreciate the update, stuff like this should be more important if I didn't feel so powerless in the face of it.

I actually don't care as far as my PC's go. I also am not worried about my PC's at work. Most of this is way overblown.

I understand data centers and corporations that deal in confidential data applying patches etc ...

[Prophet]

Reports are coming out that some OEM companies are pulling back the firmware/BIOS updates for these issues. Two core reasons.

First, the fix does not actually fix anything. It only stops specific code from executing. It explicitly stops just one version of Specture but any attacking using different code to exploit branch prediction will still get through unphased.

Second reason, stability issues. Basically things have been pretty problematic for many that updated to "fixed" firmware.

All of this together and it has OEM companies falling back to previous versions with the old microcode. At least till Intel tries again.

If you updated BIOS versions for your motherboard and have had issues, roll back.