01-20-2018, 04:20 PM
During this past week I have had two Sandy Bridge firmware updates go completely haywire, one massive slowdown, the other blue screen, then cook the board. (Intel has adjusted the firmware but with disclaimers) If you are on Windows 10 do not update the firmware on your Sandy Bridge CPU, and do not use the recommended MS patches for Meltdown if on Windows 7 or 8. There are charcteristics of this CPU that make the Intel update and MS patch together basically crippling in some cases. Several OEMs including DELL are highly unlikely to ever patch this CPU for the MS kernel. However If you dual boot Ubuntu with Windows 10, the KPTI adjustments in Ubuntu work fine, with little impact on performance, but there are several differences in the MS kernel functions in CPU space and some ugly MS and Intel tweaks to this CPU running Windows.
The officai MS response: "If you are using a pre-2016 Intel CPU with Windows 10, there is nothing much you can do except consider upgrading to a newer processor or, you could possibly just live with the performance impact of the Meltdown and Spectre patches."
Probably the ultimate cause of the slowdowns: "With Sandy Bridge, Intel has tied the speed of every bus (USB, SATA, PCI, PCI-E, CPU cores, Uncore, memory etc.) to a single internal clock generator issuing the basic 100 MHz Base Clock (BClk). With CPUs being multiplier locked, the only way to overclock is to increase the BClk, which can be raised by only 5–7% without other hardware components failing."
Another issue that is certain to become a security issue: "Sandy and Ivy Bridge processors with vPro capability have security features that can remotely disable a PC or erase information from hard drives. This can be useful in the case of a lost or stolen PC. The commands can be received through 3G signals, Ethernet, or Internet connections. AES encryption acceleration will be available, which can be useful for video conferencing and VoIP applications."
Leave your Windows 10 unpatched on Sandy Bridge, but go ahead and update your Ubuntu if you dual boot.
TC
The officai MS response: "If you are using a pre-2016 Intel CPU with Windows 10, there is nothing much you can do except consider upgrading to a newer processor or, you could possibly just live with the performance impact of the Meltdown and Spectre patches."
Probably the ultimate cause of the slowdowns: "With Sandy Bridge, Intel has tied the speed of every bus (USB, SATA, PCI, PCI-E, CPU cores, Uncore, memory etc.) to a single internal clock generator issuing the basic 100 MHz Base Clock (BClk). With CPUs being multiplier locked, the only way to overclock is to increase the BClk, which can be raised by only 5–7% without other hardware components failing."
Another issue that is certain to become a security issue: "Sandy and Ivy Bridge processors with vPro capability have security features that can remotely disable a PC or erase information from hard drives. This can be useful in the case of a lost or stolen PC. The commands can be received through 3G signals, Ethernet, or Internet connections. AES encryption acceleration will be available, which can be useful for video conferencing and VoIP applications."
Leave your Windows 10 unpatched on Sandy Bridge, but go ahead and update your Ubuntu if you dual boot.
TC
All opinions expressed and all advice given by Trinidad Cruz on this forum are his responsibility alone and do not necessarily reflect the views or methods of the developers of Linux Lite. He is a citizen of the United States where it is acceptable to occasionally be uninformed and inept as long as you pay your taxes.