Massive CPU design flaw

For system help, all hardware / software topics NOTE: use Coders Corner for all coders topics.

Moderators: Krom, Grendel

Post Reply
User avatar
Tunnelcat
DBB Grand Master
DBB Grand Master
Posts: 13309
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2007 12:32 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest, U.S.A.

Massive CPU design flaw

Post by Tunnelcat »

These are a couple of serious vulnerabilities that affect ALL Intel and AMD CPU chips that have been produced since 1995, practically every computer and device running today. They're called Spectre and Meltdown. I saw that Microsoft just released an off axis patch for it today, although it was originally supposed to be released on Jan. 9, 2018, but because of the early news leak, they dumped it on everyone today. Since I've got an older Intel CPU, I'm wary of installing this patch because it may noticeably slow down the CPU. Anybody install this patch yet on their systems and notice any difference in performance?

https://www.howtogeek.com/338269/a-huge ... r-pc-soon/
Cat (n.) A bipolar creature which would as soon gouge your eyes out as it would cuddle.
User avatar
Krom
DBB Database Master
DBB Database Master
Posts: 16039
Joined: Sun Nov 29, 1998 3:01 am
Location: Camping the energy center. BTW, did you know you can have up to 100 characters in this location box?
Contact:

Re: Massive CPU design flaw

Post by Krom »

Stuff that ran at 144 FPS before the update, still runs at 144 FPS after the update.

Some storage benchmarks show a fairly consistent hit to performance in random 4KB reads, but most games seem to not care at all (the majority of them actually score almost 1% faster after the patch even).
User avatar
Tunnelcat
DBB Grand Master
DBB Grand Master
Posts: 13309
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2007 12:32 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest, U.S.A.

Re: Massive CPU design flaw

Post by Tunnelcat »

Krom wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2018 5:41 pm Stuff that ran at 144 FPS before the update, still runs at 144 FPS after the update.
Yeah, but you've got a newer Ferrari of a system. Mine, it's closer to 7 a year old Chevy. :wink:
Cat (n.) A bipolar creature which would as soon gouge your eyes out as it would cuddle.
User avatar
Tunnelcat
DBB Grand Master
DBB Grand Master
Posts: 13309
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2007 12:32 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest, U.S.A.

Re: Massive CPU design flaw

Post by Tunnelcat »

Is there a way to test the speed of my system's CPU before I update things? How about the storage benchmark? There have been many warnings that this patch can impact a CPU's performance by up to 30%.

Edit: Nevermind Krom. I went ahead and ran the patch. I also found out that Intel is also going to have firmware updates for about 90% of their processors pushed out for download on January 12, by next week.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3245606 ... c-mac.html
Cat (n.) A bipolar creature which would as soon gouge your eyes out as it would cuddle.
User avatar
Krom
DBB Database Master
DBB Database Master
Posts: 16039
Joined: Sun Nov 29, 1998 3:01 am
Location: Camping the energy center. BTW, did you know you can have up to 100 characters in this location box?
Contact:

Re: Massive CPU design flaw

Post by Krom »

User avatar
AlexanderBorisov
DBB Ace
DBB Ace
Posts: 319
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2017 11:57 am

Re: Massive CPU design flaw

Post by AlexanderBorisov »

I don't care. The vulnerability means that a program can get a kind of read access to kernel memory (in it's own address space). I don't see how it can harm me. As a person interested in sytem programming some time ago I found about another vulnerability like this, also concerned with memory caching, by using it you could gain read AND WRITE access to SMBIOS (used for hardware maintenance events like thermal monitoring), that is supposed to be unaccessible even to OS! Even checked that it actually worked, imaging an SMBIOS virus completely invisible to anything! But at least you need a driver on Win7-64 to exploit this. And there is Row Hammer attack on memory that can theoretically give you write access to physical memory, too... BTW on XP system and Win7-32 the whole physical memory could be open as a file (read/write access) under admin privileges, hopefully they limited it to reading BIOS data tables in Win7-x64. And no one cared that time!
User avatar
Krom
DBB Database Master
DBB Database Master
Posts: 16039
Joined: Sun Nov 29, 1998 3:01 am
Location: Camping the energy center. BTW, did you know you can have up to 100 characters in this location box?
Contact:

Re: Massive CPU design flaw

Post by Krom »

User avatar
Tunnelcat
DBB Grand Master
DBB Grand Master
Posts: 13309
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2007 12:32 pm
Location: Pacific Northwest, U.S.A.

Re: Massive CPU design flaw

Post by Tunnelcat »

Thanks for that. So far, I haven't noticed much of a difference on my gaming system with just playing games. But my far older Intel Duo Core HP Touchsmart Win 7 machine that can't even be upgraded to Win 10, it's quite noticeable of an impact. It was already a slug to begin with, so it's about to be retired anyway, once I rip and digitize all my music.
Cat (n.) A bipolar creature which would as soon gouge your eyes out as it would cuddle.
Post Reply