From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S267313AbUHPBZv (ORCPT ); Sun, 15 Aug 2004 21:25:51 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S267314AbUHPBZv (ORCPT ); Sun, 15 Aug 2004 21:25:51 -0400 Received: from amdext4.amd.com ([163.181.251.6]:58305 "EHLO amdext4.amd.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S267313AbUHPBZt (ORCPT ); Sun, 15 Aug 2004 21:25:49 -0400 Message-ID: From: richard.brunner@amd.com To: ak@muc.de, kugelfang@gentoo.org cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: RE: [RFC] Microcode Update Driver for AMD K8 CPUs Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2004 20:24:57 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) X-WSS-ID: 6D3ED365548818-01-01 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org >Danny van Dyk writes: > >> I recently found some piece of code [1] to perform a microcode update >> on AMD's K8 CPUs. It included some update blocks hardcoded into the >> module. >Several people found this code (including me). But I don't think >it's a good idea right now to merge because it is better to leave >these things to the BIOS. It's unlikely that AMD will regularly >release "open" microcode updates anyways, and moving them >between BIOSes seems a bit dangerous to me (often you likely >need to change some magic MSRs too or you could have some >side effects). Overall it seems to be too dangerous to >do in a standard kernel. > >Also I suspect the driver won't work very well on SMP. > >-Andi As usual, Andi is absolutely correct. -Rich Brunner, AMD Fellow