Tracking Down The AMD "Processor Bug"

tercero writes: "over at the Gentoo Linux website there is an update on the AMD processor bug mentioned here. The sum up is that AMD claims it's not a bug with the Athlon processor, but with the motherboard. More detailed information can be found on this LKML post." An Anonymous Coward points to a similar explanation at Linux Weekly News. Update: 01/25 01:25 GMT by T : Daniel Robbins from Gentoo clarifies: "AMD is not calling this a 'motherboard' issue, it is an interaction between a feature of the Athlon called 'speculative writes' and the design of the GART, which is not cache-coherent. It's a 'Athlon/cache coherency/GART' problem, not a 'motherboard' problem."

Comments

Re:What is the exact parameter to pass to LILO?

[AntiNorm]

LILO passes kernel parameters via an 'append' line, so the syntax would be

append=" mem=nopentium"

Make sure you aren't appending anything else. If you are, just add the mem=nopentium at the end of your existing append line.

A kernel bug -- not a motherboard bug

[heretic]

"The GART and the CPU see two different views of memory, and it's the kernel's responsibility to map memory in such a way as to prevent bad interactions. Currently, that isn't happening."