Faulty Microsoft Driver Saps Intel Core Duo power

Critical_ writes "Tom's Hardware recently discovered a bug in Microsoft's ACPI driver implementation under Windows XP SP2 that causes a loss of more than one hour of battery time when connecting any USB 2.0 device to an Intel Core Duo based system. Apparently Microsoft, Intel and ODMs have known of this problem under a confidentiality agreement since July 12, 2005 via (a still private) Knowledge Base article KB899179. The bug lies in the asynchronous scheduler component inadvertently being left running causing Windows' internal task scheduler (ITS) to treat it as a running process involving the attached device. This in turn prevents the ITS from powering down the processor into one of the ACPI sleep states causing the system to use more battery power. At this time there seems to be no fix. Strangely, single-core systems and AMD systems are not affected. This leads one to wonder if it is truely a software problem or if there a much larger hardware problem that may affect Core Duo equipped Apple systems."

Comments

And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll never know if you're being asked to buy broken hardware or broken software.

Seems best to stay away from both companies.
Why can't they just be honest and say "this is the problem and this is what we're doing about it"

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[MadTinfoilHatter]

Why can't they just be honest and say "this is the problem and this is what we're doing about it"

Because they don't want people to know there is a problem, and that they're not doing anything about it, maybe?

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[Jasin Natael]

What is it that Slashdot has against mainstream OS's? Now that Mac OS X is finally gaining some marketshare, we see FUD warning people to avoid it because of the Intel chips. I thought that everyone was pro-switch. There's no evidence that this is a hardware bug, or if it is, that OS X's (Or any other *BSD or *NIX's) implementation of the USB stack is vulnerable.

If it is a hardware bug, though, it reminds me of an old joke:

How many Hardware Engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. It can be fixed with a software patch.

Jasin Natael

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[coolgeek]

"This leads one to wonder if it is truely a software problem or if there a much larger hardware problem that may affect Core Duo equipped Apple systems."

I guess the correct amount of the appropriate drug might lead "one" to wonder just about anything. In case you're not aware, you are practicing what is called "science via analogy". A fine example of this type of "science" is the "witch" scene in The Holy Grail, where peasants conclude the woman is a witch because she floats.

Using the Scientific Method, that's where one observes, hypothesizes, then attempts to prove the hypothesis would go something like this: Observation - Microsoft has a long history of producing the world's most buggiest software. One might even say they have created more bugs than all other software companies combined, and instead of immediately rejecting that idea, those well versed in this industry will pause to consider the idea for a second before concluding that is impossible. But you get the point, any average not-extremely-observant member of this industry will probably recognize Microsoft's long history of buggy software, coupled with it's failure to acknowledge bugs until they are fixed, as the place to start when forming a hypothesis. So, getting on to Hypothesis: An Intel-specific ACPI Module written by Microsoft has a bug in it. Attempt to prove - left as an exercise for the reader.

Spread your FUD all you like. You will not hamper the sales of the new MacBook Pro. Anyone even entertaining the idea that your dubious theory holds even one teardrop of water (and let me assure you it will contain many once the truth surfaces) is not "really" thinking about buying one anyway. Any reasonable person shying away from the purchase is already thinking along the lines of "a 1.0 Apple product...best stay away" and "do I really want to run stuff under Rosetta? No, best wait for my apps to go native", not along the lines of some hallucination posted on Slashdot.

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[CountBrass]

Interesting article but why the FUD at the end? Last I checked Apple doesn't use Microsoft drivers so how could it possibly be a a problem for the new intel macs?

There *really* needs to be moderation of articles: this deserves a -1 flamebait, or the "editors" (I use the term loosely) need to do a better job.

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[willfe]

Because as the article suggests, it may be a functionality problem in the Intel hardware that the Microsoft driver exposes. Sure, Apple's not using Microsoft's drivers, but suppose their own work accidentally stumbles into this and starts grinding through those shiny new Mac batteries. What happens then? More accusations of FUD as batteries start going flat sooner than they're supposed to?

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[squiggleslash]

Did anyone else read this, slap their foreheads, and yell "THAT's why Apple is claiming the demonstration MacBook Pros were prototypes and why they're not releasing battery life figures?"

It actually all makes sense now. The hardware may be finalised and actually be rolling off production lines, but I'm guessing the "prototype" designation actually reflects the software side, with Apple also triggering the same bug and wanting to work with Intel on a workaround.

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[saskboy]

Is this a BIOS bug perhaps?

I'm not sure I understand the problem well enough to know if an alternative OS like Linux wouldn't have the same problem. Can anyone dig into that a bit?

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[Bert64]

The article states that the problem does not occur on single core or AMD based systems, it then goes on to question if this is really a software problem, or if it's a hardware problem in which case it would affect Apple because they use the same hardware.

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[diegocgteleline.es]

The bug probably has been fixed already

The problem is the stupid Microsoft's cicle release. That kind of fixes won't ve delivered via windows update unless they're really critical, but through service pack updates. IOW: You'll have to wait until 2007 (service pack 3 planned release date I think) if you're lucky. Notice that this bug was introduced by service pack 2 BTW

They usually tell you to "contact" Microsoft through a number phone to get a patch if you want to get it earlier, something like this:

To resolve this problem, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services telephone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site: http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support (http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=suppor t) Note In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.

Which is really a really stupid way of doing things for a company that claims to be number 1

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

And thanks to the poor security of a former employer, I know their username/password for MS's premier support. Here's the full text of that KB article:

A Windows XP SP2-based portable computer uses its battery power more quickly than you expect when a USB 2.0 device is connected
View products that this article applies to.
Confidential Article
(The information in this article is provided to you in accordance with your Confidentiality Agreement)
Partner Only ArticleArticle ID : 899179
Last Review : July 12, 2005
Revision : 1.0
Important This article contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure to back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, and modify the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
256986 (https://premier.microsoft.com/kb/256986/) Description of the Microsoft Windows registry
SYMPTOMS
Consider the following scenario. You install Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) on a portable computer. Then, you connect a USB 2.0 device to the computer. In this scenario, the computer uses its battery power more quickly than you expect.
CAUSE
Windows XP SP2 installs a USB 2.0 driver that initializes any connected USB device. However, the USB 2.0 driver leaves the asynchronous scheduler component continuously running. This problem causes continuous instances of memory access that prevent the computer from entering the deeper Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) processor idle sleep states. These processor idle sleep states are also known as C states. For example, these include the C3 and C4 states. These sleep states are designed, in part, to save battery power. If an otherwise idle portable computer cannot enter or maintain the processor idle sleep states, the computer uses its battery power more quickly than you expect.
RESOLUTION
Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk. To resolve this problem, add the EnIdleEndpointSupport entry to the USB registry key. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate, and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\USB
Note If the USB subkey does not exist, create it. To do this, follow these steps:
a. Select the Services key. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click Key.
b. Type USB in the New Key #1 box to name the new key "USB."
3. Right-click USB, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. In the New Value #1 box that appears, type EnIdleEndpointSupport, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click EnIdleEndpointSupport, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, leave the Hexadecimal option selected, and then click OK.
7. Quit Registry Editor.
STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.
APPLIES TO
Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, when used with:
                Microsoft Windows XP Professional
                Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[Jezza]

Err sounds like they even know WHERE in Microsoft's code the problem lies - so why would the affect Apple? AMD is quite a different animal, and dual processors (and dual cores) have uncovered software issues for years...

This simply isn't a Mac issue (at this time) so why the FUD? Perhaps Linux is affected Oh I see how easy it is to inject some FUD - I withdraw the question ;-)

BTW, having spent sometime with an iMac (Core Duo) it is very quiet compared to a PPC one...

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[billcopc]

You've obviously never held a job working with the public. In this knee-jerk world of hyper consumerism, admitting one's faults will make your customers run to the competitor, because they hide theirs. Or even worse, in corporate america, every welfare mother and grain-fed mamma's boy will be suing you for ruining their so-called life.

Honesty looks nice on paper, but it fails when everyone else on the globe is a straight-faced liar.

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[rtb61]

Well oddly enough it might effect Linux. If you remember the ACPI bug in windows 98 that came out with the operating system and was never fixed and basically required the BIOS to be broken in it's ACPI function to work with windows 98.

So Linux always had problems with notebooks from the windows 98 era that had broken ACPI bios'es, so Linux couldn't function properly becuase of the broken bios (power saving functions).

The microsofties than claimed that as an inability in Linux rather than the fault in their own operating system, that they never bothered to fix for the life of that operating system (typical M$=B$).

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[CountBrass]

You might ask, with equal validity, whether the problem is caused by gnomes cutting the copper on the motherboard. The flamebait article presents no real basis for suggesting it's a hardware bug and certainly none for then extending that to suggest in might affect Apples. It's pure, unadulterated, flamebait.

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[Bert64]

How so?
The article states that a bug has been found, and not fixed yet...
And then goes on to state that microsoft have not yet produced a fix, and that the issue doesn't occur on other types of processor.

You could blame microsoft for not making a fix available for so long, but what if they haven't done so because the problem lies with the hardware and not with their software? The problem doesn't occur on other types of processors so it's not unreasonable to suspect it may be a hardware problem...
And if it truly is a hardware problem, then there's no reason Apple wouldn't be affected by it too, especially if it can't be worked around easily in software (and if it could, likely microsoft would have done so already)

Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you are right on... Nothing happens in the Imacs cos they are connected to the power all the time... but I wonder if anyone can test this: Plug your Imac on a UPS... and disconnect /cut the power... and let's dance!

Disgusting Insensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

from the chink-in-the-armor dept.

Maybe CowboyNeal has been in the living in the basement for too long, but everybody else knows that saying "chink" is very offensive to Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian people.

I know it's an old phrase, but niggardly is a word that most people do not use anymore either because of the racist connotations.

Especially the tech world, where there are many Asian people, this use of the word chink is amazingly insensitive of CowboyNeal.

This greatly offends me as an Asian-American. Slashdot should be ashamed of themselves for this. They wouldn't use the word nigger, or spic, or kike, or honkey would they?

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[csirac]

Maybe CowboyNeal has been in the living in the basement for too long, but everybody else knows that saying "chink" is very offensive to Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian people.

"Chink in the armour" is an outrageously common phrase in the English language.

My thoughts when I read it? "What does armour have to do with battery runtimes...".

The first thoughts of racist association did not enter my head until I read your comment. I'm from Australia, though, and if people are going to be racist there are much worse words that can be used.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Anonymovs Coward]

Maybe CowboyNeal has been in the living in the basement for too long, but everybody else knows that saying "chink" is very offensive to Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian people.

I know it's an old phrase, but niggardly is a word that most people do not use anymore either because of the racist connotations.

Don't be ridiculous. A "chink" in English (including American) is a small crack or a weak spot. And a "niggard" is an English word meaning a miser. It dates back to Middle English, and before that to Scandinavian languages. Neither word has anything to do with racism.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Chink is also defined as a narrow slit or crack, aka a small imperfection. "Chink in the armor" is fairly common in the English lexicon. CowboyNeal probably intends it to mean something like "from-the-sratch-in-the-new-paint-job-dept."

So I think you're reading something into it that's not there, so hop off that soapbox already.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[RobertLTux]

personally im offended that you are offended at the word chink in this context
unless the context included a sammuri warrior its a perfectly valid statement

Besides bypassing the whole derogitory term issue isn't chink only "proper" to refer to a chinese person (janapese and korean persons would be more offended that you think they are chinese than that you used the term)?

Note to self buy more zellgel

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially the tech world, where there are many Asian people, this use of the word chink is amazingly insensitive of CowboyNeal.

This greatly offends me as an Asian-American. Slashdot should be ashamed of themselves for this. They wouldn't use the word nigger, or spic, or kike, or honkey would they?

I agree. To celebrate, I'm going to go open a cold one and watch Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips on my bigass American TV.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, there must be a spic on my screen. Isn't Arnold Schwartzanigger a fan of Canadian honkey?
I enjoy watching it too sometimes, unless it's a nice windy day out, then I'd rather be out flying a kike.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I guess it depends how you read it.

Chink in the armour - An asian in the armour, so clearly your defences are now screwed
Chink in the armour - A slight defect/damage to the armour.

Define in Google says

* offensive terms for a person of Chinese descent
* tinkle: make or emit a high sound; "tinkling bells"
* a narrow opening as e.g. between planks in a wall
(more here but unneeded).

I guess when people can't do a simple check on a word they must run around screaming racist/sexist/whatever, just to make sure we don't miss their ignorance.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[ScrewMaster]

The first thoughts of racist association did not enter my head until I read your comment.

Me neither. The problem comes in when words (which often have multiple meanings, like "chink") that are offensive in one context are presumed to be unusable in all contexts. And if we went along with that, we'd have to shrink the dictionary by 50% at least. Personally, I think that people should just develop mental armor without any chinks in it and not be so blasted sensitive.

Now, having said that I remember watching a movie with my father, when I was maybe 8 years old, and in it the protagonist (a spy) steals a tank from a Chinese military base to make his escape (apparently he wasn't a very good spy.) In any event, unbeknownst to our hero one of the base solders was clinging to the outside, waiting for an opportunity. My Dad got that gleam in his eye, and said, "uh oh ... looks like he's got a chink in his armor." My mother made him apologize for that one. Not that it mattered: I didn't get the joke anyway.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

"Chink in the armour" is an outrageously common phrase in the English language.

In fact, as someone living in the UK, I hear it far more often used in that context than in the racist one.

It sounds like grandparent poster has become overly sensitive to the word because he's heard it in the racist context a disproportionate number of times.

That doesn't mean anyone should stop using it in the ok context though.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

If you take that phrase to be derogatory, you're looking too hard for insults. "Chink" in the English language is defined as "a narrow opening, such as a crack or fissure." That use is far more common than the derogatory form. You cannot just take words out of context and claim that they're offensive when clearly they weren't being used in such a way. "Chink in the armor" has nothing whatsoever to do with Asians. The fact that you construe a perfectly innocent word (at least in this context) to be offensive is your own problem.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Nutria]

on my bigass American TV.

Sarcasm, right?

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[gEvil (beta)]

Why do so many chinks have to act so niggardly all the time? :-p

(coming from someone of korean descent)

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[kalidasa]

You're an idiot. The word "chink" as used here has as much to do with the derogatory term for a Chinese person, and the word "niggard" has as much to do with the derogatory term for a person of African descent, as the Chinese surname "Ho", or the old Wade-Giles transliteration of the word for river, has to do with a derogatory street-slang term for women derived from the slang word for a prostitute. Shall we force all people with the last name "Ho" to change their names because they are calling women prostitutes?

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[kalidasa]

The term "oriental" has a hug freight of ideological baggage, basically painting every culture in the entire geographical swath from Giza and Istanbul to Kushiro and Kupang as effeminate, devious, and inscrutable for 2500 years. Read Edward Said's book on "Orientalism" to see why it is usually offensive when applied to a person or style (as opposed to the simple geographical usage). Comparing this to an idiot who doesn't understand that "chink in the armor" or "chink glasses" has nothing to do with being Chinese reveals a great deal of insensitivity to language.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Niggardly is only racist to ignorant folk. I hope this is a troll, does anyone actually feel offended by 'chink' in this context? Now 'gyp' I can understand, although here is an interesting article.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[heinousjay]

So you're saying we should be niggardly in our use of the word chink? Maybe clean up our language, make it spic and span, so it cracks like a cracker?

Aside from the fact that you're probably trolling, you're also probably a bitch. Too bad.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Tinfoil]

Shiat, relax. True, he used a word that has a double meaning, but anyone who has a half-decent grasp of the english language would understand it for its real meaning.

So, before you get all righteous on everyone, Mr McPoliticallyCorrect, and start hurling around comments like racist, realise that chink was a valid word in the english language long before it was used in a negative way.

In the words of Maynard, "Get off your f***ing cross, we need the space for the next fool martyr."

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Lord Kano]

In Randall Kennedy's book "nigger", he describes the story of David Howard. David Howard, a white director of a municipal agency in Washington D.C. was having a meeting with his staff and said that they had to be "niggardly" with the money at their disposal. Obviously, the word has no racial connotations but the public outcry that resulted caused Mr. Howard to resign his position. Mr. Howard, who was an open homosexual, would no doubt have been offended if people had made comments about going to the smoking area to "smoke a fag", even though in this context there is no intent to be offensive.

The previous poster was right, the words Niggardly and Niggling have fallen out of common use because of their similarity to "The N word".

LK

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Bemopolis]

You must be crackers; any one can see that this is a slippery slope. And being sued for your racist talk doesn't spook you -- well, you must have a lot of guineas saved up.

You would do well to keep your language spic and span.

Bemopolis, a lousy mick

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[gEvil (beta)]

Exactly. I love catching people with the oriental/occidental thing. Try telling someone that you're offended when they refer to you as being "western" and they just get confused.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

funny story... during a martial arts class, a chinese fellow suited up in the body armor for some self-defense demostrations. Somebody yelled out "Sensi, there is a chink in the armor!"

Good times...

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[pennyher0]

Language changes and meanings change constantly. Just because the "original" root of a word wasn't racist doesn't mean that current usages of it aren't racist.

To say that the "original" meaning should hold priority still is implying that God came down in our History and gave us a Grand Dictionary to use to learn how to talk, and to make any changes to His Grand Dictionary or the Definitions Therein would send us all straight to Hell.

So... seeing as how words like "verbose," "parse," "compile," and "de-bug" (that one's a favorite... ENIAC kids actually went in and collected dead moths and bugs from vacuum tubes) all have different meanings now from what their earlier pre-technology definitions were, it means we're all going to BURN IN HELL!

Besides, if we wanted to say that the "original" meaning of words is the "real" meaning of words, we'd have to go back to how "UHhhHH uhh HUUUHUH huh" meant "wooly mammoth over there. let's get him!"

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[agony_zhou]

Strange, I am Chinese and speak several dialects nontheless, I still don't know what are you talking about. Given the fact that the Chinese language has internal variations that rival the whole Latin family, I wouldn't be surprised though; if you want to play the game, most Chinese names (or any name) can be transliterated into something that has derogatory meaning in some dialect of Chinese.
I didn't grow up in America and I don't feel offended by the word "chink", however I wouldn't blame someone of being overly sensitive if (s)he were repeatly teased by this word during the childhood.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Ptraci]

If the intention of the user was not racist, the word is not racist. Racism is in the eye of the beholder here. The ones who are racist are the ones who jump all over innocent speakers/writers, misinterpreting their meaning and dragging things off on a tangent instead of paying attention to what they obviously intended to say.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[pennyher0]

yes exactly. I totally agree. But to say that the original root of the word makes it impossible for that meaning to change depending on usage and interpretation is wrong.

Additionally, it's possible for the intent of a word to not be racist/offensive, but the person can still be offended. for example, saying "that's so gay" isn't intended to offend, but many people are offended because it's equating gayness with something bad.

I also pissed off someone recently by using the word "verbose" to mean simply being wordy... I didn't know that it usually gets interpreted as "loud/rude/obnoxious" to people outside the tech world. so there's an example where pointing out how a word is usually seen helped me.

HOWEVER, you're right... this little tangent is getting totally out of hand because it's obvious that "chink in the armor" had nothing to do with being derogatory to Japanese/Chinese/Korean people and whoever started this thread smells a lot like a troll.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[trilliwig]

And when someone calls me Orientalist, then maybe I might have cause to be offended. "Oriental", though, has absolutely no negative connotations, and ascribing it a new one seems to me to be yet another attempt by western thought to fall into the same errors it ironically claims to try to avoid.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 troll.

Next?

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[ozmanjusri]

on my bigass American TV.
Sarcasm, right?

No, just descriptive.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Nutria]

It's all on where the emphasis lies, eh?

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

This greatly offends me as an Asian-American.

You greatly offend me as an Asian-American. I thought we were smart. Evidently I was wrong.

If you've never heard the phrase "chink in the armor" then you obviously don't know enough about the English language to criticize use of it.

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Heeeeeeeey roundeye!

Re:Disgusting Insensitivity

[B1gP4P4Smurf]

Asian Americans Defying Traditional Stereotypes

More and More Are Lazy, Stupid

The Onion rules...

Why?

[Stefman]

Why does the last phrase target specifically Apple computers since the beginning mentions Win XP. Obviously, this affects XP laptops with a core duo.

Re:Why?

[smalljs]

Well, if the problem exists in Apple's hardware as well, it just would lead one to believe that it's a problem with the processor rather than Windows. I didn't take it as a shot at Apple...

Re:Why?

[goldn_64]

Because the article also hints that it might not be only be a software problem, but that maybe there's a hardware problem too.

Re:Why?

[nurb432]

Beacuse if its actually a hardware issue, as the story suggests it may be, it may equally effect other OS's that follow the proper ACPI rules. Espcially if Intel and Microsoft are hiding these facts from other manufacturers.

That, and who around here cares about problems that effect only XP ? :)

Re:Why?

[alienw]

Ummm, because Apples use the same chip, and it might not be a software problem (if it was, they would have fixed it by now).

Re:Why?

[peragrin]

The problem is where does the failure lie?

My bet the problem is in BIOS, and not EFI. Since this affects only XP computers and those require bios to function. BIOS with ACPI has always been a poor hack. Windows Computers have always had a hard time returning from sleep with 100% accuracy. Maybe it wasn't windows fault but the bios underneath.

Wait did I just say it wasn't windows fault? damn I have got to get some sleep.

Re:Why?

[ceoyoyo]

Because nobody cares about another bug in Windows. But what if it's not in Windows, and it can affect the Mac?? Panic!

Re:Why?

[gEvil (beta)]

(if it was, they would have fixed it by now).

Ummm, because Microsoft is well known for getting software fixes out quickly?

Re:Why?

[undeadly]

My bet the problem is in BIOS, and not EFI. Since this affects only XP computers and those require bios to function. BIOS with ACPI has always been a poor hack.

Yeah, listen to what OpenBSD developers implementing ACPI support thinks about ACPI

Also the ACPI spec blows other specs out of the water when it comes to unreadability. It's a classical spec in the sense that someone was bribed to go to Honolulu to "talk the spec over" and "reach a compromise". They don't even use spec language like shall and optional! It's deliberately vague so that everyone involved could agree. So Marco's engineering assessment is ACPI is a pile of camel pooh.

Re:Why?

[BearRanger]

What's amazing to me is that no one has linked this issue to the fact that Apple has failed to release battery life numbers for the Macbook Pro.

True, reports say it's "about the same" as the PPC Powerbook. But expectations were that battery life would be better. Now there are additional questions to ask.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

ummm, it's a software problem. And stop with the ummms. It makes you look arrogant and condescending.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

ACPI is part of EFI, and simply using EFI instead of BIOS to bootstrap is not magically going to make things less buggy. The moderation on this post makes no sense.

Re:Why?

[TemporalBeing]

My bet the problem is in BIOS, and not EFI.

Except EFI is the BIOS, or rather replaces legacy BIOS. So it's either EFI/BIOS/etc (Phoenix, Award, etc. - there's two alternatives to BIOS right now - EFI is one, I forget the other, but I believe its made by Pheonix), Intel Core Duo, or the OS (WinXP, in this case).

Re:Why?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Because Apple's got the buzz, and randomly tying into it for no reason at all generates more page hits for Slashdot. Accuracy isn't a concern anymore; bombast is.

Re:Why?

[TubeSteak]

Don't knock camel poo.

At least in the desert, they use it to light camp fires.

Re:Why?

[level_headed_midwest]

Why doesn't somebody take one of each an Apple (EFI) and other make (BIOS) Core Duo notebook and run Linux on them. It runs on both kinds and has different drivers than XP does. Then see if the same bug results. If the bug is present in Linux under the BIOS model but not the EFI model, then it is a HW problem on the BIOS model. If the bug occurs in both, it might also be a HW problem but could also be a Linux bug too (but not likely.) If the bug is not noticed in either, then it is a Windows problem only.

Re:Why?

[MerlynEmrys67]

they use it to light camp fires.
In other words what your laptop will look like if you can't use ACPI to turn down the CPU and keep it from melting

Re:Why?

[alienw]

ummm, it's a software problem

In that case, why does it not show up with other chips? Why do they need to hide it?

It makes you look arrogant and condescending.

That's precisely the point.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, because Apples use the same chip, and it might not be a software problem (if it was, they would have fixed it by now).

Here was my first experience working with Microsoft at my current job. We identified a bug in one of their drivers that caused it to not properly service an interrupt during a particular sequence of commands. We told them exactly what their driver was doing, and it took them six months to just figure out where in their software stack the code was that was responsible for the bug (then they still needed to fix it).

In other words, you are living in a fantasy world.

Re:Why?

[SteeldrivingJon]

Note that if the MacBook's battery doesn't last as long as the PowerBook, one big reason may be the brighter screen rather than the Intel CPU. Apple claims the screen is 65% brighter. While some of that may come from a different material used to diffuse the backlight, most of it probably comes from increased power to the CCFL tube.

Re:Why?

[sonamchauhan]

or a LED based backlight

Re:Why?

[aliquis]

They didn't even think of the chance the same could be true with core due machines running Linux!! :D

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here ya go, Arrogance Boy.

confidentiality agreement

[nurb432]

This sort of thing should not be permitted. We arent talking about R&D agreements here, this is a *currently selling product*. They are hiding the fact its known defective from the consumer.

Isnt this a basis for a class action fraud suit? If not, it should be investigated by the SEC at least.

Re:confidentiality agreement

[dysk]

Isnt this a basis for a class action fraud suit? If not, it should be investigated by the SEC at least.

The SEC investigates fraud which victimizes shareholders. This is fraud against consumers, a much less important group.

Re:confidentiality agreement

[nurb432]

Yes, i agree, however these are both publically held companies, and disclosing known bugs would effect their stock value. Sooooo... SEC could be involved.

The class action suit part would be for the 'consumer side'.

Re:confidentiality agreement

[shaka999]

Would you sue ATI or NVIDIA for updating their drivers and getting more out of the hardware? Obviously there was a problem where the hardware wasn't being used to its full potential?

How does the shorter battery life make this defective? If the company had sold this as having a much longer battery life then failed to live up to it then that would be a problem. Just because the software (or hardware bug) isn't shutting down a processor doesn't make this a legal issue.

Re:confidentiality agreement

[nagora]

How does the shorter battery life make this defective?

OHH! That is such a dumb question! How does something draining your battery for no reason make it defective? How does something not working correctly make it defective? How does reducing the utility of your laptop mean that there's a defect? Jeez. I dunno!

You TWAT!

TWW

Re:confidentiality agreement

[gabebear]

I'm pretty certain they are selling it with the longer battery life listed. The problem only happens when you hook up a USB device, and generally the battery life listed on the laptop is in it's super-efficient mode with nothing attached.

Microsoft/Intel/Laptop Manufacturers definitely should have warned people that plugging in a USB device would disable their CPU's power-saving features and while I hate litigious bastards, the grandparent is probably right. I'm betting Microsoft is going to end up paying out a settlement here since it's easiest to show that they knew about the problem.

Re:confidentiality agreement

[MadEE]

How does the shorter battery life make this defective? If the company had sold this as having a much longer battery life then failed to live up to it then that would be a problem.

That seems to be exactly what is happening judging from this quote in the article:

...but all of whom said this particular issue has prevented their systems from achieving the goal of four to five hours of battery life which Intel had led them to expect.

Re:confidentiality agreement

[Professor_UNIX]

The SEC investigates fraud which victimizes shareholders. This is fraud against consumers, a much less important group.

I think the grandparent is looking for the FTC, not the SEC.

Re:confidentiality agreement

[ACME Septic]

The SEC investigates fraud which victimizes shareholders. This is fraud against consumers, a much less important group.

While I see you scored points with the anti-capitalists at home on slashdot, the fact is consumers also have a bureacratic oversight commission in the FTC.

Re:confidentiality agreement

[akhomerun]

Why do we have to sue everyone over every little flaw??

OMG It eats up a little battery life. Hey, nothing is perfect! Are you insane, why would you sue over every inperfection?

Re:confidentiality agreement

[gizmonic]

Microsoft/Intel/Laptop Manufacturers definitely should have warned people that plugging in a USB device would disable their CPU's power-saving features

I was thinking the same thing, but I wonder if anyone's checked that somewhere buried in the manual no one ever reads, in fine print hidden on some sub paragraph on page 247 or something, that maybe it does, in fact, say that.

The question is not only what constitutes what must be disclosed (plugging in a USB Device will shorten battery life) but what prominence the disclosure should have. One page 1 in bold? Page 10? Page 247 in fine print? Me, I think a nice thing somewhere easily seen on the USB section of the manual would suffice.

Re:confidentiality agreement

[v1]

This is not a case of a new discovery being made that squeezes an extra 10% battery life out of the unit, above and beyond the spec. This is a case of the equipment not operating as designed and also not operating as the consumer expects. (and perhaps not even living up to the specs being released to the public?) When a product does not perform as the company says it should or as the company designed it to, we call that defective.

Just because 100% of the product sold do not perform as designed or expected, we don't go back and say oh that's not really defective, they're ALL that way. Just because they're all bad doesn't mean they're not defective. Defective does not mean out of the ordinary, it means not working as designed, and yes, they can all be defective.

A multifunction product like a laptop computer is a bit more difficult to set the bar at though. Minor problems that do not interfere with the use of the computer, such as cosmetic issues or minor annoyances, would probably not justify calling something defective. But when you fail to meet product specifications due to a documented mistake made during production OR fabrication/design, (or when the product is judged to be hazardous) then you have a much stronger right to call the product defective.

Re:confidentiality agreement

[Kadin2048]

Because if you let a company get away with releasing a product that they knew was flawed (if that is indeed the situation here) then next time, they'll cut another corner. And another, and another.

And eventually you'll be left, as a consumer, paying for shitty products and not even knowing better, because that's all there will be.

It's an extreme scenario, obviously, but companies have a responsibility to stand behind their products, or at least make them live up to their advertised/promised specifications. If they do not, then they need to get some sort of discouragement so they don't do it again.

Companies think and act in terms of money. If you want to influence their behavior, make it cost them. Therefore, a lawsuit is often the proper tool to use when dealing with a company, if you want to have any hope of achieving change.

What do you really think people ought to do? Start a letter-writing campaign? "Mr. Gates, we really think your software sucks. We're still going to buy it, but we just thought you should know." That's really going to help.

If you really want to change anything, the best kind of letter you can write is the kind that gets delivered by a process server.

AMD Looking Good

[gasmonso]

Yet another reason to buy AMD. I dumped Intel back when I had a brandnew Celeron 400 and have never looked back. I see a class action lawsuit in the future :)

http://religiousfreaks.com/

Re:AMD Looking Good

[goldn_64]

Seeing that this problem is caused by Windows, I don't see the point of dumping Intel over it ;) It's like saying, hey that guy can't handle his car so his car must be useless.

Re:AMD Looking Good

[CyricZ]

But that's not the whole situation here. AMD-based systems are apparently not affected, if the summary is correct.

So it's more akin to the driver being useless in one car, but perfectly fine in a very similar car from a different manufacturer. That would suggest that it is perhaps more of a problem with the particular model of car, as well as perhaps a problem with the driver.

Re:AMD Looking Good

[gabebear]

Microsoft makes it sound like the ACPI daemon isn't thread safe, which if it is, then all Windows SMP(multi-CPU) computers are effected. It's just that the Core Duo is the first laptop with multiple CPUs.

From TFA:
"The issue, according to Microsoft, concerns the asynchronous scheduler component - a part of the USB 2.0 driver that determines when devices can access local memory. With the revision to that driver implemented in Windows XP Service Pack 2, the scheduler can inadvertently be left running. As a result, Windows' internal task scheduler (a separate item) treats the asynchronous scheduler as a running process involving the attached device, and thus stops itself from ever giving the processor the signal to power down, or power lower - to slip into one of its ACPI sleep states. Because the scheduler is running, Windows thinks the system is continually busy. As a result, the computer can use more battery power."

On the flip side I'm certain that Linux would drain the battery just as quickly. Frequency scaling doesn't work on SMP machines under Linux.

Kinda First Post

[BasharTeg]

First post from a laptop running XP SP2 with a USB 2.0 device connected with the asynchronous scheduler component running preventing my CPU from entering one of the ACPI sleep states and thus draining my battery life.

Re:Kinda First Post

[vagabond_gr]

Last post from a laptop running XP SP2 with a USB 2.0 device connected with the asynchronous scheduler component running preventing my CPU from entering one of the ACPI sleep states and thus draining my battery life.

See you again when I find my charger.

Re:Kinda First Post

[BroncoInCalifornia]

Could you repeat the expiriment running Knoppix and report back to us.

More seriously though, Tom's Hardware should repeat the experiment with a Linux distro that is notebook friendly and has a SMP kernal.

Re:Kinda First Post

[level_headed_midwest]

Hah! My laptop has only USB 1.1 interfaces so it's exempt from the bug!

Re:Kinda First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our laptop-running-XP-SP2-with-a-USB 2.0-device-connected-with-the-asynchronous-schedul er- component-running-preventing-the-CPU-from-entering -one-of-the-ACPI-sleep-states-and-thus-draining-th e- battery-life overlords!

Re:Kinda First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! Good luck getting processors C-states working in Linux. Have you seen the ACPI code in the linux kernel?

Re:Kinda First Post

[Belseth]

The real ...problem is ....I got one of those .....$100 notebooks. Ever tried to ....crank a charger .....and type...... at the same time? Damn.....I'm....tired.

Re:Kinda First Post

[B1gP4P4Smurf]

Ha! Good luck getting processors C-states working in Linux. Have you seen the ACPI code in the linux kernel?

Yeah, it sure is crap, especially when you compare it to the ACPI code in Microsoft or Apple's kernel...

Submitter didn't RFTA

[rosalindavenue]

Quote: "Since Microsoft's drivers are now believed to be directly involved, then all of Apple's upcoming MacBook Pro systems - which use the Core Duo processor and 945 chipset - should be unaffected by this issue. We have yet to attain access to a MacBook Pro to verify this." Why bring Apple into a conversation about a defective XP driver?

Re:Submitter didn't RFTA

[Anonymous Coward]

why mention apple? because they are using the same chipset and chip as the winxp books.

Re:Submitter didn't RFTA

[Tim C]

There's a difference between people believing MS's drivers to be involved, and them actually being involved. Even assuming that they *are* involved, though, that doesn't mean that OS X's drivers won't exhibit exactly the same behaviour.

The most likely thing at the moment appears to be that MacBook systems won't be affected, but it'd still be nice to have some confirmation on that.

Re:Submitter didn't RFTA

[Richard_at_work]

There are already none Apple Core Duo laptops around (but they are expensive), why not see if the problem exists under Linux on these devices? If it doesnt, then it isnt the hardware. Infact, you should be able to put the Intel iMacs into the same state and see if a larger than expected current is drawn from the mains.

Re:Submitter didn't RFTA

[log0n]

Hooray! Finally, someone who knows how to test a hypothesis quasi-scientifically.

Re:Submitter didn't RFTA

[ArbitraryConstant]

"Why bring Apple into a conversation about a defective XP driver?"

Because this whole issue has a very dodgy feel to it. The secrecy, the lack of a fix, etc. It seems quite weird for a software-only problem. If we're not getting the whole story and there is indeed a hardware component to the problem, it could have a serious impact on Apple and others (Linux, etc).

Also, Macbook Pros have a camera that's always connected, and it uses USB2. You can't disconnect it, so if this affects everyone, Apple will be more screwed than most.

Re:Submitter didn't RFTA

[jrockway]

Are you sure it uses USB2? All the other iSights use Firewire.

Re:Submitter didn't RFTA

[Visigothe]

Yes, the built-in iSights are *not* firewire, but USB. They also are fixed-focus, and single CCD (unlike the stand-alone iSight).

So...

[LiquidCoooled]

the biggest thing I see here is to stay away from the AMD powered MSI Megabook S270.

That manages to last only 1hour 26 minutes without anything connected.
The intel variants clocked roughly 3 to 4 hours.

Re:So...

[Johan Veenstra]

"pre-production sample of MSI's Megabook S270. This is an ultra-portable notebook system with an AMD Sempron 3000+ CPU"

This ultra-portable has a much smaller battery (25Wh vs 50Wh), no wonder it gets half the battery life....

Re:So...

[ScriptedReplay]

the biggest thing I see here is to stay away from the AMD powered MSI Megabook S270.

That manages to last only 1hour 26 minutes without anything connected.
The intel variants clocked roughly 3 to 4 hours.

Well, look at it this way:

AMD Sempron: Battery 27.2 Wh Running time 1:26
Intel Yonah: Battery 49.8 Wh Running time 4:24
Intel Dothan: Battery 50.2 Wh Running time 3:08

So, aside from the fact that Semprons are not optimized for low power (CPU and chipset) the AMD laptop is in the same ballpark as the corresponding generation of Intel.

Re:So...

[ciroknight]

25Wh / 50Wh = 2. Right?

26 minutes / 3 hours = roughly 1/6; 26 / 4 hours = roughly 1/8.

Assuming a Watt is a Watt the world around, I'd say that it wouldn't be a wonder that the AMD laptop is only getting 1/2 the life, instead it's only getting 1/6th-1/8th the life.

Re:So...

[superchkn]

25Wh / 50Wh = 2. Right?
26 minutes / 3 hours = roughly 1/6; 26 / 4 hours = roughly 1/8.

Uh...don't you mean:
1:26 minutes / 3 hours = roughly 1/2; 1:26 / 4 hours = roughly 3/8.
Not that the battery life is very good on current AMD-equipped devices, but at the same time one doesn't pay as much either.
I wonder if a similar bug isn't responsible for my PDA eating power (when off) with SD cards present.

Re:So...

[Achromatic1978]

That doesn't change the validity of his point. "Stay away from the MSI Megabook", not "Stay away from AMD".

You hit the nail on its head!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hmm... Microsoft, a bug, Intel, Apple and dual core in the same article. I wonder if this couldn't generate some tasty clicks? Quick, put it on the frontpage!"

Re:You hit the nail on its head!

[Jules Mercuri]

Nah, needs more Google.

Comon..

[evilNomad]

"Strangely, single-core systems and AMD systems are not affected."

So once again we have a chance to bash Intel, perfect!

Did you ever stop to consider that maybe that specific state, which cannot be reached, is only utilized by the Core Duo? Maybe if AMD had a laptop dual core chip we'd see the same behavior.. But hey, if we can make Intel look bad because of a Microsoft bug, then we are two for two!

Re:Comon..

[IAAP]

But hey, if we can make Intel look bad because of a Microsoft bug, then we are two for two!

Wait! I have hanging around a lot, but I guess I missed that we (/.) hate Intel now?

Hate list:

MS

SCO

BestBuy

Intel

/. Purgaory:
Google

Good list:

Apple

Linux

*BSD

OSS

IBM

Re:Comon..

[Overly Critical Guy]

So once again we have a chance to bash Intel, perfect!

You'll continue to see this throughout the year as Intel pulls further ahead of AMD. Their laptop Core Duo chip already competes with AMD's high-end desktop chips while consuming WAY less power, and AMD is a year behind in both 65nm and 45nm processes. So expect a lot more AMD fanboys on Slashdot to make back-handed insults at Intel despite that company having the superior future roadmap in 2006, because for some reason, everyone on Slashdot has a never-ending hard-on for AMD.

Re:Comon..

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if AMD had a laptop dual core chip we'd see the same behavior
Uhh, actually, if you or the mods had bothered to use that simple tool known as GOOGLE you would realize that yes, AMD DOES have dual core based laptops. And no, they are not subject to this problem.

Re:Comon..

[Jozer99]

Agreed. I'm using a Dual Core Pentium D computer with USB 2.0 devices, and that thing SURE isn't conserving any power! 200W idle, baby! Gotta love utilites included in rent...

It looks like a software problem.

[stikves]

I do not know the exact details, so accept this as a pure speculation.

It seems like a software problem. Think it like the "Weak Reference" issue in garbage collection. Since a system task is always demanding CPU the ACPI subsystem will of course not decrease the power.

Such things also happen in Linux world. For example the update daemon causes disk activity every 10 minutes, which prevented the hard disk from spinning down. Since this was a big issue with laptops, it's now fixed in later versions (my system no longer has /sbin/update).

Re:It looks like a software problem.

[6800]

Hummm... Well actually, until the root cause is found and disclosed, the causallity can not be positivly assigned.

I'd bet, eather way, a software fix or circumvention would be the solution as Intel ain't likely to change the chip unless it is a really big issue that can't be circumvented.

Re:It looks like a software problem.

[spitzak]

/sbin/update would cause power saving to fail on *all* systems, not just some mysterious new systems. This is as though somehow /sbin/update did not use power at all when running (due to some clever hack), and thus there was no reason to be removed from Linux, but when you get this new processor, somehow that new one causes the hack to break and /sbin/update starts using power.

This is great news.

[Anonymous Coward]

Great for Apple that is.
Who wants to bet their next marketing campaign is going to take advantage of this deficiency in Windows, like they did when W95 came out?

Re:This is great news.

[Stormwatch]

I bet they would not! They haven't used this kind of advertising for years - at least since Steve Jobs took over, I think. And that's good, the "Mac evangelist" thing would not fly nowadays.

Re:This is great news.

[linguae]

Steve Jobs was around when the Toasted Bunny commercial was introduced in 1998 (the Apple keynote got it wrong; there were no Power Mac G3s in 1996). Even Apple's new Intel commercial bashes PCs.

Apple's commercials don't have as much "teeth" as they used to back in the day, but Apple still produces commercials that make fun of the competition.

AMD's Dual Core x2 4400+ problem as well

[dr ttol]

I just recently upgraded to X2 4400+ running Win XP SP2 and 2GB dual channel ram. OS is running off a 15k RPM drive, and storage is on 3 x 250GB 16mb cache drives. The motherboard is A8N32-SLI. Video card is eVGA nvidia 7800GT.

I can't run Windows for more than 24 hours before Outlook takes a hold of one of the CPU's. ending outlook process makes the system pick another process, usually explorer.exe, to take 50% of total CPU (or one whole processor). Shortly after, the entire system freezes.

Seems like AMD has a problem as well. So it could be a Windows issue with dual core processors.

I also applied the "windows dual core hot fix" (google that), and set the registry setting from the KB article to 1, which didn't fix it, so I set it to 0, and that didn't fix it either. So, my system is stable for ~24 hours then kaput.

Re:AMD's Dual Core x2 4400+ problem as well

[Anonymous Coward]

I have almost exactly the same hardware (except for the graphics card, I use a Quadro FX4000), and there is absolutely no problem.

I dual boot between Windows XP Pro SP2 for gaming and Windows XP Pro x64 for work, and both work absolutely perfectly. The only issue so far has been that of stable 64-bit driver, but that only pertains to the graphics card.

You might want to check your system for memory errors (if you are using cheapo RAM) or for a motherboard problem. Windows itself (assuming you arent using any broken drivers) works brilliantly with this hardware.

I have been running this system since November with only one or two reboots.

Re:AMD's Dual Core x2 4400+ problem as well

[Monkelectric]

I have two almost identical systems (only difference --4GB of ram) and have had no problem with XP or XP64. Infact Id say they're the best computers Ive ever owned.

Re:AMD's Dual Core x2 4400+ problem as well

[Anonymous Coward]

I have experienced the same problem. I used process explorer to determine that the problem is with nview. Check out the stack of the offending processes. I logout and back in and then disable nview for any process that starts doing this. Also include mscoree (.net framework), it always happens with visual studio.

Re:AMD's Dual Core x2 4400+ problem as well

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a fix hinted to in another response. Never (never) -- NEVER -- installed the hardware drivers offered by Windows Update (or Microsoft Update) website. Never! They cause more problems in functioning systems than... well, let's just say they cause problems and can be the biggest fucking headache to track down.

Re:AMD's Dual Core x2 4400+ problem as well

[Anonymous Coward]

I am using a Pentium D dual core processor, and it's extremely stable. No crashes, and my uptime is more than a month so far.

Re:AMD's Dual Core x2 4400+ problem as well

[Anonymous Coward]

"I dual boot between Windows XP Pro SP2 for gaming and Windows XP Pro x64 for work, ........ I have been running this system since November with only one or two reboots."

You should try working a little more often.

Re:AMD's Dual Core x2 4400+ problem as well

[dr ttol]

Anonymous Coward,

You're a genius. Disabling nView fixed it (it's been 24 hours so far and running great).

Intel not suitable for business systems.

[CyricZ]

Indeed. At this point I won't recommend Intel products for home/personal usage, but more importantly I won't recommend them to my clients for business usage.

Most businesses relying on computer systems cannot afford to have downtime caused by nonsense such as this. A laptop unexpectedly running out of battery while writing an important email, or even dying during a presentation to potential clients, could prove to be a massive disaster.

Until things change an Intel, I will only recommend AMD-based systems, and possibly PPC- or SPARC-based systems. Business users need solidly engineered chips. Recent news would suggest that Intel no longer does that sufficiently.

Re:Intel not suitable for business systems.

[HairyCanary]

That might be going a little far. My laptop tells me I'm running low on battery power well before it actually runs out, so in your scenario it means I'm too brain dead to heed the warnings. As for your second example, well ... I'll just take the A/C adapter out of my laptop bag and plug one end of it into the wall, and the other into my laptop. I worry more about Windows crashing or otherwise acting dumb much more than I worry about the proc.

And I only buy AMD Opteron servers these days :-). Just because I like them more, and they're cheaper than anything close to equivalent from Intel. Dave

Re:Intel not suitable for business systems.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I feel the opposite way. AMD based desktops are NOT ready for business. Why? Chipsets. The processor is great, but there is nothing solid to run it on. Intel based systems with chipsets and processors from the vendor seem to last longer and run more smoothly with onboard devices working as expected. I don't think intel makes the fastest stuff, but its the most reliable. Even the problem in the article means less battery life, not a crashed windows box.

AMD based servers seem ok and I'd be curious to try out a sun workstation (ultra20?) sometime. The nforce chipsets are tolerable if you can work around the quirks, but its not production ready for business or my mom. Via chipsets are junk.

I get sick of this intel bashing. Intel has had a monopoly for years, and they have aggressive business tacticts, but they do make good products. Its not like they are Microsoft. Even microsoft makes a good product now and then. AMD has been the underdog and they are popular as a result. The same people who praise AMD also make fun of Apple users and Nintendo console owners.

Re:Intel not suitable for business systems.

[Achromatic1978]

unexpectedly running out of battery while writing an important email, or even dying during a presentation to potential clients

1. It's not unexpected. The battery meter accurately reports the (reduced) lifetime. Note that this is not me saying "this is acceptable".
2. If you're doing a presentation to potential clients, it's your responsibility to make sure this isn't within the realm of possibility, and if you're doing your presentation, as you often do, with a projector, that means you have AC power reachable. I'd plug any laptop I was doing a critical presentation in, regardless of its possible processor flaws.

A bug? Mircosoft?

[Skiron]

Bugger me...

dual core laptop

[hey]

Yeah it evil and all but who has a dual core laptop?
I wish I did.

Yawn, non free sucks.

[twitter]

Strangely, single-core systems and AMD systems are not affected. This leads one to wonder if it is truely a software problem or if there a much larger hardware problem that may affect Core Duo equipped Apple systems.

Critical_ sees a typical Wintel bug and thinks Apple has a problem. It's an interesting thought, but not one to publish without checking.

APM and ACPI, designed in part by Microsoft, have always been secretive and buggy. Tricky hardware that constantly varies like Winmodems is the rule and I'm amazed the Linux works so well with any of it.

The only thing worse than the hardware has been Microsoft's software on top of it. While I'm able to keep laptops up for more then 40 days by using APM and hibernation or ACPI and suspend, my Microsoft using friends have to reboot. They tell me that their Word documents get corrupted on resume if the machine resumes at all. Cluster on cluster, all of their complex nasties designed to thwart competitors only bite them in the rear despite the fact they wrote the specs themselves and have hardware details no one else does. This is what to expect from non-free.

IBM cell based hardware running GNU/Linux is going to blow all of this trash into a distantly remembered nightmare.

Re:Yawn, non free sucks.

[Critical_]

Critical_ sees a typical Wintel bug and thinks Apple has a problem. It's an interesting thought, but not one to publish without checking.

I never concluded Apple had a problem. Rather I suggest it could be a problem because Microsoft's ACPI driver communicates with the ICH7-M Southbridge. If I am not mistaken, Apple uses the same southbridge on it's hardware. As the article repeatedly states, this issue can be anywhere on the chain from the southbridge, the Microsoft driver or even the attach peripheral. If it's purely a driver problem then why has it taken Microsoft and Intel 6 months of a non-working fix? Why are single core systems not affected by the same driver? Could this issue affect Linux or Mac OSX users on those platforms? Sure it could be a state-based issue but no one can really know until further testing takes place and Intel/Microsoft release more details.

Re:Yawn, non free sucks.

[mrm677]

IBM cell based hardware running GNU/Linux is going to blow all of this trash into a distantly remembered nightmare.

You are seriously mistaken. The Cell is optimized for single-precision, floating-point workloads hand-coded to take advantage of the SPE units (which their "local memories" which is essentially just a programmer-managed cache). The Cell will be nothing special for typical integer workloads...in fact it will probably perform inferior to offerings from Intel and AMD. In fact any double-precision arithmatic is 10 times slower!!

Don't believe the IBM hype.

And do you really think that GNU/Linux applications will be re-coded to utilize the SPEs?! If so, you seriously underestimate the complexity of programming a heterogenous multiprocessor with programmer-managed memories.

Re:Yawn, non free sucks.

[The Bungi]

IBM cell based hardware running GNU/Linux is going to blow all of this trash into a distantly remembered nightmare.

Ah, twitter. As always, in your desperate attempt to make your usual "microsoft sucks" argument you expose your ignorance. Cell processors are not intended for commodity computing, and I very much doubt your next "boxen" running "GNU/Linux" is going to include one of these processors - unless you want a "PC" that is good mostly for very specific math-intensive applications.

BTW, I've used hibernation with W2K, XP and 2003 and interestingly I've never observed these side effects you talk about (except that pre-SP2 Windows 2000 sometimes would fail to wake up, though that was fixed), but then I don't know what would be the point of leaving a machine in that state for 40 days. I guess if your machines hibernate for that long then you can't come back and tell us what fantastic uptime you're getting from them.

Re:Yawn, non free sucks.

[ciroknight]

If it's purely a driver problem then why has it taken Microsoft and Intel 6 months of a non-working fix?

I'll answer your question with one of my own; how often does Microsoft get a patch out of the door early, let alone "on time"? Why are there still bugs in Windows which were originally exposed over 3 years ago which haven't been fixed, when they're getting ready to release another version of Windows based on that exact same code?

Why are single core systems not affected by the same driver?

Because the driver sucks at dual core systems?

Could this issue affect Linux or Mac OSX users on those platforms?

It's a possibility, but adding it to the end of your article is called "flaming". It's a baseless accusation which you either placed their to bash Apple computers, when you have absolutely no proof or evidence to suggest they would be affected by this. If you said "This is definitively what caused the MacBook to be delayed, here's a link to some evidence", I would have probably agreed with you, but sadly, you have done nothing of the like, because nothing of the like currently exists to say that it happened that way. Thus, if I had the ability to mod this article, "Flamebait" is the only choice I'd have, until the anti-Apple remark was removed.

Bashing one company for another's gross incompetance isn't fair, is it?

Re:Yawn, non free sucks.

[Critical_]

It's a possibility, but adding it to the end of your article is called "flaming".

Flaming? How is it considered flaming when even Intel engineers have commented that drivers and firmware were not solving the problem (which leads on to CONSIDER that it is possibly a hardware problem)?

It's a baseless accusation which you either placed their to bash Apple computers, when you have absolutely no proof or evidence to suggest they would be affected by this.

Just because there is no definitive proof that it is squarely a hardware issue, similarly you have zero proof that it is not. However, Intel engineers seem to be suggested (according to the article) that it could be a hardware issue. If that is the case, then Apple system could be affected too.

If you said "This is definitively what caused the MacBook to be delayed, here's a link to some evidence", I would have probably agreed with you, but sadly, you have done nothing of the like, because nothing of the like currently exists to say that it happened that way.

No where have I commented on MacBooks being delayed. Can you please provide proof where I have suggested that? I think this part of your comment illustrates that you have not been reading that I've written nor have you read the article. Please refrain from putting words in my mouth. Maybe then you'll realize how silly you sound right now.

Thus, if I had the ability to mod this article, "Flamebait" is the only choice I'd have, until the anti-Apple remark was removed.

It's fairly clear that you are just stirring the pot by putting words in my mouth so I'd go as far as to say that your response is flamebait. Unfortunately, your response has contributed nothing to the discussion.

Re:Yawn, non free sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM cell based hardware running GNU/Linux is going to blow all of this trash into a distantly remembered nightmare.

What most of us would like, Willy, is for your stupid, ignorant bullshit-splattered posts to become a distantly remembered nightmare here on Slashdot. Why don't you just use the BRLUG for that? At least that's a more representative demographic for you - your hick friends are not easily going to call you on your imaginary shit about "Windoze crashes every 12 minutes" or "IBM cell processors".

"Yawn non free sucks" indeed, you immature fucktard.

Re:Yawn, non free sucks.

[gnasher719]

'' The Cell will be nothing special for typical integer workloads...in fact it will probably perform inferior to offerings from Intel and AMD. In fact any double-precision arithmatic is 10 times slower!! ''

Actually, Cell will be quite powerful on many double precision floating point problems. Throughput per processor is not very high, but latency is only twice the throughput, memory access is incredibly fast, all the supporting operations are incredibly fast, so it is very very easy to get performance that is equal to the theoretical limit of the chip.

You have to do some macro changes to split a task to run on more than one SPE, but that may be easier than trying to get peak performance out of a Pentium or G5 chip. Especially on a G5, you need massive parallelism at the instruction level to get peak performance.

What about linux?

[maynard]

Our quad opterons (two dualcore) appear perfectly stable under Linux. Have you tried that as a test to rule out hardware?

It may not be the Windows driver.

[CyricZ]

It is suggested that it may not be the Windows driver that is purely at fault here. It is said that this problem does not manifest itself on AMD systems, for instance. Thus, it should be considered that the problem is more hardware-based, rather than just confined to the Windows XP driver. And when you consider that Apple is using such hardware in their recent systems, it is clearly obvious that they may be affected as well.

Re:It may not be the Windows driver.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats because there isn't an AMD processor that supports anything above C2 yet. Seriously, Intel is so far ahead of AMD when it comes to power management that its embarrassing. At least, it should be for the ignorant AMD fanbois here on /.

Good thing Dell is going AMD!

[pr0digy25]

This thing could be bigger than the NSA ruckus.

Seems a great reason...

[HaloZero]

...to not bother wasting nice new Apple hardware on Windows XP. Stop the dual-boot project!

I wonder how Linux handles the defect, dependant upon how much the defect lies in the hardware.

Heh

[ROFLMAObot]

Atleast it'll keep a good to-be population of Mac Addicts charging their laptops instead of running amuck in the streets. Microsoft can consider it a "safety feature."

Not Intel bashing at all.

[CyricZ]

How exactly is it "Intel bashing" to point out that similar systems from other manufacturers do not suffer from the same problem? Indeed, following such a faulty train of thought one could easily argue that pointing out the higher stability of Linux relative to Windows 98 is "Microsoft bashing". It obviously isn't "bashing" in any way, but merely pointing out that one manufacturer's product is deficient when compared to another product from another set of developers.

AMD does have dual core chips available, and from another comment in this topic they reportedly work fine. So indeed, this may very well not be a problem with just the Windows XP driver, but may also be a problem with th Intel chips.

Regardless, we can't use faulty systems like these in production settings, regardless of who manufactures them. Even if it is just a problem with Microsoft's driver, I can't recommend this hardware to clients who do wish to use Windows, just because they will run into problems. So I'll just continue to recommend AMD-, PPC- and SPARC-based systems, which often just work.

Re:Not Intel bashing at all.

[evilNomad]

Sure you recommend that, but how are you going to explain, that even WITH this bug, the Core Duo has more power, and longer battery life than ANY of the others you mention? Had AMD owned a proper laptop chip i could understand you, but with their current lineup, pfft.. And besides, you would probably not notice a 10W increase in W on a desktop system, going from 70W to 80W isn't all that big a deal, but on a laptop it can mean a lot.. So you hate Intel all you want, but their new cpu is a damn fine laptop cpu, no matter how you twist it..

Re:Not Intel bashing at all.

[CyricZ]

I'm not sure where you're getting the idea I "hate" Intel. Frankly, I don't have any feelings or emotions towards them. All I care about is providing stable systems for my clients. If a company puts out products that don't work, be it because of their hardware design or the software that runs on their hardware, I will have to avoid such products until I am sure that the problems have been resolved.

I think the problem might be that you don't have much experience when it comes to real-world systems. We're not talking about some college student writing an English report. Often times there are situations where executives are making presentations to potential clients for contracts worth tens of millions of dollars. It could be financially dangerous for such a company if a laptop that's supposed to give them 5 hours of life unexpectedly only gives 4 hours, especially while sending important emails or while doing a presentation.

The minor savings in terms of reduced power usage would never make up for a lost $45 million contract.

Re:Not Intel bashing at all.

[evilNomad]

All laptops i've used always give me warnings all the time, couldn't this oh so important CEO read the 30 minute warning and do something about it, instead of just keep working till it shuts down due to lack of power? With batteries getting worn out and such i do not see how in any case you can guarantee anything, what if the guy uses a lot of cpu intensive apps and therefore reduces the battery life compared to if he was only writing emails? If it was really that important, then why not ALWAYS calculate the worst case time? This bug is nothing more than a problem with a power saving feature, so it would still be well within a worst case estimate..

I am sorry but i find your logic flawed, and how switching from an Intel cpu that does between 3 and 4½ hours, to an AMD laptop that will do 2 hours will help you, is beyond me.

Re:Not Intel bashing at all.

[petermgreen]

It could be financially dangerous for such a company if a laptop that's supposed to give them 5 hours of life unexpectedly only gives 4 hours, especially while sending important emails or while doing a presentation.

thats like saying it could be financially disatourous if your SUV got 10mpg instead of 15 and as a result ran out of gas as you were driving to the presentation.

its true in a way but everyone knows the manufaturers estimates are unrealistic at best and avoid situations where they are running close to the line (doesn't you presentation room have mains?!).

Re:Not Intel bashing at all.

[colinrichardday]

And this room where the executive is giving this multimillion dollar presentation doesn't have power outlets? Or does the executive not have an AC adapter?

Re:Not Intel bashing at all.

[Achromatic1978]

The system that reportedly works fine is a /desktop/ system. So exactly how did the other poster determine that there was 'no issue' in 'draining of battery life when USB 2 devices were connected'. I saw no mention of testing current draw, etc. He just said "Hey, my system works fine and it's AMD dual core! Sweet!"

Proved sweet f all.

Re:Not Intel bashing at all.

[Achromatic1978]

No. All the presentations I've been at for multimillion dollar projects, it's generally been the protocol de jure for everyone to crowd their recliners into a semi circle, huddle around the 15" laptop screen, and make periodic remarks such as "Can you tilt the screen back a little, I'm having trouble reading the bottom line cost projections because of that damn LCD angle-of-visibility issue"

Re:Not Intel bashing at all.

[colinrichardday]

Are you serious? I wouldn't know as I've never made or attended such a presentation.

Re:Not Intel bashing at all.

[Achromatic1978]

Absolutely and utterly tongue-in-cheek. I just couldn't imagine a situation the parent poster envisaged - of a presentation as critical as he described being handled in a fly-by-night situation, on a quarter-charged laptop.

Apple using sockets?

[Sad Loser]

I understood that macbooks will have socketed processeors (?? for upgrade).

So if I have to send my new macbook (delivery 15th Feb haha believe it when I see it) back for a newer faster processor sometime down the track I won't lose any sleep over it.

YEAAAAHHHHHH...

[CODiNE]

This article really pinpoints to me one of the best things of all about Apple switching to Intel, REAL OS COMPETITION. Now at last if Windows seems dog slow, you can't claim it's the Intel chip... or when the Finder seems the suckage, you KNOW it's the Finder and not the PPC chip running at a lower MHz. Once we start seeing these systems getting into people's hands and they notice a real difference between the two OS' on the same hardware you can bet they'll be whining about it and performance will definitely be a focus for both OS venders. In the past they could have been lax about it... thinking "But what can they compare it to?" but now if they can show that Quartz drawing is 3x slower than DirectX or vice versa, you can bet there will be performance updates in the near future. This is better for all of us.

P.S. Linux doesn't really count in this manner because it gets ignored as a "geek OS" and not really something anybody can run.

Re:YEAAAAHHHHHH...

[lasindi]

Linux doesn't really count in this manner because it gets ignored as a "geek OS" and not really something anybody can run.

And I suppose you think that non-geeks are going to have a conversation like this:

Non-geek MS fan: Look at that! Finder takes 1.5 times as long as Explorer to display the contents of this directory.
Non-geek Apple fan: Pfff! Everyone knows that Trident (Explorer's renderer) sucks. It's not even close to Acid2 compliance!
Non-geek MS fan: It hardly matters. Acid2 isn't really of any practical value and it doesn't truly represent a test for compliance with HTML/CSS since it only accounts for a small subset of the standards.
Non-geek Apple fan: So what? Everyone knows that if you tie a browser so deeply into an OS you're going to have trouble.
Geek Linux fan: Well, KDE, though not a complete OS, relies pretty heavily on Konqueror, and it's Acid2 compliant.
Both non-geeks: Ugh! Begone you nerd!

Riiight ... Only geeks will really care about "OS competition," so your statement is a moot point. And really, the only geeky knowledge you need to at this point to run Linux is how to boot from a CD. My non-geek sister installed Ubuntu without my help and has run it with no more help than I had to give my other sister who runs Windows.

Apple will always have an "unfair" advantage on the hardware side because it tightly controls what hardware it uses. Windows has to run on a wide variety of hardware whose reliability will vary widely. Linux has to run on the same variety (actually more variety since it can run on both x86, PPC and many other platforms) without the clout that Microsoft has, so usually Linux developers have to write 3rd party drivers with documentation, if they're lucky, or reverse-engineering. The only way you'll have "real OS competition" is if (A) Apple lets OS X run on non-Apple PCs and (B) hardware manufacturers start writing Linux drivers. The former will probably never happen and the latter will only happen if Linux gains a lot of marketshare.

Re:YEAAAAHHHHHH...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have read your post, sir, and I came to the conclusion that you are a drooling retard. Sorry.

Re:YEAAAAHHHHHH...

[Slashcrap]

P.S. Linux doesn't really count in this manner because it gets ignored as a "geek OS" and not really something anybody can run.

In that case, would it be alright to ignore OSX as a "boutique OS" and not really something that anybody who isn't a homosexual graphic designer can run?

Oh sorry, this is a troll but your comment isn't? How does that work exactly?

heh

[nexcomlink]

No offense while I am not a intel supporter or a mac zealot I find it quite funny that every time there is a problem with Intel everyone begins to bash them simply because of a list of problems. No problem simply do a recall. It's quite obvious to me that the Yonah chips where rushed because of Apple. Plus it states XP driver. Nothing related to Apple because they don't use "XP drivers". Or maybe these flaws are intentional so that Windows runs poorly on them. But I seriously doubt they would sacrifice there marketshare just for that. Also AMD has it's own flaws as well, instead of keeping your eye on one thing why not both? From what I read in another /. comment which gave a link to the AMD Duron with a list of 124 flaws. But correct me if I am wrong. Nothing is ever perfect and for you AMD lovers your chip is not perfect either. So live with it. I am pretty sure when you bought a piece of software you just never had to upgrade it right?

full disclosure of bugs

[l2718]

I'm not sure you can label the product as "defective". Software is too complicated to be labelled "defective" just becuase it has bugs. Moreover, I'm not sure you could legally require Microsoft to reveal every bug they know about, especially since the software you bought carried a prominent notice in the EULA saying, roughly "This software is not guaranteed to work; if it fails to function in some way it's not our problem -- you shouldn't have relied on it in the first place". They never promised the ACPI driver will actually work. Note that the GPL carries a similar clause.

That said, I'd rather rely on free software to function as advertized. When the big pieces fail (kernel, web broswer, ...) fixes are usually quick since many experts are working transparently. When small pieces fail (my favorite editor) I can fix them myself and submit a patch.

The other solution, of course, is to pay for warranty. The problem is that no-one is willing to guarantee Windows will work, and that includes the hardware OEM -- I'm sure the people who make the laptop will say that they can't warranty someone else's OS.

Re:full disclosure of bugs

[SilverspurG]

With the very important distinction that I paid $200 for MS EULA to tell me that they are not responsible for broken software. The GPL didn't charge me anything. Even if Debian had cost $20 I still wouldn't be really concerned about bugs. $200, though, is a significant portion of most people's monthly incomes.

Re:full disclosure of bugs

[klingens]

If something isn't working as intended,it's buggy and defective. There is no way around that even if it's just a minor defect.

And yes, the GPL has a similar clause to the MS EULA, but with the GPL and my OS (Debian) I can be sure that the Debian devs don't withhold information about bugs affecting me (bugs.debian.org and Debain Social Contract clause 3).

The problem here is not that bugs in a driver/CPU combo exist. There are many of those: recently there was a bug with AMD dualcores and Cool'n'Quiet under Windows and Linux. There was no fix but it was disclosed. The problem here is that neither MS nor Intel told us about it, and for this they should get their well deserved bad press and a boot to the head

Re:full disclosure of bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Software that has this bug is defective (just as hardware, were it to have this bug, would be defective). Some click-through EULA claiming non-liability for defective product is not enforceable nor even meaningful (except to tell you the EULA writers are scum). If Windows has this bug, it needs to be fix. If the Intel chip/chipset has this bug, it needs to be fixed (and a software fix or hardware swap should be provided to owners of prior revisions). A class-action lawsuit should be launched, if for no other reason than to dissuade companies from shipping their faulty product (and trying to cover it up) in the future.

That being said, I expect using a USB device on a laptop that is not plugged in will draw down the power faster than if I did not use the device. The customer certainly should not have to suffer the power draw down, a result of a defective product, here. But you can, in the mean time, avoid the problem by restricting your use of the product (something which should certainly result in compensation from the company or companies that sold you the defective 'ware).

Re:full disclosure of bugs

[kfg]

Software is too complicated to be labelled "defective" just becuase it has bugs.

Just about everything is "too complicated" to be labeled "defective" if you're going to take that approach.

But "defective" is simply as defective does.

If your car engine tears itself apart after 10k miles because a piston was made out of tolerance that is a defect because the part is a piston, not due any actual property of the object itself. It's role is to play a part in a system, and it is the system that defines the defect.

Perhaps you are laboring under the misapprehension that that warranty guaruntees function. This is obvious nonsense as just about everything can only be guarunteed to not function under certain circumstances. Perfection does not exist if only because perfection is defined by the environment.

A warranty simply states that the producing takes responsibility for certain failures.

KFG

Re:full disclosure of bugs

[colinrichardday]

I suspect that the GP was under no such misapprehension, as much software is sold without warranty.

Re:full disclosure of bugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Software is too complicated to be labelled "defective" just becuase it has bugs.

OMG! ROFL!

Then just what the hell is a bug? This explains fully why I will never own a "fly-by-wire" car that runs Windows CE (just google for the current horror stories). The attitude above is exactly why such a product will never ship with the level of quality assurance that I would consider safe!

Re:full disclosure of bugs

[kfg]

. . .software is sold without warranty.

This is incorrect. Software is sold with a EULA which claims no warranty, but a claim need not be a fact.

Everything is sold with a warranty of some sort or other. Software warranties are as yet simply not sufficiently defined.

KFG

Re:New MacBook - you've been had

[Anonymous Coward]

At least is will work and be virus free.

--
crm114

Microsoft Bugs CAN affect Linux and Apple

[essinger]

What if the current ACPI driver isn't faulty but the previous one was? What if Intel relied on the previous driver to design the sleep functions for the Core Duo? Then Microsoft fixes the ACPI driver. Uh-oh. This kind of thing happens in software all the time. There does seem to be some evidence for this scenerio in the article.

The problem is only reported on the latest Service Pack.

The problem has been known for seven months but not "fixed."

The problem only occurs on the Core Duo.

Microsoft seems ready to take responsibility for the problem even though the evidence points to a hardware problem.

The following quote from the Intel rep -- "It is something we have asked our engineers to put a high priority on. At this time, we may be able to solve the problem through drivers, firmware and software. If there is no solution from a software persepctive, we will look into hardware fixes for future platforms to prevent this issue."

And this other quote pointing a finger at the reference implementation -- "All the vendors have to design their products according to the power management specifications. If one component is not working properly, the whole system may be impacted."

So even if the bug was a Microsoft bug it could still affect all other system using the hardware designed to run on Windows.

You'd think the authors might install Linux on the notebook to check.

Re:New MacBook - you've been had

[Ford Prefect]

So, you bought a macbook? I guess you've got too much money in your hands. You could have a much faster Intel based laptop for half of what you've spent on that overpriced designer shit.

Well, jealousy gets you nowhere... ;-)

For the record, please take advantage of your infinite Anonymous Coward wisdom and find us some high-performance laptops which run MacOS X in a completely supported manner. Your budget is precisely half the cost of a new MacBook Pro.

Go for it, I know you can do it! Go, go, go!

This is a Big Deal?

[MCraigW]

So the big deal is that the processor doesn't sleep and may run your laptop battery down a tiny bit faster?

Okay, so maybe the big deal is that they were (are?) keeping this secret. If it is such a big secret, then why, and how, do we know about it?

Re:This is a Big Deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

It only matters when you measure your (waisted) battery in seconds rather than hours, If I run MS it lasts a miniute or two but if I run a ram loaded (non-hdd) OS it can last 25mins which to me makes me form the view that if I had a fully charged battery that is normaly rated at 1.5hrs running the (normal) OS then I use a ram loaded *nix system that draws no HDD power it's going to last many many times more than twice the time at least, in fact its going to last until I reach the next poser point. ;-)

The fix...

[Anonymous Coward]

Add a key called USB to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es if it doesn't exist already
Add a DWORD EnIdleEndpointSupport
Set the hex value to 1

BTW, this affects ALL XPSP2, Home or Pro, single or dual core.

Keep in mind the "total solution"

[Andy Dodd]

For a desktop system, I'll take AMD over Intel any day, especially one I've specced and built myself. I've got the parts for an Athlon 64 X2-based system on the way to my door from NewEgg right now. :)

For a pre-purchased desktop system, I'd prefer AMD over Intel, but unfortunately, prebuilt systems with AMD CPUs often aren't the nicest systems available. There are some (such as Sun's Opteron-based machines), but it's a lot harder to find a prebuilt system with high overall quality which contains an AMD CPU than with an Intel CPU. That's why my fathers' new file server is Intel-based - you can't get Dell PowerEdge systems with AMD CPUs. Say what you want about Dell, while some of their lower-end systems may be crap, my experience has been that their higher end servers and laptops are incredibly solid and well designed systems. The PE830 has one of the nicest internal designs I've seen in a long time, and both my father's Inspiron 8000 and my I8200 have been flawless for me. (Or at least, have been since I nuked XP from my 8200 and installed Win2k because XP's SpeedStep implementation is utter fucking crap compared to Intel's SpeedStep control applet for Win2k.)

When it comes to laptops, Intel is the only viable choice. Whether or not the Turion 64 is better or worse than the Pentium M, it's impossible to actually buy a high-end Turion 64 based machine from a reputable vendor. Every Turion-based system I've seen has been either from a small-time noname vendor or is an incredibly low-end system (crappy screen, crappy video card, etc). There simply are no Turion-based systems that can even come close to competing with IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads or Dell's higher-end Inspirons like the XPS M170, the 9300, and 9400. If there are, they are impossible to find.

Re:Keep in mind the "total solution"

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got the parts for an Athlon 64 X2-based system on the way to my door from NewEgg right now. :)

Oh my, it's time to bribe UPS to find out who Andy's deliveryman is! You will be mine, my precious! Oh yes, you will be mine... Precious... *cough* *hack* *gurgling* Mmm... Precious.

Re:Keep in mind the "total solution"

[the eric conspiracy]

Intel has had exclusive contracts with a lot of laptop vendors. That is changing, at least in part because AMD won an anti-trust lawsuit in Japan against Intel - so these contracts are now illegal in Japan. Lenovo is also not an Intel only shop while IBM was, so it is logical to expect AMD ThinkPads in the future.

Ultimatley the reason you were not able to find quality AMD laptops has a lot to do with Intel using it's near monopoly position to extort exclusive contracts from laptop suppliers. Fortunatly that is ending.

Re:Keep in mind the "total solution"

[Overly Critical Guy]

Funny, since the low-power laptop Core Duo chip manages to compete performance-wise with the desktop Athlon64 3800+ X2, all the while consuming less power at 100% than the Athlon does when idle. Think about it, a laptop chip competing with the beloved AMD desktop chips. One wonders how far ahead Intel will be when the desktop-focused Conroe ships later this year.

Re:retard

[nexcomlink]

"in the way the currently available version of the ICH7-M Southbridge communicates with Microsoft's ACPI driver," "The specific piece which Intel and Microsoft now say is responsible for the power drain is Windows' Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI) driver, which is a software component provided through the operating system." Seems like a driver issue to me so before you go on insulting people maybe try reading the entire article. Does not seem to be the southbridge at fault but how the ACPI microsoft driver talks to it. But this is a undergoing investigation so I will refrain from any such comments like yours.

NAACP

[theboogeyman]

I am a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Chinky People and I demand that Slashdot write an official letter of apology to all the people of Asian descent who were greatly offended by the use of such racist and derogatory language.

God I wish I had mod points right now.

[Andy Dodd]

"IBM cell based hardware running GNU/Linux is going to blow all of this trash into a distantly remembered nightmare."

No, it isn't. It's not even going to come close. It's not even going to exist, ever. 90% of the Cell's computing horsepower is in the SPUs, which are optimized for signal processing and geometry processing applications (namely, grinding away on lots of number crunching). No instruction reordering, floating-point only, and very limited branching functionality. The coprocessors are more comparable to devices such as Analog Devices' TigerSHARC or TI's TMS320 series than any general purpose CPU. Despite the insane floating point performance, you don't see TigerSHARC or TMS320 based computers, do you? That's because they are not suitable for general purpose computing in any way.

The Cell's general purpose "controller" CPU is an incredibly stripped down PPC core that has incredibly low performance compared to any standard general purpose CPU.

While it will have incredible performance for gaming and signal processing, the Cell is an utterly crap CPU for general purpose computing. Using a Cell in a normal desktop machine is like trying to cut a tree trunk with a cordless electric drill rather than a reciprocating saw. No matter how nice of a drill it is, it's going to do a shitty job compared to even the cheapest recipro saw, if it manages to do the job at all.

Common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

If you push engineers to produce chips without giving them sufficient time, you get buggy chips.

If you push programmers to produce software without giving them sufficient time, you get buggy software.

If you push patent examiners to examine patent applications without giving them sufficient time, you get buggy patents.

Let us abolish all chips, software, and patents because their bugs cause too many problems. This is a much smarter solution than giving people the time & resources to do their jobs properly.

The problem includes AMD64...

[dan501]

for the last little while, I've been noticing that my compaq R3000 AMD64 WinXP SP2 laptop has been running with the fan at full tilt almost all of the time.
I normally run plugged into power with music playing so I didn't think much about it, other than noting it being weird.

right now the fan is running at full tilt. and has been for hours. even when the system is 99% idle. the ambient temp is about 70F. the computer is cool to the touch everywhere.

I unplugged my ipod shuffle.

the fan went into halfspeed mode about 5 seconds later.
it's about 2 minutes later and it still hasn't stepped down to lowspeed fan. but even this is an improvement.

Another fake scandal

[GIL_Dude]

First, the article isn't hidden and available to just MS and OEM's. I can see it fine through Premier Online (requires a select or enterprise agreement granted). The article also says NOTHING about any processor architecture - it is ALL of them - AMD, Intel, dual core, single core, hyperthreading - doesn't matter. According to the article, it is anything runnning XPSP2.

Re:A bug? Mircosoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Certainly. Bend over.... oh, you already are. You've been buggered before, haven't you?

Re:Only M$ can turn this into anti-Apple FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, why not. After all we already had an "ancient unix bugs a possible threat to OS X" article.

Dual core the culprit

[cnettel]

The Windows scheduler is different in single and dual core, or more specifically: single or multi CPU. This is quite understandable, as there are some optimizations possible for the synchronization objects if you know for a fact that there is only one real execution path. Synchronization in different forms is used A LOT in the NT kernel, as it's a piece of full reentrancy fetishism.

Intel is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel used to be at the top of the game.

Now it's Sun processors, AMD Processors, and IBM's Cell processors which will finish eating Intel's lunch.

VIA is another one that will chip away (no pun inteneded) at Intel.

I remember when I had an x86_64 AMD chip. I went to the Linux expo in New York a couple of years ago.

I asked the Intel reps if they would consider doing the same thing AMD had done. They immediately answered "No, no plans for 64 bit extentions for home desktops".

One month later they announced that they changed course, while AMD was already winning in the market, Intel was playing catch up. That's what you get when you lack vision, you lack quality.

Re: Mod Parent down.

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't nesseccarily a windows fault either (even though M$ did help to make ACPI come true). Read the ACPI spec and try to implement your own ACPI driver/parser/interpreter and see how difficult it is when:

  A, the spec is just fucking retarded.
  B, there are a lot of broken BIOSes because of A and the fact that BIOS manufacturers do not care.

if your dont believe me, check out your favorite open source operating systems source code that has the ACPI software components and then ask the developers how much of a hair pulling experience it is. :)

There may be no fix, but there is a workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume this has been posted previously, this is what you've got to do:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate, and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\USB
Note If the USB subkey does not exist, create it. To do this, follow these steps:a. Select the Services key. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click Key.
b. Type USB in the New Key #1 box to name the new key "USB."

3. Right-click USB, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. In the New Value #1 box that appears, type EnIdleEndpointSupport, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click EnIdleEndpointSupport, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, leave the Hexadecimal option selected, and then click OK.
7. Quit Registry Editor.

Re:There may be no fix, but there is a workaround

[belg4mit]

6. In the Value data box, type 1, leave the Hexadecimal option selected, and then click OK.

Why do so many windows "tweak guides" include lines like that?
1=1; be it 0x01, 1, or 0b1.

Re:There may be no fix, but there is a workaround

[the eric conspiracy]

My Workaround:

1. Download Centos 4 DVD ISO from a mirror.
2. Burn DVD with ISO
3. Insert DVD into DVD drive
4. Reboot
5. Follow installation instructions being sure to remove all existing partitions.
6. Reboot.

Re:There may be no fix, but there is a workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

once you figure out how to recompile your kernel to support ACPI and get the userspace daemons to work, you can have fun using an operating system that will likely decrease your productivity, have less app support, and is harder to use

Re:There may be no fix, but there is a workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

Blue Badge or Orange?

Re:There may be no fix, but there is a workaround

[the eric conspiracy]

once you figure out how to recompile your kernel to support ACPI and get the userspace daemons to work

Centos 4 comes with ACPI compiled in and with the userspace daemons working just fine, thank you.

you can have fun using an operating system that will likely decrease your productivity, have less app support, and is harder to use

Some people find having useful command line tools to be more productive than mousing around a GUI, and while app support may be reduced that includes a greatly reduced complement of malware. Harder to use is in the eye of the beholder and what you are used to. If ease of use was the only critereon we would all be using Mac OS 1.0.

Re:There may be no fix, but there is a workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not from a Windows tweak guide, its from the actual Microsoft KB article... word for word

Installed the AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core Drivers ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a quick question ? Have you installed the AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core drivers ? You can find them on AMD's site.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResou rces/0,,30_182_871_13118,00.html
I run a Windows XP Pro SP2 with these drivers on an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ with no issues.

AMD Athlon(TM) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor Driver for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Version (exe) 1.2.2.2 - Allows the system to automatically adjust the CPU speed, voltage and power combination that match the instantaneous user performance need. Download this Setup Installation program (EXE) to automatically update all the files necessary for installation. This package is recommended for users whom desire a graphical user interface for installation. This .EXE driver is a user friendly localized software installation of the driver designed for end-users. This driver supports AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core processors on Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2003 SP1.

clarification...?

[pennyher0]

Last sentence: This leads one to wonder if it is truely a software problem or if there a much larger hardware problem that may affect Core Duo equipped Apple systems.

Did they mean "...Core Duo equipped Apple systems AS WELL" ? Or was it supposed to read "windows systems" still and may be a typo? ...meaning that the problem being discussed could be much larger than initially thought in general, and not necessarily making the leap to Apple computers yet.

Clearly there's implications for Duo Core equipped Apple Systems. Just wondering if they meant to implicate that at that point and were just sloppy about it, or what. :)

KB Article

[Anonymous Coward]

A Windows XP SP2-based portable computer uses its battery power more quickly than you expect when a USB 2.0 device is connected
View products that this article applies to.

Partner Only Article Article ID : 899179
Last Review : July 12, 2005
Revision : 1.0
Important This article contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure to back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, and modify the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
256986 (https://premier.microsoft.com/kb/256986/) Description of the Microsoft Windows registry
SYMPTOMS
Consider the following scenario. You install Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) on a portable computer. Then, you connect a USB 2.0 device to the computer. In this scenario, the computer uses its battery power more quickly than you expect.
CAUSE
Windows XP SP2 installs a USB 2.0 driver that initializes any connected USB device. However, the USB 2.0 driver leaves the asynchronous scheduler component continuously running. This problem causes continuous instances of memory access that prevent the computer from entering the deeper Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) processor idle sleep states. These processor idle sleep states are also known as C states. For example, these include the C3 and C4 states. These sleep states are designed, in part, to save battery power. If an otherwise idle portable computer cannot enter or maintain the processor idle sleep states, the computer uses its battery power more quickly than you expect.
RESOLUTION
Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk. To resolve this problem, add the EnIdleEndpointSupport entry to the USB registry key. To do this, follow these steps:1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate, and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\USB
Note If the USB subkey does not exist, create it. To do this, follow these steps:a. Select the Services key. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click Key.
b. Type USB in the New Key #1 box to name the new key "USB."

3. Right-click USB, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. In the New Value #1 box that appears, type EnIdleEndpointSupport, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click EnIdleEndpointSupport, and then click Modify.
6. In the Value data box, type 1, leave the Hexadecimal option selected, and then click OK.
7. Quit Registry Editor.

STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

APPLIES TO
  Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, when used with:
        Microsoft Windows XP Professional
        Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

  Top of Page

Keywords: kbtshoot kbbug kbnofix kbprb KB899179

next thing you know....

[ChrisGilliard]

They'll be releasing a new driver with the latest version of Windows that extends batery life by 1 hour. Ingenius!

That would not be a problem for Linux

[Piroca]

Given that ACPI barely works on it and is very buggy, therefore most people usually avoid doing anything fancy such as configuring power saving functionalities...

Re:That would not be a problem for Linux

[B1gP4P4Smurf]

Given that ACPI barely works on it and is very buggy, therefore most people usually avoid doing anything fancy such as configuring power saving functionalities...

s/ACPI barely works on it/ACPI barely works/

Seriously, read all the comments from Windows users in the thread - Linux is hardly the only OS that suffers from ACPI issues. At least with Linux you can report the bug in bugzilla and track its progress, as opposed to being helpless until Microsoft or your vendor fixes it.

The problem with ACPI is that vendors don't bother to fully debug their implementation - as soon as it boots XP, they ship it, and work around any BIOS bugs that surface later in the drivers - unfortunately for Linux, they don't document these bugs so it's often a lengthy trial and error process.

Unfair judgement

[Stan Vassilev]

We have this XP driver work fine with all CPU's from AMD and Intel, including Core Solo, but bugging out with Core Duo.

Given it was written before Duo existed, it's not really fair to call it "bug in the driver". Intel and MS are probably to share the blame, with Duo not exactly working as per spec, and XP maybe taking a shortcut or two that happen not to work on the Duo.

This is called incompatibility, not bug. Also even if it's a hardware bug, it's most likely possible to work around with a software patch by Microsoft, just like most of the critical CPU bugs are worked around in software via the compilers.

Re:Only M$ can turn this into anti-Apple FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple can just as easily spin this to their advantage:
"OS X: Works better on Windows hardware than Windows does"

"truely a software problem"

[ThatsNotFunny]

Oh no, it's already affecting the spell check! I guess it *truly* is a software problem...

This is nothing new

[Tycho]

Windows is full of bugs like these. I own a laptop, running Windows XP, it is an Acer 8100 series. I upgraded the RAM to 2GB from the installed 1GB of RAM. Occasionally the computer would not enter hibernate while in standby and would instead wake up, stay awake and suck down battery power. XP would throw up an error about being unable to complete the API because of insufficient resources. Why a machine with 2GB of RAM would ever have not enough resources is beyond me. At any rate, to obtain the fix I had to call the support line at Microsoft and get e-mailed a URL and password for a password protected archive. Installing the files from this archive fixed the problem, but that is too much work for something that should have been caught in SP2. Supposedly this fix will show up in XP SP3, whenever that happens.

I still have trouble with the laptop not going to sleep all of the time when closing the lid. Sometimes after I close the laptop it displays a scrambled screen. I am afaid of trying to get this fixed if this is a hardware problem, because in my opinion, laptops disassembled and reassembled outside the factorey are never quite the same as they were. Maybe I just need to flash the BIOS.

Yes, I tried to run Linux on this computer, Fedora Core 4, X did not work properly, and Linux would lock up if the pcmcia deamon started and every few seconds the acpi daemon would print a message to the console complaining about something in the BIOS. Granted X stopped working after I tried to set the screen resolution to 1680x1050, the native resolution of the panel.

Re:This is nothing new

[koafc]

I have the same issue on my Windows desktop. (Won't go into hibernate when I have 2 GB RAM and have made the CPU run at 100%.) Can you give me the patch somehow?

Re:This is nothing new

[Script_God]

I have the same problem with my 1.5GB of RAM. I never had an issue with it when I only had 512MB of RAM. Could you be so kind as to give me the number you called and more specific information on what you had to say to get them to divulge this patch? And why don't they just release it to the general public? Oh wait, that'd just be smart.

Re:This is nothing new

[Achromatic1978]

Windows is full of bugs like these ... would not enter hibernate while in standby

Linux ... every few seconds the acpi daemon would print a message to the console complaining about something in the BIOS.

So in other words, in all probability it'd be a bad error message in XP (blaming insufficient resources), but actually a HARDWARE / BIOS problem? You even ponder the BIOS in the previous paragraph. Windows, indeed, nothing it can't be blamed for.

Re:This is nothing new

[Tycho]

Get the patch from Microsoft, you will have to call them directly at their 1-800 number and they will e-mail you the link for the fix. The patch is related to KB Article Number 909095.

Re:This is nothing new

[Tycho]

Get the patch from Microsoft, you will have to call them directly at their 1-800 number, mention the Knowledge Base article number and they will e-mail you the link for the fix, for free. The KB article states that this is only a problem with computers running with 1GB or more of RAM and only for some computers, the Knowledge Base article is more descriptive of the problem. The patch is related to KB Article Number 909095.

Re:This is nothing new

[Tycho]

No as I said in other replies this is a real bug that only affects machines running Windows XP with 1GB or more of RAM. The acpi daemon error in Linux was something about an invalid endpoint in the ACPI tree. At any rate, a new BIOS for my laptop is available and I have flashed the BIOS. This may clear up the acpi error in Linux, but I know that supporting ACPI is a nightmare in Linux and this may not fix the problem.

Re:This is nothing new

[Achromatic1978]

Having said all that, I know that my laptop with 2GB RAM has had that exact same error (though I've not installed Linux on it - though I did get osx86 running natively on it - ahem), but generally when attempting a suspend/hibernate - though far from all times.

I did install a new BIOS the other day, but haven't tested (erratic as it is) to see if I still do. I do, however, have 256mb of video memory on it now, wee. Though I'd kinda like to be asked in the BIOS how much system memory I'd like to hand over, I can survive - 128mb.

Honkey?

[ThatsNotFunny]

I don't know ANY white people who are offended by the term "honkey".

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

This:

I dual boot between Windows XP Pro SP2 for gaming and Windows XP Pro x64 for work, and both work absolutely perfectly.

and this:

I have been running this system since November with only one or two reboots.

does not compute.

Re:WTF?

[Joe123456]

WMF comeing your way mr no rebooter

Re:WTF?

[Deathbane27]

This... does not compute. One would assume only one or two reboots for the sake of clearing the RAM.

Mod this post down

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

KB899179 looks curiously like a shade of olive green.

I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM

[Anonymous Coward]

and it has really been pissing me off... at first i thought it was just that i had my system oc'd too high, but after i loaded the optimised defaults it still happened...
system:
dfi sli-dr
4400+
2gb ram
I have never had the problem in linux, and i think it started happening after i installed the CnQ windows driver... I never used to have this problem with this xp installation so it has to be some sort of driver.

Re:New MacBook - you've been had

[Anonymous Coward]

As a matter of fact, I do. A couple thousand dollars makes absolutely no difference to me.

here is a good idea

[crashelite]

lets install linux on the pc with problems if it then (after writing drivers for all the hardware) does not have the problem it is windows... and then it confirms what is already known M$ sucks...

Re:here is a good idea

[B1gP4P4Smurf]

I am sorry if you bought hardware from a manufacturer who does not support Linux, but you will have to take this up with the vendor - there's nothing the Linux kernel developers can do if your vendor won't release the necessary information to write a driver.

Fortunately there are plenty of modern machines that Linux fully supports. If you want to make Linux a better OS, evan if you never plan to run it, you can help by purchasing from a Linux friendly vendor. You can ask on any Linux user web forum or mailing list how well a given laptop is supported, before you buy.

In general, avoid Nvidia video cards, and Broadcom and Atheros wireless - these work but may require a binary only driver which is a real pain, can destabilise your system, and generally negates the benefits of an open source OS (eg you won't be able to run 64bit linux if the vendor only releases 32bit drivers).

Lawsuit or refund

[Anonymous Coward]

And if my Li-Ion died because the CPU didnt go into low power mode, should I send Micros*ck or Intel the bill ?

jeebus

[Anonymous Coward]

and some people complain about *Linux* being arcane!!!

Re:jeebus

[Foolhardy]

Were this a change posted to a linux page it would read: "Add a DWORD named EnIdleEndpointSupport with value 1 to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USB", only it would be in a /etc config file. The parent just lists it step-by-step. Alternatively, on XP, just type this into a terminal:

reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USB /v EnIdleEndpointSupport /t REG_DWORD /d 1

Law Suits

[nurb432]

Why sue over every little flaw? Wake the hell up, its how things are done now.

Besides, if you give an inch, they will take a foot. Corporate America is NOT to be trusted. At all.

Flaw

[nurb432]

No, releasing a driver to get more performance beyond what you bought is another matter. That would be considered legal and fair. Selling short would not be grounds for a suit.

However, selling a device that you know does not meet the stated performance is fraud.

Re:New MacBook - you've been had

[Anonymous Coward]

too bad those criteria don't apply to your mom.

Reference Code

[kylef]

Why bring Apple into a conversation about a defective XP driver?

I am willing to bet that Microsoft's driver was written by Intel vendors using Intel reference code. The ACPI spec is horribly complicated/confusing, making the Intel reference code that much more important.

I would be very surprised if MS developed an ACPI driver from scratch in-house. Similarly, I would also be surprised if Apple developed their own driver.

What does this mean? Apple and MS may both use the same Intel ACPI reference code, possibly exposing the same issue. We won't know for sure until testing.

Re:full disclosure of bugs er. features

[Anonymous Coward]

So the software glitch that causes Boeing 777 to go into a stall configuration is not really, really a bug?

Faulty instructions, whether on dead trees, or in digital format telling a device how to behave without direct human intervention, are faults, and should be remedied or and/or come with prominent warnings.

I have bought common handtools that have more instructions and warnings than the average software.

You do better things than worry about Mod Points.

[twitter]

While it will have incredible performance for gaming and signal processing, the Cell is an utterly crap CPU for general purpose computing. Using a Cell in a normal desktop machine is like trying to cut a tree trunk with a cordless electric drill rather than a reciprocating saw.

I like what you have worked on much better than I like your analogies. Do you think a handheld cell device would do well with something like VOIP or CU30? It it could do that, play music, browse the web and text edit / email, I'd say it was a very nice general purpose device. General purpose does not take much. Would I notice all that you say the cell lacks any more than I would notice delays on a 150 MHz Pentium?

It would be hard for a Windoze user to understand.

[twitter]

I've used hibernation with W2K, XP and 2003 and interestingly I've never observed these side effects you talk about (except that pre-SP2 Windows 2000 sometimes would fail to wake up, though that was fixed), but then I don't know what would be the point of leaving a machine in that state for 40 days.

You failed to observe anything because you don't understand the purpose of hibernation. Well, that and your choice of an OS that forces a reboot every 14 days and flakes out much sooner. You are so used to the workarounds to your system's reliability and usability problems that you just don't get it.

Hibernation and suspend on laptops are for portability and place keeping. You take your work with you, open the lid and there it is for you to do what you need. When you are done, you close the lid and move on. My laptops never hibernate for more than a few days but the two or three projects I'm working on are always there when I'm ready to get back to work.

Place keeping works much better with a decent window manager with virtual desktops, and a session manager which the software you describe lacks. You could almost get away with flaky performance if only your work would appear as you left it after a reboot but none of my Windoze using friends has ever told me about a M$ session manager that works. When you try to work on more than one project, you have to hunt through a crappy icon bar for your work. When I open my laptop's lid my projects are right where I left them, spread out over several virtual desktops.

Yeah, I've seen the new M$ "Power Tools" that finally give the user virtual desktops. It has a kind of KDE look to it, but is not nearly as nice. The ability to display more than one desktop at a time on the screen almost makes up for the lack of a pager, but all of it is useless without system stability. If you can't keep your machine up for more than a day, there's not much point in trying to keep open more than one project's worth of work, is there? Might as well keep single tasking, the way Bill intended. Yeah, keep on keeping on until Bill does it, then suddenly it's going to be the bestest most hypest thing in the world.

MS make dodgy software.. whats new

[Anonymous Coward]

So Microsoft make crappy software and won't fix it. What a big sur... low battery.. shutting down.

Buy Windows Vista... And get your battery to last like it should.

I'll be sure to...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not install Windows XP SP2
on my Apple computer!

Cell-based servers will exist

[this great guy]

It's not even going to exist, ever.

Yes, it will.

The Cell's general purpose "controller" CPU is an incredibly stripped down PPC core that has incredibly low performance compared to any standard general purpose CPU.

Maybe you should tell that to IBM, so that they don't waste time & money researching the possibility of building "incredibly low performance" Cell-based Blade servers.

I can clearly see the typical usage that could be made of such servers. Your VPN server spends 90% of it's CPU time doing crypto-related operations ? Replace it with a Cell-based server using a Cell-optimized crypto library. You have a server farm doing video encoding ? Replace it with Cell-based servers using Cell-optimized video encoding routines.

Regarding Cell-based workstations, I can't predict whether this market will ever develop or not because it all depends on the software that will be ported to it. Open source apps have a net advantage of course, since they simply need to be recompiled for the Cell. IBM has already ported Linux to the Cell too. And as a Linux/BSD guru, I would not hesitate to buy a Cell-based workstation just to play with it. Because I know I don't need a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 to browse the web, send emails, read PDFs, write some code, play a few MP3s, etc. I was an early adopter of AMD64, I bought my dual-Opteron box, and have contributed various assembly-optimized code to various open source projects. I expect to do the same with the Cell.

Hardware issue? Give me a break.

[floamy]

This bug only appears on Windows. They already said the software issue lied with the scheduling. The Linux kernel has had /many/ similar issues in the past in the scheduler that affected SMP systems only. I doubt that the fact that single CPUs aren't affected means it has anything to do with hardware.

I think this is a good ol fashioned Slashdot troll post. The more people comment, the more money they make.

ha, take that, SP2!

[Phil Urich]

Notice that this bug was introduced by service pack 2 BTW

Hah! Another reason why I'm glad I didn't "update" to SP2!

Oh, right, I'm running a single-core AMD system . . . still, though!

I figured out a workaround...

[im_thatoneguy]

... unplug your USB2.0 devices when you set your laptop into stand-by.

Not the optimal solution, but hey, who am I to judge.

Re:New MacBook - you've been had

[arodland]

OS X is irrelevant. Support is irrelevant. You will be upgraded. Your hardware and software distinctiveness will be removed. You will exist to buy Intel.

Minor problem

[Andy Dodd]

The article you linked to stated insane floating point performance, not insane integer performance. Thus the Cell isn't necessarily going to perform well for crypto (crypto is integer-based, not FP.) The Cell in general is highly optimized for FP performance.

Your link to an IBM Cell-based blade server means nothing as far as the Cell's suitability for general purpose computing. Keep in mind that many of IBM's customers purchase VERY large special-purpose systems. Building a blade motherboard based on Cell for those that want to perform scientific computing (one of the few areas where Cell will excel at) is nothing compared to designing an entire custom special purpose processor, which IBM *has* done for at least two customers - Microsoft (Xbox 360) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (BlueGene/L uses custom CPUs designed specifically for the type of work BlueGene/L does.)

Myself, I do indeed look forward to playing with a Cell-based system, but that's because my focus in graduate school was on signal processing for communications, which is one of the areas at which the Cell does excel. But there's no way I'm ever going to spec a Cell processor for a general purpose machine.

Re:Minor problem

[this great guy]

the Cell isn't necessarily going to perform well for crypto

Yes it will. Cryptography is an area where Cell designers especially expect the processor to perform well. See this.

Your link to an IBM Cell-based blade server means nothing as far as the Cell's suitability for general purpose computing.

Well we can't really say anything until IBM actually announces those Cell-based server. So, wait and see.

Serves you right then

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont you know you are only supposed to install signed drivers to stop this kind of thing from happening? ...oh wait..

Insightful?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is titled "Faulty _Microsoft_ Driver ...," yet so many /.ers are taking it as their chance to bash Intel. At this time, Intel is the only company with a dual-core laptop processor that can run WinBlows. Possibly it has escaped the notice of these devoted AMD fanbois that AMD has been unable to generate such a processor? Possibly the AMD fanbois would much rather bash Intel than cry over their power-hungry Turions. Intel has made many missteps. AMD has made many more. Go back and look at the history of AMD and balance your anti-Intel comments with a few about the AMD mobile processor, and maybe the K6. You don't know what the K6 is? Thought so. Better still, assign blame where it lies ... the faulty M$ driver.

Re:twitter strikes again

[The Bungi]

When you try to work

Blah blah blah windoze sux blah blah blah M$ blah blah blah linux is teh bestest blah blah blah.

That's all nice and good, and while I appreciate your essay on hybernation and the things Windows cannot do (which are all untrue, since of course the last time you used Windows Bill Clinton was still president), you happily did some selective quoting and failed to address the fact that I and everyone else called you on your ignorance about cell processors.

But hey, I see your pathetic little crusade is still going strong so I'm not surprised.

Who would have thought?

[Zencyde]

So, it seems that mixing bad hardware with bad software is bad for the environment? That is too funny...

Unfair moderation alert

[Lord Kano]

My previous post was certinly Off Topic, but it was not a Troll. I linked to the amazon.com page about the book that I was speaking of. It's a book that I own and read.

LK