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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."
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"
Why does the last phrase target specifically Apple computers since the beginning mentions Win XP. Obviously, this affects XP laptops with a core duo.
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.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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/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.
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?
"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!"
"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!
I do not know the exact details, so accept this as a pure speculation.
/sbin/update).
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Circumcision is child abuse.
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.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Our quad opterons (two dualcore) appear perfectly stable under Linux. Have you tried that as a test to rule out hardware?
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.
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.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
"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....
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.
I like muppets.
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.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
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?
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.
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.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
on my bigass American TV.
Sarcasm, right?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
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.
"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.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
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.
my livejournal is interesting and worth reading - I swear. I know everyone thinks their blog is interesting. mine is.
I assume this has been posted previously, this is what you've got to do:
c es\USB
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\Servi
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.
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
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
A Windows XP SP2-based portable computer uses its battery power more quickly than you expect when a USB 2.0 device is connected
c es\USB
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\Servi
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
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Keywords: kbtshoot kbbug kbnofix kbprb KB899179
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...
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.