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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 ----
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 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 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.
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.
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 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
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.
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?
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