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Microsoft's Meltdown and Spectre Patch Is Bricking Some AMD PCs (betanews.com)
Mark Wilson writes: As if the Meltdown and Spectre bug affecting millions of processors was not bad enough, the patches designed to mitigate the problems are introducing issues of their own. Perhaps the most well-known effect is a much-publicized performance hit, but some users are reporting that Microsoft's emergency patch is bricking their computers. We've already seen compatibility issues with some antivirus tools, and now some AMD users are reporting that the KB4056892 patch is rendering their computer unusable. A further issue -- error 0x800f0845 -- means that it is not possible to perform a rollback.
Microsoft really seems to be de-emphasizing quality assurance in the Windows product. Makes me feel real good about the forced updates of Windows 10.
I haven't seen too much online but MS did something to break Windows Updates for many users sometime around Dec 3-5. I have one customer with a couple hundred PC's and Windows Update is still broken on about 70% of them. The only fixes I've seen involve setting the date back on the PC by about 6 months, running Updates again, let it fail, then change the date back to current. The problem with this fix (and the others I've seen) erases the Windows Updates history so it appears they've never been run (and nothing installed prior can be uninstalled)
Why does error 0x800f0845 mean rollback is impossible?
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
AM2+ cpus are quite old even intel system from that time have limited drivers for new windows.
Yeah, I've been using Cuban designed CPUs since the 80's and haven't had any of these problems.
Keep shoving those updates down people's throats. Don't give them an opportunity to not update. It's not their machine anyway, so why should they have a choice when or if to update?
Model check the CPU before allowing patch to run or brick a lusers PC? BRICK THAT S**T!
Always always always wait a few weeks at least for all the bugs to get ironed out. Unless you're running a commercial VM operation or your machine contains information north korea or russia desperately need then you can easily afford to wait it out until everyone else beta tests microsoft's patches for you.
Most of the big OEMs use Intel, this just means MS can insure that people who need Windows will continue to stick with Intel, despite all evidence that AMD might be better.
How much did Intel pay M$ to brick AMD systems?
*tightens tin foil hat*
Crap, that's what my home PC is running on. Guess it's time to permanently block updates...
Never mind, I'm good - I'm actually running an AM3 processor (Phenom II X4). Guess it is time to go block updates, though.
And the worms ate into his brain.
The Free Market allows you to have a practical choice between Windows 10 and Windows 10 Pro. If you don't like one, you can use the other. It's almost as good as being able to choose between Comcast and AT&T. I love the smell of choice in the morning. Viva Choice!
Table-ized A.I.
'bricked' means the hardware is messed up, e.g. you can't reinstall an OS.
I've got some old Athlon boards around I was using until last year. They're great for HTPC if you don't mind a bit of noise from the fan. They make good gaming rigs for e-sports style games if you pair them with something like a 1050 or an RX460. The boards came out after solid state caps were a thing so they last forever.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Why is a Meltdown patch affecting AMD? Only commercially avaiable Intel processors are affected by Meltdown.
I currently have 4 AM2+ systems running at home and while they are old, they are more then capable for what I need them to do. They're all running Windows 7. So I'll have to look into this before allowing them to be updated.
Processors are not like they were in the 80's and 90's. In the 1980's it was seriously expensive to update, so I didn't do so as often as I did in the 1990's. I probably updated my systems every 2 to 3 years back then. But I don't' see the need to do so anymore. Unless you are a serious gamer, or do a lot of video editing/transcoding there's no need. It's been a while since I played any games, but the Phenom 2 1100T with an NVidia 730 had enough power to keep all of the settings pretty high and no issues with frame rate. Why should people be forced to send perfectly usable hardware to a landfill simply because it's not the latest shiny thing on the market?
Cuba is not a good example of "no free market" because they are not a democracy. In a socialistic democracy, you can vote for candidates who fix bad systems/products. In a dictatorial system, you can't.
Political and economic systems are now different things. We have dictatorial capitalism and socialist democracies. Our political vocabulary was created when they were mostly related several decades ago, and it causes confusion.
Note that a semi-socialistic system can create MORE competition by breaking up big companies into multiple smaller ones. I've never met a good oligopoly (except maybe when they are young companies who haven't learned to slack yet.)
Table-ized A.I.
Linux as daily driver is sounding better and better the more windows does processing behind your back, displays ads on the start menu, and pushes updates when it feels like. Even applications are getting guilty checking and downloading updates whenever they feel like it
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services and export the wuauserv key to a reg file. Then import this reg file:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\wuauserv]
Run your export to restore the Windows Update service. Run this one to remove it again. Once the updates want to reboot you can remove wuauserv because that has nothing to do with the actual update installation at that point.
The OS has to be reinstalled.
How is that bricking?
I find it hard to believe that any software patch is managing to brick a PC. Short of flashing the BIOS, it's almost impossible to brick a PC with software. A simple format/reinstall will recover the PC without issues.
Perfectly safe airship. It can't fly.
Seems like it ran fine yesterday.
I've experienced 0x000000C4.
Practical? Almost 0% of accounting and administrative offices in the industrial world use those for desktops. Those who tried run into tons of compatibility problems.
Table-ized A.I.
By your implicit argument, free market capitalism doesn't work because we don't use CPUs from Chile, which is much larger in population than Cuba.
It turns out that China, which has a non-free economy designs some quite capable CPUs which have given China the top spot in supercomputing for the past four years. If you look at the top ten list of supercomputers, China represents roughly twice the computing power on that last that America does.
This doesn't mean that I advocate the kind of government-crony capitalism practiced in China, but I'm saying don't be complacent and assume you've got the best of everything because you live in a country that, two generations ago, landed a man on the Moon. A lot of the stuff we have here is pretty lame: Internet service, cellular service, and -- if you go by outcomes or cost -- medical treatment.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Yeah, I've been using Swedish designed CPUs since the 80s and haven't had any of these problems.
Okay, yeah, I am a Microsoft dev. So what? Still think you should stop bashing us, doing our best over here.
It makes it really hard for anyone to ever want to trust MS when their patches break the OS, more than twice in your life, much less (it feels like) once a year.
It is hard for the end users who have 1000's of machines, or just don't understand patching, or simply don't care, to try and remember to patch manually after checking that the patches work. It is hard when you have "It must be patched" rules to follow. I get it, but on the other side, you end up spending weeks rebuilding boxes when you lose all of those cloned machines. On the bright side, all of this does turn into jobs for people on all sides of this.
--
Ribbit
Your best includes borking AMD computers?
You need to step it up a notch or two though, cause frankly I don't want to deal with this if it hits my customers computers. The same customers all squawking they want this patch NOW.
Your "best" makes my job harder. So if I bash you its well deserved.
I almost never log in to /. anymore to post as I have found the quality of the site to have dropped off significantly in the past many years. For this though I make an exception.
For all the hand ringing and complaining about updating windows 10 on a site of technically competent people, for the love of God just go into services and disable windows update. This will stop the evil corporation from pushing crap onto your machine. After all the bitching is done about 'whatever the current crisis' is, turn on the service and apply updates. Is is a bit of the pain in the ass? Yes. Does it give me control over my machine? To certain degree.
Hell, on my home machine I have yet to install the creators update or whatever it is called. My guess is that the software fix for this Intel thing will mature and for this I would rather wait than be a forced early adopter.
DK
The free market guarantees meritocracy, right? right??? RIGHT!?!?
Adam Smith, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" - 1776, did not predict joy on every single day, he predicted better outcomes in the long run than otherwise available.
So yes, capitalism allows us to switch to macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, etc to reward those and/or punish Microsoft. That is the mechanism by which a meritocracy is determined.
Your Bug Report Status: Works as expected.
The free market allows you to have a practical choice between Microsoft, Apple, Ubuntu, Redhat, any of a dozen flavors of fully open-source/free Linux, BSD, EComStation (PS/2...remember that?) running on hardware from dozens of manufacturers using CPUs from a half-dozen or so big chipmakers.
Except laptop computers shipping with (and warranted to run) GNU/Linux tend to demand a higher price than laptop computers shipping with (and warranted to run) Windows, despite GNU/Linux's smaller royalty per copy than Windows. What in the free market makes this happen? And what in the free market results in there being only two chipmakers producing CPUs capable of running Wine, namely AMD and Intel?
I've been using Swedish designed CPUs
Do they come in a flat pack with a hex wrench ?
Boo hoo ... wow, you're doing your best, so that's OK.
Sorry, this isn't grade school, you don't get a badge just for participating.
See, as an entity, MS decided "we know what is best, we are going to patch your machine when we want and you don't get a vote". Which means MS owns the consequences of failure.
If you're going to be arrogant shitheads you don't get a free pass on being almost good enough. If you are going to release "partly tested shit", then give us the option to disable automatic updates.
We don't give a fuck that you're doing your best, because you've disabled the best way to protect against your best not being good enough -- which is to say "no, I'll patch my system when I decide, and after other people have been the guinea pigs".
So put on your bit girl panties and realize one very important thing: MS is entirely to blame for the error, MS is entirely to blame for removing the ability to opt-out of automatic updates, and MS doesn't get to pretend 'we tried our best' is a good fucking excuse.
Because we simply don't give a fuck since you removed the ability to do the sane thing and simply not trust MS to update whenever they wish.
Whiny fucking little prick. You're in the wrong fucking place for sympathy.
A lot of other good technology comes out of Sweden, just not CPU's. Two bad example countries in a row.
Table-ized A.I.
Hardware isn't software; it takes a lot more than changing code and a recompile to fix.
Logic problems are only part of the story -- after the logic is done, there's physics to deal with (voltage breakdown, heat, crosstalk, etc). Then there's the "rat's nest" of conductive paths for the signals to follow.
Coders may complain about following spaghetti, but they've got nothing compared to what hardware guys deal with. Even minor changes can require considerable amounts of re-routing.
After that is complete, they still have to build the chips, which will take months more to get the fab machinery set up.
Expect to wait into 2019 and possibly later. Nobody has a processor that does out-of-order speculation that is immune...
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Why should people be forced to send perfectly usable hardware to a landfill simply because it's not the latest shiny thing on the market?
This is a bit of an overreaction. No one is forced to send usable hardware to a landfill. No one at Microsoft intentionally ruined any machines, they just have a bug somewhere and, more important, an inadequate testing system.
Please don't make a software bug into a conspiracy.
Cuba is not a good example of "no free market"
Because the US doesn't allow trade with Cuba, so as a US citizen you are not allowed to access that market.
However, if you can't boot Windows in the first place, you're SOL getting to it because since Windows 8 the F8-when-starting-boot thing doesn't work any more. It's possible to reenable it, though. I do this after every Windows 10 "feature update" - because those are essentially service packs/new operating systems, they wipe out many customizations.
Best description I've seen lately for the process: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/22455-enable-disable-f8-advanced-boot-options-windows-10-a.html
In addition to this, you need to set up a local (not MS Account) administrator account with a password; that's usually the only way you're going to get into Safe Mode. Even using Safe Mode with Networking, I've had no success logging in with an MS-linked account set up to use a PIN. Remember that password!
I tried - despite down-mods - to warn everyone here that over-reacting to this issue would be a big problem, but nnnnnoooooo. We all had to jump on the Panic Train before it got too crowded. To address a vulnerability that A) requires you to be running malware anyway (specific to Meltdown) and B) is excruciatingly difficult to make work (it took over 20 YEARS to find it!!) and C) is lost in the swarm of thousands of known, easy-to-implement malware, people are ready to brick their systems, suffer XX% performance loss and God knows what next just shows that all sense of perspective has been lost to hype and hysteria. Sad!(TM)
Kids these days don't even know what it means to brick a device.
Here's a hint: A bricked device might as well be a brick. It is unusable for its original purpose, forever.
This incident is nothing more than a fubared update patch. The device (computer) can easily be made useful again by reinstalling the OS, or even waiting for Microsoft to issue a fix. It is certainly not bricked in any sense. Although you might be tempted to throw a brick at it.
"The only good windmill is a tilted windmill."
People have their processes, although going into services.msc and disabling the update service there would be the safer bet (like if there's an update to update the update service).
Your best just isn't good enough. Open source Windoze, and then competent others can help.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
"No one at Microsoft intentionally ruined any machines, "
If you think that's true, explain Windows 10.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
We've already seen compatibility issues with some antivirus tools, and now some AMD users are reporting that the KB4056892 patch is rendering their computer unusable. A further issue -- error 0x800f0845 -- means that it is not possible to perform a rollback.
I got a BSOD on my old AMD Athlon 64 3500+ system running Windows 7 Ultimate after applying the 2018-01 Security Monthly Quality Rollup for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB4056894), but was able to recover using System Restore.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Glad I stopped accepting MSFT patches when they tried to change the EULA to force Win10 on everyone.
Other side effects:
* ZERO downtime from forced patches
* Zero issues with Windows Media Center
* Zero issues with my video editing tool, which hasn't been touched/patched in about 3 yrs either.
* Able to highly restrict internet access to all Windows systems.
I sleep better too. Seriously.
3 1/2 years ago MS announced their intention to use Windows 10 Home and Pro users as the final line of QA, before the Enterprise version gets updated. The reason given was that Enterprise users pay a lot more and are their key customers. The only reason Microsoft might miss consumers, should they leave Windows in droves, would be the loss of the free QA work. Linux is a better alternative for many consumers. Mint is great. Chromebooks are ideal for the elderly that only want to check email and do Facebook. Everything else is available online. Windows is no longer needed by consumers. Typed on my Windows 10 workstation.
This is a bit of an overreaction.
First of all I was responding to the poster that stated that "AM2+ was rather old hardware and even Intel has drives issues with hardware this old". Implying that they shouldn't have to worry about this. But if Microsoft originally cleared these computers to be Win10 compatible, it's pretty shitty to just drop support.
Perhaps. It depends on if they fix the issue, doesn't it? To be fair, the title is also a bit of an over reaction. This update isn't bricking the system. It's still possible to (re)install an OS.
No one is forced to send usable hardware to a landfill.
If the users are running Windows 10 and have no control over updates, then their options are somewhat limited. They can reinstall Windows 10 and hope that a clean install will work, install another OS, use the computer for a doorstop, or throw it away. But anyway you look at it, users who are affected by this are being forced into a pain in the ass situation.
No one at Microsoft intentionally ruined any machines, they just have a bug somewhere and, more important, an inadequate testing system.
It doesn't matter if they did it intentionally or through incompetence. They are still causing the issue.
Please don't make a software bug into a conspiracy.
I never said there was. I'm just tired of being told that something is obsolete and I should go buy a new one when the item I have works perfectly fine for my needs. As this kind of crap becomes more acceptable, how long will it be until it happens with other things. I'll be pretty pissed when my refrigerator suddenly stops working because of a bad update. Not that I put appliances with this capability on the internet. Won't it be nice when your car refuses to start in the morning after a forced overnight update? Or even better when you're visiting relatives that are hundreds of miles from where you live.
That's more about trade policy (or lack of) than general economic system. I agree trade is a factor, but not the only factor to consider here. If another country refuses to trade with you, then whether you have a capitalist system, socialistic system, or something in-between, it probably won't change trade policy. But it will probably hamper your economy in many ways.
Table-ized A.I.
You mean they'll become Fox anchors? ;-P
Table-ized A.I.
well played =D
"MS spends a fortune in engineer-hours on QA"
Tell that to my FX-9370-based system which is currently undergoing a full reinstall due to this bullshit. Microsoft might spend that money on testing against INTEL products. Why do you think the term "Wintel" exists?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Yeh, and all those CHINESE designers had nothing to do with it
Ooops
Considering it requires malware to be run on the system, there are better ways to spy out user's passwords (without dumping some 32GB of RAM). So, why bother?
The attacker's malware doesn't have to dump all the physical RAM. It CAN do so, if he feels like it. But it can also read it selectively, RAM style, a bit or byte at a time. So he can just go right to whatever he wants to see.
Given that the side-channel bandwidth is about that of fiber-to-the-curb DSL, rather than a memory bus, that is actually the preferred way for such malware to operate.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
To be fair, a lot of the blame this time goes to Intel. I speak, however, as someone who hasn't allowed any Microsoft software on my computers in nearly two decades.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
If it was an AMD CPU it wasn't vulnerable to Meltdown anyway. Spectre is a slightly different exploit which doesn't (currently) break permissions. Dangerous, yes, and will probably soon have an exploit designed, but that hasn't happened yet (that we know of). And the OS update doesn't protect against Spectre anyway.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Then make it optional until it's been well field tested. Since they don't, they deserve a lot more blame than they're getting.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Job security.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Just to let you know there's a hard(ware) brick and a soft(ware) brick.
soft brick = bootloop, software error, recoverable without professional repair
hard brick = cannot boot, not recoverable, it's basically a paper weight
what-difference-between-hard-soft-brick
It's a configurable power policy. Fix your temperatures, then. Laptops need a good air blow every so often. Chances are, it's your fault.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm assuming (and I think it's a very safe assumption) that Microsoft will fix the issue and restore support in short order. If that does not come to pass, then I will gracefully concede the entire point.
But anyway you look at it, users who are affected by this are being forced into a pain in the ass situation.
Yes. But that would be just as true if Microsoft corrupted the OS of newer machines as well. The PITA situation is that there is a machine-wrecking bug.
It doesn't matter if they did it intentionally or through incompetence. They are still causing the issue.
Sure. They caused the issue. I assume they will fix it forthwith.
And, at least to me, it matters that they caused the issue while fixing a critical time-sensitive issue of global proportion. If they had incompetently broken your machine while installing a new Solitaire, we'd be having a different conversation.
being told that something is obsolete and I should go buy a new one
Which is just not what is happening here. The hardware is old, Microsoft regrettably missed testing it in a fairly catastrophic way and they will fix it. No one needs to suggest you buy a new computer over it.
I've seen Windows 10 install on Core 2 Duo machines, and everything worked without a hitch, and that's pretty much concurrent with Socket AM2+. And Windows 7 dates back to the Socket AM2+ era (well, Socket AM3 was out, but only a few months old).
With that said, the Socket AM2/AM2+ systems I had from back then were recycled a while ago after I got tired of dealing with the exceptionally shitty nVidia chipsets they had.
What it sounds like it just bricks windows install. Part of issue of not roll back is due to no restore point was created. I could miss read things on that but that is what it sounds like to me, so just create a restore point say Now probably won't be a problem.
Yea too us older techies, bricking is you just made a new door stop as its not gonna work again.
The second one would be the one where you just can restore a backup. Of course, idiots do not have backups, but sane people do.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
“Microsoft has reports of customers with some AMD devices getting into an unbootable state after installing recent Windows operating system security updates. After investigating, Microsoft has determined that some AMD chipsets do not conform to the documentation previously provided to Microsoft to develop the Windows operating system mitigations to protect against the chipset vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown.”
So the bug kills the possibility of a rollback. Can you just use a W10 installation medium and do an update install over the bricked installation? Usually, this works without messing up the rest of the system too much.
There's a whole lot of bad intentions behind Windows 10, but ruining your machine isn't one of them.
Why should people be forced to send perfectly usable hardware to a landfill simply because it's not the latest shiny thing on the market?
just use linux, you can use the PC for many years!
Higuita
Like Lauer, Rose, Conyers, Franken, etc. ?
Ken
Wow, what an asshole you are. Maybe if you used your brain instead of your "insert dickbag remarks here" key on your keyboard you'd actually understand what's going on. Windows 10 has re-enabled the Windows Update service and updated and rebooted overnight on me several times despite going back into services.msc and disabling it every time so I can control when I do my updates. If they export the wuauserv key to one reg file and make another reg file with my text above, they now have an "on" and "off" switch for the service that effectively blocks Windows 10's automatic re-enabling of wuauserv.
So, you fucking simpleton who has nothing better to do than pretend you know more than everyone else, there is both a technical issue and a functional solution presented that you were too stupid or stubborn to understand, so you lashed out like an overwhelmed child which really accomplished a lot. Congratulations, you're a low-skill moron with severe Dunning-Kruger problems. At least you posted as AC so no one knows who you are and you can go sulk in a corner without being disturbed.
Windows 10 re-enables wuauserv behind your back. It has happened to me on multiple systems numerous times. The only solution is to delete it so there's nothing there to re-enable, but deleting it without backing it up makes it impossible to get updates when you actually want them. I disabled it in services.msc many, many times only to find my computer rebooted and more than one overnight 4K video renders interrupted and output destroyed and time wasted because of this crap.
I don't recommend the reg-based on/off switch willy-nilly. It is an aggressive workaround to block a hostile override tactic by Microsoft.
I've noticed my AMD FX hex-core desktop at home hard locking but I got it second hand from a friend. Still not really sure if it's just in need of some adjustment. The CPU itself runs cool as a cucumber.
:)
Hard-locking only started happening after the update but that may be a co-incidence.
It happened once when my cat for some reason decided it was a smart idea to chace something between the case and the wall and wobbled the whole thing by jumping up on top of it.
I don't use spinning-magneto-rust anymore but maybe a cable is loose.
Why would blame go to Intel here? Intel CPUs have gained a bit of performance from something that recently turned out to be excessively risky, OK. Microsoft needs to send out a patch, OK. Microsoft has lots of security issues. Microsoft forces the patch on everyone, bricking some people's computers. That's Microsoft's decision to create and issue that particular patch, along with Microsoft's decision to make blocking patches as difficult as they can make it.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Here's a hint: A bricked device might as well be a brick. It is unusable for its original purpose, forever.
In fairness, I think the usage of the term has shifted a bit, because we're more careful to design things so that permanently destroying them is impossible, or at least a lot harder. I've taken to using the term "perma-bricking" when I mean it's dead forever. A "bricked" device might be recoverable through extraordinary means. I brick a device in that way every few months or so, and recovery normally requires shipping it to another state where someone with the magic super low-level firmware signing key can fix it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
So any device that can be fixed by reloading the firmware are not actually bricked?
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