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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?
How much did Intel pay M$ to brick AMD systems?
*tightens tin foil hat*
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/
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.
... as far as we know.
The researchers have not proven that AMD processors could not be affected by a future tweaked version of Meltdown. They have just not been able to perform Meltdown on AMD themselves yet.
I suppose that Microsoft is therefore choosing to err on the side of caution.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
The OS has to be reinstalled.
How is that bricking?
That doesn't make any sense. AMD is not affected by the bug, so how would Microsoft "fix it"? It is processor specific. Meltdown is INTEL ONLY. But nice spin!
I've been using Swedish designed CPUs
Do they come in a flat pack with a hex wrench ?
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."
"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
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.
Because the market for Linux laptops is an order of magnitude less than the market for Windows laptops. Therefore I lose all kinds of economies of scale when it comes to the Linux laptops and I need to spread more overhead costs over fewer sales.
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