it's the fault of Intel, why don't they recall all the CPU? just like vehicle company
Or did you mean something else?
In the EU virtually every product comes with a 2 year warranty. So every CPU sold in the EU in the last two years should be replaced for free by Intel, even through OEMs.
I wonder what potential class action lawsuits Intel might be facing.
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents...
Note that the cost of overly onerous regulation (e.g. requiring that every computer manufacturer replace these chips even though the problems can largely be worked around in software) is of course passed onto consumers.
For something like Meltdown/Spectre, the patches/workarounds reportedly barely affect some workloads, but cause drastic slowdowns for others. So already not everyone's affected to the same extent. Then you have computers with easily replaceable CPUs vs. stuff like phones and laptops which probably were only designed to work with a single CPU, and the manufacturer's already working on their next model and doesn't want to waste money building replacement parts for the previous one. At that point, maybe you have a complaint with e.g. Apple for selling you an iPhone that doesn't work as performed because they had to work around a security problem, and Apple might themselves go after Intel. The whole situation is a lot more complicated than "it should totally be covered under the warranty."
The warranty and any other legalese from intel is irrelevant here, this is about consumer protection laws of various countries that supersede an intel warranty. A serious post sale drop in performance would be enough for a refund on any computer purchased in many countries. In Australia if I bought a computer 6 months ago I'd be entitled to take it back to the store for a refund, then it's up to them to argue with dell and dell to argue with intel.
> Note that the cost of overly onerous regulation (e.g. requiring that every computer manufacturer replace these chips even though the problems can largely be worked around in software) is of course passed onto consumers.
Demanding that a product works and in lieu of that offering a replacement or refund is not overly onerous regulation, it's a very basic standard protection.
(because it's a design flaw)
> Intel and other technology companies have been made aware of new security research describing software analysis methods that, when used for malicious purposes, have the potential to improperly gather sensitive data from computing devices that are operating as designed.
> […]
> Recent reports that these exploits are caused by a “bug” or a “flaw” and are unique to Intel products are incorrect.
(https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-responds-to-security-r... ; emphasis mine.)
I wouldn't expect them to replace any CPU, unless it was manufactured recently and still being manufactured.
But a refund in some capacity? That's reasonable, I think. In the meantime, we would have to settle for the software fixes.
Is there a market of 99%+ seemingly authentic fake Intel chips out there?
A recall would be great, but there's no way they'd be able to do it. Vehicle recalls are a bit different because they impact physical safety. Digital safety doesn't get the same priority.
(besides you should not be taking your car to the dealer if you value your wallet)
Spectre/Meltdown is a wakeup call for many things, one of them probably being for computer manufacturers to not solder the CPU to the Motherboard and for the x86 world to stick with a standard socket, to facilitate replacing parts.
Good luck with that. A large portion of affected CPUs/SoCs are in mobile devices and ultrabooks. Socketed chips simply won't fly in those kinds of devices.
Then imagine all chips from 1995 to 2015, having to make them again, they don't have the machines anymore.
Or just the money actually. If you can’t replace my broken item, a refund is always appreciated.
The later is pretty analogous to issuing firmware and OS patches to mitigate the flaw.
Ford Pinto, anyone...
Another one that many people don't know about is a problem with old 2-door Tahoes; a bracket on the driver's side seat likes to fail upon quick acceleration - such as when getting on the freeway, for instance.
One minute you're upright, pushing the pedal to get up to speed, the next - whoops! - flat on your back! If you're lucky, you live to tell the tale...
AFAIK, GM never issued a recall about that one (it caused me to pass on a really nice lifted 4wd Tahoe a few years back)...
An AMD CPU?
I didn't realize that when I made the comment, and I agree my suggestion falls flat now that I know.
> You have to replace at least the whole motherboard on a desktop or probably all of your laptop except the discs and maybe the RAM.
I'm ok with putting that responsibility on Intel to remedy the situation, even if it deeply hurt them financially or put them out of business. If you sell a faulty product that doesn't live up to its description, yes you risk actually going out of business. But with the fact that AMD has Spectre this idea of replacement no longer makes much sense and your original idea of a partial refund makes the most sense.
The problem is this nearly every single processor Intel shipped for a decade so Intel doesn't have the cash flow to RMA that many replacements. They're going to fight tooth and nail to avoid this.
So since ‘95 or ‘96.
This whole thing is the equivalent of discovering that if someone throws enough nails on the road your car will blow a tire, spin out of control and kill you. With the kneejerk reaction of trying to fill everyone's tires with concrete to avoid the tires blowing out rather than trying to figure out how to keep people from throwing nails on the road (with the idea that spiteful users are more likely on toll roads) in the first place.
Spectre/Meltdown ONLY is an issue if you run some untrusted code on your system. If you avoid this, there is not problem. Yes, we like to be able to run untrusted code (such as in a web browser / javascript), but that is not the fault of a car manufacturer that you like to pick up hitchhikers.
Yup, this will hit the EC2/etc users hard, but those people have already IMHO given up on absolute performance by putting themselves in shared environments where bad neighbor syndrome can already hit their perf pretty badly.
But for whatever reason (probably because its easier) the current plan just seems to be to use the big hammer.
Your idea of black/white listing processes might bubble up as a solution in some scenarios. Perhaps it could be pledge-like; if you're savvy enough, try implementing it, or fleshing out the details.
In reality they could probably argue standard
depreciation on a product and offer the remaining
value as a discount towards a working product...
Realistically though, they might be able to do it for cpu's that aren't soldered on (think just about every laptop) made in the last year or two, but would they really fab new versions of 10 year old cores? Its not like many of those lines are even running anymore, so they would basically have to redesign/layout and reverify everything.
Probably easier/cheaper just to send everyone a new machine.
This incident demonstrates why you really don't want catastrophic bugs in the CPU. The fact that the hardware vendors missed this one makes you wonder what else is out there.
feels like this would happen:
>intel agrees to give consumers a $30 price break in response to meltdown/spectre
>in other news, intel raises the prices of next generation CPUs by $30