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Comment by Blackthorn | Hacker News Reader

After Intel released a microcode update that turned my processor into one that retails for $100 less, I don't really trust claims or even benchmarks until they're > 1 year old.

Intel also, as far as I'm concerned, owes me $100.

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Doesn't microcode need to be reloaded each boot? Can't you just not load the update?

There two ways:

Update the BIOS/UEFI which includes an updated microcode.

Via software at runtime after each reboot (Windows/*nix).

Correct, they are typically applied through the BIOS.

Not to be confused with Intel IME.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine

I am not sure why you tried to draw a distinction between the BIOS and the IME in that regard. The IME also stores its firmware in the SPI flash alongside the rest of the platform firmware.

Also through windows or Linux. Or is that not done anymore?

It's still done this way too.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Microcode

Other comments miss the point entirely. Sure it's possible to circumvent this performance impact, but that's not without its risks and you are still right about being skeptical over performance claims.

I mean if the guy wants he can de-lid the processor and start fiddling around with transistors if he can operate at 6nm scale.

- Hi, Intel customer support, how may I help you

- I've delid the processor and now it doesn't work. Can I have it replaced under warranty?

- dead tone

Disable mitigations (at your own risk)

As far as I'm aware there's no disabling this one, it's that 13th/14th gen performance "fix" (that coincidentally turns your processor into one that sells for $100 less).

Do you have any info about this? I got mine RMA’d and it works fine.

Yeah, it "works" in that it's a processor and does things. But the "fix" they provided was to basically eliminate its top end performance (the thing that got benchmarked, and the reason it sells at a premium).

As far as I can tell that’s not what happened. What happened is that some motherboard manufacturers gave the chip too much power, more than intel recommended, and fried it.

No that wasn't the problem. Intel was providing too much voltage internally on boost and it is damaging the CPUs. They decreased the voltage but then a bunch of already damaged CPUs are marginal so now they are boosting other voltages to bring them to stability and the consequence is a reduction in the boost clock speeds. The patches will keep coming as these CPUs degrade more rapidly, they are all going to die young its just a question of when and whether Intel will be on the hook for it or not.

That's what Intel wants everyone to believe but not quite accurate. Intel was vague at best about what the motherboard manufacturers should and were allowed to do but even following their guidance as best as possible resulted in CPU failures. Gamers Nexus did a few videos on this, here is one that covers most of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6vQlvefGxk

That's what they claimed at first. Then investigation found widespread oxidation issues.

How do you fix an oxidation issue with firmware.

By derating the processor, aka, turning it into one that retails for $100 less.

Unless the firmware update disabled overclocking, can't you still override that, too?

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