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Where do you guys stand on upgrading amd/Intel microcode?
Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2017 12:59 am
by bizcuit
Yep title pretty much covers it. Like many things tech have read now and then about the topic of upgrading the cpu(s) microcode, also like many things tech just couldn't work up enough interest to run down a definitive answer about it.
Was recently dorking around and went ahead and installed the latest amd microcode package from Sid, cause it was newer than what was in backports.
May be purely my imagination but system does seem a bit snappier afterwards and sensor readings do show the processor is running at a lower temp at times, than it had prior. Plus got rid of an annoying systemd msg, griping about microcode during boot.
So wanted to ask some of you Nix veterans about this. Good idea, bad, doesn't really matter?
Thanks guys and hope everybody's well. Vll! :)
Re: Where do you guys stand on upgrading amd/Intel microcode
Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2017 6:13 pm
by ivanovnegro
I am in the camp of does not really matter, at least not on any of my Intel hardware.
I tried it out but I did not gain anything. On one Thinkpad I had even an error message on boot after installing microcode.
Re: Where do you guys stand on upgrading amd/Intel microcode
Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2017 4:07 am
by bizcuit
Thanks sir Ivan, info on this topic is pretty sparse. According to Arch wiki, microcode comes with the linux-firmware package default.
Re: Where do you guys stand on upgrading amd/Intel microcode
Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2017 12:40 pm
by franksinistra
Intel microcode might be necessary for newer (high-end broadwell and above) machines, skylake and kabylake in particular. Both of my haswell and haswell-refresh (HM87 and HM97) boxes don't need it, as installing it will induce panic when suspending the machines.
Re: Where do you guys stand on upgrading amd/Intel microcode
Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2017 1:50 pm
by machinebacon
those days, installing it on my old IBM T43 has not shown any positive outcome except the ivanovesque error code which pops up at boot time. Only optional for newer hardware it seems. You can check /proc/cpuinfo if it's in use.
Re: Where do you guys stand on upgrading amd/Intel microcode
Posted: Sun Feb 12, 2017 10:16 pm
by wuxmedia
just followed the debian wiki about it -installed some package and rebooted, hasn't seemed to make any difference. seems to be in here:
Code: Select all
wux@nargothrond:~$ grep microcode /proc/cpuinfo
microcode : 0x1c
microcode : 0x1c
microcode : 0x1c
microcode : 0x1c
Whatever the hell that means.
Re: Where do you guys stand on upgrading amd/Intel microcode?
Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2017 11:56 am
by bizcuit
Thanks guys, sorry havent been on in awhile hope everybodys doing well. Like the new look Baconator. Never really saw much of anything after ungrading microcode either. Still have no solid opinion on this matter either way.
Re: Where do you guys stand on upgrading amd/Intel microcode?
Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2017 7:09 pm
by machinebacon
^ blame the wux this time :D