I expect none of the motherboard manufacturers will be doing updates for older boards like x58,x79 or the mainstream variants. If you chose to cut out all these manufacturers motherboard choices for a future build would be non existent
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I expect none of the motherboard manufacturers will be doing updates for older boards like x58,x79 or the mainstream variants. If you chose to cut out all these manufacturers motherboard choices for a future build would be non existent
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So no update on the Z77 MPower 
Soldato
So no update on the Z77 MPower
You definitely won't get an update until Intel release the relevant CPU microcode for your Sandy or Ivy Bridge CPU.
I used Gigabyte tech support website to see if they will be releasing a new bios for my GA-EX58-UD5 motherboard.
Hopefully get an answer in 7 to 10 days.
Its my main computer and i dont have the money to upgrade at the moment.
Hopefully get an answer in 7 to 10 days.
Its my main computer and i dont have the money to upgrade at the moment.
Soldato
Those waiting for vendors to update BIOS for platforms that are over 5 years old are living in another universe. Best hope is for a modded BIOS.
Have had no issues on Skylake-X yet.
Have had no issues on Skylake-X yet.
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The new BIOS with microcode update has become available for the AsRock Z270M-ITX/ac motherboard -
http://asrock.com/MB/Intel/Z270M-ITXac/index.asp#BIOS
They recommend updating the BIOS via Instant Flash:
http://asrock.com/MB/Intel/Z270M-ITXac/index.asp#BIOS
They recommend updating the BIOS via Instant Flash:
Soldato
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In a sad way, Intel and the motherboard manufacturers are laughing hard.... Intel is basically forcing its user base to upgrade to newer computers, their marketshare will take a little dent, but the majority of common users / OEM's etc will carry on using Intel, common users will just adopt the newer intel chips believing the spiel that they are more secure as they'll read it as "fixed" if like most common people they dont do any real digging.
Motherboard Manufacturers will sell more newer motherboards, while jettisoning any remaining support for older products, its win win for them as well.
As much as we all hate it, we are the minority in this, the enthusiast PC gamer and similar, we know its wrong, but we are a small part of the overall market share.
Intel have already won this.
People say vote with your wallets, then the latest Intel chip comes along and they just gobble it up anyhow, seen quite a few new threads on this board of "Just bought 8700" etc, so no, the common gamer is not buying this whole situation either.
Motherboard Manufacturers will sell more newer motherboards, while jettisoning any remaining support for older products, its win win for them as well.
As much as we all hate it, we are the minority in this, the enthusiast PC gamer and similar, we know its wrong, but we are a small part of the overall market share.
Intel have already won this.
People say vote with your wallets, then the latest Intel chip comes along and they just gobble it up anyhow, seen quite a few new threads on this board of "Just bought 8700" etc, so no, the common gamer is not buying this whole situation either.
Some interesting POC code/vids here for those interested all be it linux only
https://github.com/IAIK/meltdown
Scary to when you think about it, can see why the Cloud/VM people in particular are worried.
Here's one reading an image from memory
https://cdn.rawgit.com/IAIK/meltdown/master/videos/cat1.mp4
https://github.com/IAIK/meltdown
Scary to when you think about it, can see why the Cloud/VM people in particular are worried.
Here's one reading an image from memory
https://cdn.rawgit.com/IAIK/meltdown/master/videos/cat1.mp4
Soldato
Look, if all they want to do is look at the same filth I do on the internet, all they have to do is ask. No need for a backdoor.
Soldato
Most recent platforms will receive updates, so not really. Updated everything on my home system last night. Note that the Management Engine firmware can be updated manually.
How? I thought you needed to install either a full BIOS update or use a specific ME updater tool, but in both cases that would need to be supplied by your motherboard or system manufacturer, which relies on having a currently supported product.
Soldato
AFAIK L-SA-00086 is limited to newer generation CPU.
Look, if all they want to do is look at the same filth I do on the internet, all they have to do is ask. No need for a backdoor.
Soldato
Is there a short summary available of what the issue is, what the impact/risk is and what we need to do? This thread probably has all the answers but it's 66 pages now and the conversation appears to be very technical at times.
For the average home user on Windows the biggest vulnerability is via your web-browser so make sure you are using one that has updated to add resilience against these (the latest version of Firefox is one).
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That would be incredibly useful to me. However, it seems that there are so many variables (CPU, Motherboard, BIOS, Operating System, Type of activity, Browser) that would be impossible to put together an easy-to-follow list.
It doesn't even seem always to be that case that applying a Windows Update or updating the BIOS is agood idea!
A flowchart or decision table might work perhaps?
Soldato
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How much of an impact has this had on skylake CPU's
Soldato
virtually nothing
,updated mine last night and the performance hit is 10`s or 20`s in benchmarks no blue screens or reboots as of yet either running win 8.1 with all updates
Soldato
I'll give it a crack in layman's terms.
All modern processors do what's called "speculative execution" based on "branch prediction" the cpu looks ahead in the currently running programs and tries to predict what choices from the available execution options the processes it is running will take. It does the processing for these predict branches ahead of time and stores the result in memory. If the predicted branch is taken, the answer is available immediately. If not, it's dumped.
Due to it being extra processing time the outputs are held in an unprotected memory location that is relatively easy to predict. The security hole is other code able to look at these "future processing" outputs. Everything, including passwords is readily readable by basically everything until the patch.
So, the mix of patch and bios makes the output location in memory from the speculative processing MUCH harder to work out (and hardens it somewhat).
There's a smallish performance hit from both the more... fiendish storing and retrieving of the output hence the overall performance hit on cups as a result.
Harden up your Internet front door, get windows and bios updates as available to mitigate.
That's probably not a perfect explanation as it doesn't talk about the "fences" around various bits of memory/etc but it's probably close enough in cause/affect.
As a footnote: due to arbitrary decisions made with the enhanced branch prediction in amd ryzen chips (there's an Ai running the show) it's memory locations for the stored "future processing" outputs is rather more occluded and hard to predict. Hence the "99% immune"; the outputs are there but MUCH harder to predict what is stored where.
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