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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: Elmer who wrote (84290)12/29/1999 3:10:00 PM
From: Petz  Read Replies (1) of 1572527
 
EP, re:<remember the Intel errata that were fixed with bios workarounds?>

The BIOS can be used to fix only a small minority of errata. Specifically, the Coppermine has 45 unfixed errata according to the latest "specification update."

Of these 45, the update says that it is "possible" to fix three of them via the BIOS.

On the OR840 motherboard only two of these three were actually fixed in the BIOS. The one not fixed is very serious:

"ERRATUM E58 - MASK/MOVQ instruction interaction with string operation may cause deadlock...
If this erratum occurs, the processor deadlock condition will occur and result in a system hang. Code operation cannot continue without a system RESET.
Workaround: It is possible for BIOS code to contain a workaround for this erratum."

However, Intel has not fixed this problem in their own top-of-the-line motherboard. "possible" is a meaningless word.

Coppermine users may just have to live with these system hangs if, in fact, a BIOS fix cannot be made.

Then again, there are many other errata that can cause system hangs which Intel classifies as NoFix, meaning, "live with it." Erratum E57, for instance could possibly be triggered by malicious ActiveX code over the internet, causing a workstation to hang. Intel does not even say a BIOS fix is possible for this one.

Petz
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