Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by bee_rider 1117 days ago
It probably depends on your workload, which is a bigger deal. The fdiv bug was pretty bad, but at least fixable in software (at some cost). Anyway, recall is the right decision in either case (unless there’s a good enough workaround).
1 comments

If every CPU with an errata that needed software workarounds was recalled there would be no CPUs to use.
That’s why I said “unless there are good enough workarounds.” You buy a part with some performance/power consumption expectations.

It sounds like a workaround here could be to disable C6 sleep, so I guess we’ll see how much that violates those expectations. I guess they didn’t add the feature for no reason, though.

The other workaround is to reboot at least once every 3 years, which surely most users are doing anyway to pick up on security patches & similar.

Exceptions definitely exist, but the workarounds are both pretty straightforward and you can pick whichever is less impactful.

It is a non-issue. If you need 3 years of permanent uptime, then what exactly do you need a deep sleep state for that is basically the same as turning the CPU off?