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microcode processor update: what processors are supported and what version is inside update?

idata
Employee
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Hi! Intel provides Processor microcode update. Is it possible to find out what CPUs are supported and what microcode version is inside update? For example, what CPUs this update: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24661/Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-File Intel® Download Center supports and what microcode version is expected to appear after upgrade?

The reason I'm asking is the following: we have a trouble with some HP and Supermicro servers: after some time kernel errors out with MCE error (Machine Check Exception: 4 Bank 5: be00000000800400). It is possible to find many bug reports, e.g. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=715485 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=715485, and suggested fix was to upgrade bios. Bios upgrade was expected to fix many processor issues (http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?sp4ts.oid=4194639&swItemId=MTX_0cfa8db23e774ddeb8b29afc0c&swEnvOid=54# tab3 Drivers & Software - HP Support Center) and it updated microcode version from 0x14 to 0x1a. Yet we still experience this problem on some servers after bios upgrade. It looks like qemu running on this servers is somehow related to this problem - at least we have this problem on servers with qemu running and we do not have this problem on systems without qemu, so we suppose that probable not all possible microcode updates were applied. At least bios update was issued on 14 Aug 2013 while latest microcode update from intel was published in 2015. So I've tried to upgrade microcode and although it succeed (accroding to microcode_ctl) but update did nothing (microcode version according to /proc/cpuing had not changed)! But what makes me wonder: it failed both on servers with and without BIOS update. Even if there was not updates from intel I expect that on systems without bios upgrade this update will update microcode version from 0x14 to 0x1a but this have not happened. Could you clarify why?

 

I'm talking about HP gen 7 servers with Intel(R) Xeon(R) X5675 @ 3.07GHz Processor.

processor23vendor_idGenuineIntelcpu family6model44model nameIntel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5675 @ 3.07GHzstepping2microcode0x1acpu MHz3067.089

Thank you for you time,

--

Peter.

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Kevin_M_Intel
Employee
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Hello pva,

You will get a better answer in the Intel® Developer Zone Communities:

https://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-developer-zone-responsive https://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-developer-zone-responsive

Kevin m

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idata
Employee
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Thanks. Just did that: https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/topic/561045 microcode processor update: what processors are supported and what version is inside update?

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idata
Employee
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Regarding your first question. What CPUs are supported and what microcode version is inside update? Intel does provide a list of what products are valid for Microcode updates we publish on our support site https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24661/Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-File https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24661/Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-File

That all said it is up to the OEM's discretion, HP and Supermicro in this case to determine if they accept microcode update or not for a variety of reasons (validation, feature continuity, product lifecycle). It looks in the case of HP the 2013 is the last microcode update for this platform. Although you have upgraded the microcode independent of the OEM's BIOS it doesn't mean there isn't BIOS mechanisms in place to prevent the platform from operating differently than how it was validated. It really depends on how the BIOS was constructed and what is allow or not as far as platform updates.

idata
Employee
825 Views

Thanks mseszeny for you answer! It clarifies practically everything. The last question I have: while it is possible to see microcode version in /proc/cpuinfo how can I check what version comes with intel update?

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idata
Employee
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My apologizes can you add further clarification, I seem to be missing what you are after with your question… what version comes with intel update?

On the link above if you look below the File name it has the version, Version: 20150121 (Latest). I suspect you are after something else so I did looked at cpuinfo closer…

cat /proc/cpuinfo |awk '{print $1}'

processor

vendor_id

cpu

model

model

stepping

cpu

cache

fdiv_bug

hlt_bug

f00f_bug

coma_bug

fpu

fpu_exception

cpuid

wp

flags

bogomips

clflush

cache_alignment

address

power

 

Are you seeing a something else, I don't see a version value?

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idata
Employee
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mseszenyI guess you are using linux kernel older then 3.2. microcode field was added.

Also I found[1] that it is possible to get this version number on older kernels with the following command:

# rdmsr 0x8b

You may need to modprobe msr module.

Still this question is the same, how this version number correlates with intel versioning. TIA.

[1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/8/14/212 LKML: Borislav Petkov: Re: Antw: Re: Q: Seeing the microcode revision in /proc/cpuinfo

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