Author: Howard Exner
Date: 12:13:14 11/23/98
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On November 23, 1998 at 14:05:34, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On November 23, 1998 at 10:39:54, Tom Kerrigan wrote: > >>On November 23, 1998 at 06:24:34, Alessandro Damiani wrote: >> >>>There was a post from Bob Hyatt some days ago. He said the AMD k6 has an error. >>>If I remember it right it was wrong branching prediction. I don't know if the >>>error has been eliminated in the k6-2. >> >>If the "error" is branch prediction, that just makes the chip slower, but it'll >>stll do what you want it to... >> >>-Tom > > >No.. this error is a killer. If it happens, the chip locks up and not even >a soft reset will clear it... requires a total power-down. It is similar to >the "foof" bug for intel, but intel found a quick work-around to fix this. >AMD hasn't so far. Been a big topic on the linux-SMP mailing list. Is this bug you are referring the one from over a year ago? This is an article from last year: AMD K6 Sprouts Rare Bug by Brian McWilliams, PC World NewsRadio September 11, 1997 Advanced Micro Devices today confirmed that early shipments of its K6 processor contained a bug that may cause unreliable system behavior in rare situations. According to AMD spokesman Dean Whitehair, the bug or erratum only affects K6 users who are running the Linux operating system on PCs with more than 32MB of RAM. Whitehair says a small number of users have reported encountering system errors when trying to compile or update Linux on their K6 machines. The erratum does not impact K6 users on Windows 95 or NT, and Whitehair says it's been fixed in versions of processor that are shipping now. "There're always going to be errata in any processor. Go visit Intel's errata list, you'll see. And the other thing is we have IBM and Digital using us right now; they have to go through some very extensive tests that are a lot more rigorous than many review labs. So we're pretty confident that we have a robust part." Linley Gwennap, editor of the Microprocessor Report, says the K6 Linux bug is in the same league as Intel's flag erratum that was discovered last May. "I would tend to say this was on a similar level; potentially maybe slightly higher in that nobody really found anyone who was affected by the flag erratum, whereas in this case clearly some people are affected. But the number is pretty small and I think that the K6 is certainly safe for the vast majority of computer users." This article sums up my recollection of the AMD bug, as I followed it on the computer-site newsgroups over a year ago. It was detetected in the early B series of AMD K6 chips. Are Linux users still having problems with the newer K6's (by newer I mean anything from last summer to the present. Not the B series)?
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