AMD C1E issue? 2.6.38.4

AMD C1E issue? 2.6.38.4

[Udo van den Heuvel]

Hello,

Saw these in my messages after enabling C1E on my new Jetway Mini-ITX board:

# microcode_ctl -u
microcode_ctl: writing microcode (length: 430080)
microcode_ctl: error writing to '/dev/cpu/microcode' errno=22 (Invalid
argument)
microcode_ctl: there may be messages from the driver in your system log.

microcode: AMD microcode update via /dev/cpu/microcode not supported
microcode: AMD microcode update via /dev/cpu/microcode not supported

This is on kernel.org 2.6.38.4 on AMD Athlon II X2 235e on JNC84E-LF
board, Fedora 14 for most of the rest of the stuff.

Anybody can tell why the update cannot work?
The previous board (JNC81) did not show these but also did not have C1E
in BIOS as far as I recall.


Please explain.

Kind regards,
Udo

Re: AMD C1E issue? 2.6.38.4

[Borislav Petkov]

Hi,

On Sat, May 07, 2011 at 03:45:09PM +0200, Udo van den Heuvel wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Saw these in my messages after enabling C1E on my new Jetway Mini-ITX board:
> 
> # microcode_ctl -u
> microcode_ctl: writing microcode (length: 430080)
> microcode_ctl: error writing to '/dev/cpu/microcode' errno=22 (Invalid
> argument)
> microcode_ctl: there may be messages from the driver in your system log.
> 
> microcode: AMD microcode update via /dev/cpu/microcode not supported
> microcode: AMD microcode update via /dev/cpu/microcode not supported

no, the message is correct - the AMD ucode driver doesn't support
ucode loading method through the /dev node, only through the firmware
loader. I.e., you should simply put the microcode image into
/lib/firmware/amd-ucode/ and compile the kernel microcode driver as a
module - then it'll load automatically.

> This is on kernel.org 2.6.38.4 on AMD Athlon II X2 235e on JNC84E-LF
> board, Fedora 14 for most of the rest of the stuff.
> 
> Anybody can tell why the update cannot work?
> The previous board (JNC81) did not show these but also did not have C1E
> in BIOS as far as I recall.

This doesn't have anything to do with C1E.

HTH.

-- 
Regards/Gruss,
    Boris.

Re: AMD C1E issue? 2.6.38.4

[Udo van den Heuvel]

On 2011-05-07 18:21, Borislav Petkov wrote:
>> Saw these in my messages after enabling C1E on my new Jetway Mini-ITX board:
>>
>> # microcode_ctl -u
>> microcode_ctl: writing microcode (length: 430080)
>> microcode_ctl: error writing to '/dev/cpu/microcode' errno=22 (Invalid
>> argument)
>> microcode_ctl: there may be messages from the driver in your system log.
>>
>> microcode: AMD microcode update via /dev/cpu/microcode not supported
>> microcode: AMD microcode update via /dev/cpu/microcode not supported
> 
> no, the message is correct - the AMD ucode driver doesn't support
> ucode loading method through the /dev node, only through the firmware
> loader. I.e., you should simply put the microcode image into
> /lib/firmware/amd-ucode/ and compile the kernel microcode driver as a
> module - then it'll load automatically.

Wel, yes/no.
It works that way on my other boxes.
On this specific box microcode_ctl is not activated automagically during
startup of the machine.

> This doesn't have anything to do with C1E.

OK, that helps. Thanks.

What else could be the cause of microcode_ctl not updating?
Situation is:
microcode: CPU0: patch_level=0x10000b7
microcode: CPU1: patch_level=0x10000b7
Is that new enough so that there is just no newer code to be uploaded
for AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 235e Processor ?

Udo

Re: AMD C1E issue? 2.6.38.4

[Borislav Petkov]

(you've dropped the cc list, please hit "reply-to-all" when replying to
those mails.

On Sat, May 07, 2011 at 06:30:10PM +0200, Udo van den Heuvel wrote:
> On 2011-05-07 18:21, Borislav Petkov wrote:
> >> Saw these in my messages after enabling C1E on my new Jetway Mini-ITX board:
> >>
> >> # microcode_ctl -u
> >> microcode_ctl: writing microcode (length: 430080)
> >> microcode_ctl: error writing to '/dev/cpu/microcode' errno=22 (Invalid
> >> argument)
> >> microcode_ctl: there may be messages from the driver in your system log.
> >>
> >> microcode: AMD microcode update via /dev/cpu/microcode not supported
> >> microcode: AMD microcode update via /dev/cpu/microcode not supported
> > 
> > no, the message is correct - the AMD ucode driver doesn't support
> > ucode loading method through the /dev node, only through the firmware
> > loader. I.e., you should simply put the microcode image into
> > /lib/firmware/amd-ucode/ and compile the kernel microcode driver as a
> > module - then it'll load automatically.
> 
> Wel, yes/no.
> It works that way on my other boxes.
> On this specific box microcode_ctl is not activated automagically during
> startup of the machine.

As I said earlier, microcode_ctl cannot load the microcode on AMD -
this happens upon module load with no need for userspace support except
enabling loading of the microcode.ko module (you have to check how
exactly Fedora does that).

> What else could be the cause of microcode_ctl not updating?
> Situation is:
> microcode: CPU0: patch_level=0x10000b7
> microcode: CPU1: patch_level=0x10000b7
> Is that new enough so that there is just no newer code to be uploaded
> for AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 235e Processor ?

Exactly, this says that you have the latest ucode for your CPU.

HTH.

-- 
Regards/Gruss,
    Boris.

Re: AMD C1E issue? 2.6.38.4

[Heinz Diehl]

On 08.05.2011, Udo van den Heuvel wrote: 

> Anybody can tell why the update cannot work?
> The previous board (JNC81) did not show these but also did not have C1E
> in BIOS as far as I recall.

If you have C1E problems besides of the microcode thing, which isn't
related, you could try to boot with acpi_skip_timer_override. That
works in my case.