Microsoft Meltdown/Spectre Patch May Bork Athlon Systems

DooKey

DooKey

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Over at answers.microsoft.com there's a long thread where Athlon CPU users are experiencing issues with the Meltdown/Spectre patch. KB4056892 appears to prevent a boot of the system after the patch is installed. In some instances a complete reinstall fixes the issue, but the update will once again push out and you're back where you started. Beware Athlon users.

I have older AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, Asus MB, after installation of KB4056892 the system doesn't boot, it only shows the Windows logo without animation and nothing more. After several failed boots it do roll-back then it shows error 0x800f0845. Unfortunately, it seems it's not easy to disable the automatic updates without gpedit tweaks, so it tries installing and rolling-back the update over and over.
 
Time to make it rain the papers! dolla dolla bills yall! Guess I need to alert my mom, she's running a system from 2009 (Intel). Gotta make sure all her cute dog and cat pictures are saved somewhere, sure hate to lose those treasures
 
THRESHIN said:
Those processors are still very usable for many people. Why should they be forced to buy new hardware for a botched MS patch?
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a 125w dual core in 2018?

you can buy an ipad with more horsepower than that thing.

kaigame said:
Don't be like that, my X58 X5650 is still doing me fine, it's almost 10 now :D
****It's about time i upgraded!!!****
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that thing is still great. well worth it's own weight still.
 
Master_shake_ said:
a 125w dual core in 2018?

you can buy an ipad with more horsepower than that thing.



that thing is still great. well worth it's own weight still.
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Still relevant when all you do is YouTube and email. Which most people use desktops for. Still those people using such old hardware probably still on xp or maybe Vista. So they not supported anyway.
 
THRESHIN said:
Those processors are still very usable for many people. Why should they be forced to buy new hardware for a botched MS patch?
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Why should Microsoft have to cater to the lowest common denominator? Fuck those systems, just because it runs doesnt mean it is entitled to remain compatible with modern software. System is EOL, time to upgrade, or dont patch it anymore.
 
nysmo said:
Why should Microsoft have to cater to the lowest common denominator? Fuck those systems, just because it runs doesnt mean it is entitled to remain compatible with modern software. System is EOL, time to upgrade, or dont patch it anymore.
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Thats good in theory until you realize you have to patch it with windows 10.
 
It is that difficult for MS to configure the patch to detect an AMD CPU v. an Intel CPU? If it's an AMD, Windows should not include the patch? Is it really that difficult?

Plus, there are plenty of reasons someone could still be using an Athlon. In fact, I created a surveillance video archive which uses an old Athlon 64 FX. CentOS with SSH and Samba services installed. It needs very little processing power for it's purpose.
 
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NeghVar said:
It is that difficult for MS to configure the patch to detect an AMD CPU v. an Intel CPU? If it's an AMD, Windows should not include the patch? Is it really that difficult?
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There is a different patch for AMD systems I believe. On Microsoft's download center there is a different package for x64 (Intel) and AMD64 (AMD) for this KB.
 
vegeta535 said:
Still relevant when all you do is YouTube and email. Which most people use desktops for. Still those people using such old hardware probably still on xp or maybe Vista. So they not supported anyway.
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Have you tried browsing on an older dual core recently? It's painfully slow, especially for youtube. More complex pages with lots of active content takes long seconds to render.
 
Dalexx said:
I have to giggle that on a hardware\overclocking enthusiast forum, we're arguing the value of 10+ year old hardware
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some of them namely anything from intel Core ix series are still very relevant.

except for P55 fuck that shit.
 
Montu said:
Over at answers.microsoft.com there's a long thread where Athlon CPU users are experiencing issues with the Meltdown/Spectre patch. KB4056892 appears to prevent a boot of the system after the patch is installed. In some instances a complete reinstall fixes the issue, but the update will once again push out and you're back where you started. Beware Athlon users.

I have older AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, Asus MB, after installation of KB4056892 the system doesn't boot, it only shows the Windows logo without animation and nothing more. After several failed boots it do roll-back then it shows error 0x800f0845. Unfortunately, it seems it's not easy to disable the automatic updates without gpedit tweaks, so it tries installing and rolling-back the update over and over.
Click to expand...

I'm 99% positive the patch borked my ASUS AI Suite II. Did a complete uninstall and reinstall and still bombs on startup.
 
THRESHIN said:
Those processors are still very usable for many people. Why should they be forced to buy new hardware for a botched MS patch?
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Not that I'm disagreeing with you, But a cheap i3 or Ryzen 3 will consume a ton less power and be faster. It will pay for itself in electricity. if you use your computer a lot.

And Microsoft made notes they are dropping older architecture support in the future.
 
Master_shake_ said:
there is literally 1 athlon cpu in AMD's current line up.

so you are technically correct.
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Likely to serve as a replacement to failed systems that need vender validation which is a costly process for new architectures.
 
DigitalGriffin said:
Not that I'm disagreeing with you, But a cheap i3 or Ryzen 3 will consume a ton less power and be faster. It will pay for itself in electricity. if you use your computer a lot.

And Microsoft made notes they are dropping older architecture support in the future.
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It won't pay for itself in electricity unless you run it 24/7 for years. It will be faster though.
 
kirbyrj said:
It won't pay for itself in electricity unless you run it 24/7 for years. It will be faster though.
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I can build a cheap ryzen 3 system for < $300 with a good amount of memory provided you recycle your drives, PS, video and case

Ryzen 3 1200 is 40 Watts under full load. That's compared to 100 Watts on a old Athlon comparatively.
Kaby Lake Pentium G = 27 Watts. And because it has graphics you can ditch the graphics card. That would likely save you another 150 Watts+. So 177 Watts total

60 Watts savings is 16 hours to save 12 cents.
177 Watts savings is 5.7 hours to save 12 cents.

$300 / $.12/kWh = 2500 kWh

2500/.177 = 14,124 hours
2500/.060 = 41,666 hours

I concede you the point. Well stated.
 
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DigitalGriffin said:
I can build a cheap ryzen 3 system for < $300 with a good amount of memory provided you recycle your drives, PS, video and case

Ryzen 3 1200 is 40 Watts under full load. That's compared to 100 Watts on a old Athlon comparatively.
Kaby Lake Pentium G = 27 Watts. And because it has graphics you can ditch the graphics card.

60 Watts savings is 16 hours to save 12 cents.

$300 / $.12/kWh = 2500, or basically 8 hours a day for a year.

So I will grant you that. But I would argue that a 2 year return on investment would be reasonably achievable.
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Not to mention, you'd have to run it at 100% load. I can't imagine it draws anywhere near 100W at idle. They did have CnQ back then.
 
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Microsoft just needs to adjust their minimum system requirements and do what games have been doing for a while now. Instead of saying "you need a 2.4Ghz Dual Core" they say they need an Intel Core i3 4130 or AMD FX-6300 or above. Then, when each "Feature Update" rolls around they publish an updated minimum spec. Those who no longer meet it don't get the upgrade and will continue to receive updates on their current build until it goes EOL at which point they'll either have to upgrade or run un-patched. May not be the most pleasant thing in the world but at some point we have to accept that technology is still accelerating at a ridiculous pace, even if the 11 year old Core2Duo or AthlonXP still "work", they are still 11 years old and it's time to put them to bed.

(Now, what to do and how to recycle all of that old hardware is another subject entirely and one that seriously needs to be answered ASAP because, for all the hand-wringers there are out there about global warming, there's a far bigger storm on the horizon when these billions of tons of e-waste starts to rear it's ugly head.)
 
I remember the day when all the enthusiast gamers in places like this were rocking Athlon 64s. The Core series came up. I got my first Q6600 system in 2007 and just wow. The performance jump from the Athlon 64 x2 whatever it was to the Q6600 was one of the biggest I've ever experienced.
 
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kirbyrj said:
It won't pay for itself in electricity unless you run it 24/7 for years. It will be faster though.
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And that is why you buy used off of eBay for upgrading old as dirt systems. A C2Q q9400 can be had for $15 shipped. A C2S e8500 can be had for $7.50 shipped.

Add a motherboard and some RAM and you are up to a whopping maybe $70 for a complete upgrade.

Or you could always replace the whole system with say a Dell OptiPlex 790 with a second gen i5 for around $100.

And it will be fast enough for years to come for what people are currently using their old as dirt systems for.

That being said, I am into retro computing and have a ton of old hardware.. but I would never dream of putting Windows Vista, 7, 8/8.1 or 10 on anything that old. Completely pointless.
 
This morning my coworker just asked me to look at his computer. His wife says it's too slow and has problems. I, being a dumbass, said yes. I'm pretty sure it's an older AMD Athlon cpu of some kind. Shit.
 
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