If your computer has an Intel chip, get ready for a major slowdown

imaref

Active Member
I'm posting this here rather than the Computers section because it's going to affect anyone with a computer that has an Intel chip that was made IN THE LAST 10 YEARS--including the newest ones!

Search today's news for "intel flaw" and you'll read hundreds of articles, but it boils down to this:

1. A major flaw was found in Intel chips manufactured in the past 10 years that can cause a major security breach of everything on your computer

2. Intel cannot repair the chips themselves; instead, they are working with Microsoft, Apple and Linux to totally rewrite the core operating system kernel for each of those vendors. Most AMD chips are not affected.

3. Once they release the patches (rumor has it Microsoft will release the patch next Tuesday) and you have installed and rebooted, your computer will be secure. HOWEVER...

4. Your computer will take up to (and possibly MORE than) a 30% hit in performance. Yes, this means that for some things you do on your computer, it will be up to 30% slower than it was before the patch.

Since the patch for Windows has not been released yet, it's hard to get a good idea of exactly what software will take the biggest performance hit. We'll find out soon. Ugh...
 

Starman

New Member
I'm posting this here rather than the Computers section because it's going to affect anyone with a computer that has an Intel chip that was made IN THE LAST 10 YEARS--including the newest ones!

Search today's news for "intel flaw" and you'll read hundreds of articles, but it boils down to this:

1. A major flaw was found in Intel chips manufactured in the past 10 years that can cause a major security breach of everything on your computer

2. Intel cannot repair the chips themselves; instead, they are working with Microsoft, Apple and Linux to totally rewrite the core operating system kernel for each of those vendors. Most AMD chips are not affected.

3. Once they release the patches (rumor has it Microsoft will release the patch next Tuesday) and you have installed and rebooted, your computer will be secure. HOWEVER...

4. Your computer will take up to (and possibly MORE than) a 30% hit in performance. Yes, this means that for some things you do on your computer, it will be up to 30% slower than it was before the patch.

Since the patch for Windows has not been released yet, it's hard to get a good idea of exactly what software will take the biggest performance hit. We'll find out soon. Ugh...

In all likelihood home user pee cees will see a slowdown at the lower end of that range. My company's testing so far on our high performance compute cluster and supporting virtual servers are showing anywhere from about 18% - 22% performance hit with our standard workloads (we run a high frequency trading software development shop). No AMD silicon is affected, despite what Intel's PR news release today said.
 

BernieP

Resident PIA
In all likelihood home user pee cees will see a slowdown at the lower end of that range. My company's testing so far on our high performance compute cluster and supporting virtual servers are showing anywhere from about 18% - 22% performance hit with our standard workloads (we run a high frequency trading software development shop). No AMD silicon is affected, despite what Intel's PR news release today said.

this should mean our NMCI machines will come to a grinding halt - they are already slow, any slower they will stop.
 

Starman

New Member
this should mean our NMCI machines will come to a grinding halt - they are already slow, any slower they will stop.

I did quite a bit of work on NMCI several years back. Sorry to hear not much has improved. Have they finally removed USB ports or do they still jam KrazyGlue/GorillaGlue in there to prevent USB memory sticks from being inserted?
 

imaref

Active Member
Word coming out now that Microsoft is releasing an emergency update through Windows Update starting today. It will probably be a tiered rollout so not everyone will get it at once. I just checked and it hasn't appeared on my Windows 10 laptop yet...
 

wubbles

Active Member
I did quite a bit of work on NMCI several years back. Sorry to hear not much has improved. Have they finally removed USB ports or do they still jam KrazyGlue/GorillaGlue in there to prevent USB memory sticks from being inserted?

Now you get to talk to the site ISSM why you have been a naughty girl/boy plugging an unapproved device in. (HBSS handles it)
 

Goldenhawk

Well-Known Member
My Windows 10 PC just updated itself with the out-of-cycle emergency Microsoft patch for this problem. It's a fairly beefy machine, since I built it to run Oculus Rift virtual reality and do video rendering.

I ran a couple different benchmark programs just before it updated (I was watching for the update) and then again afterwards. For whatever reason, the benchmarks AFTER the update actually were better than before. Surprising, given all the panic over the assumed performance hits.
 

PeoplesElbow

Well-Known Member
I did quite a bit of work on NMCI several years back. Sorry to hear not much has improved. Have they finally removed USB ports or do they still jam KrazyGlue/GorillaGlue in there to prevent USB memory sticks from being inserted?

They never did that, USB hard drives are still perfectly legal, they just don't work half the time.
 

3CATSAILOR

Well-Known Member
I'm posting this here rather than the Computers section because it's going to affect anyone with a computer that has an Intel chip that was made IN THE LAST 10 YEARS--including the newest ones!

Search today's news for "intel flaw" and you'll read hundreds of articles, but it boils down to this:

1. A major flaw was found in Intel chips manufactured in the past 10 years that can cause a major security breach of everything on your computer

2. Intel cannot repair the chips themselves; instead, they are working with Microsoft, Apple and Linux to totally rewrite the core operating system kernel for each of those vendors. Most AMD chips are not affected.

3. Once they release the patches (rumor has it Microsoft will release the patch next Tuesday) and you have installed and rebooted, your computer will be secure. HOWEVER...

4. Your computer will take up to (and possibly MORE than) a 30% hit in performance. Yes, this means that for some things you do on your computer, it will be up to 30% slower than it was before the patch.

Since the patch for Windows has not been released yet, it's hard to get a good idea of exactly what software will take the biggest performance hit. We'll find out soon. Ugh...

I see a good day coming for lawyers.
 

Starman

New Member
They never did that, USB hard drives are still perfectly legal, they just don't work half the time.

I can absolutely assure you I was asked to disable USB ports in that fashion. Granted, this was right after a well-publicized incident where ownage happened due to insertion of a USB drive (not on NMCI or even DOD machines mind you) and lots of people were freaked out because this attack vector hadn’t been at the forefront of people’s minds at the time.

These were on front or side facing slots, not ones in the rear where an input device like a mouse would be attached.

This was before NGEN and I don’t even think NMCI was CAC-capable at this point in time.

I was a civilian contractor working for N81 at the time.
 

Starman

New Member
I see a good day coming for lawyers.

Nah, these sorts of firms are indemnified against these sorts of things as far as legal action goes.

It will definitely cost them just like it did for the Pentium floating point error back in the 90s and cougar point more recently in terms of share prices and write downs against earnings, not to mention reputational cost.
 

PeoplesElbow

Well-Known Member
I can absolutely assure you I was asked to disable USB ports in that fashion. Granted, this was right after a well-publicized incident where ownage happened due to insertion of a USB drive (not on NMCI or even DOD machines mind you) and lots of people were freaked out because this attack vector hadn’t been at the forefront of people’s minds at the time.

These were on front or side facing slots, not ones in the rear where an input device like a mouse would be attached.

This was before NGEN and I don’t even think NMCI was CAC-capable at this point in time.

I was a civilian contractor working for N81 at the time.

I was in the first wave of NMCI deployment, my machine did not even have front facing ports. I remember this because our supervisor bought us all USB hubs so we did not have to get behind the machines.
 

LightRoasted

If I may ...
IF I may ...

In all likelihood home user pee cees will see a slowdown at the lower end of that range. My company's testing so far on our high performance compute cluster and supporting virtual servers are showing anywhere from about 18% - 22% performance hit with our standard workloads (we run a high frequency trading software development shop). No AMD silicon is affected, despite what Intel's PR news release today said.

Whew, finally a chance for the little guy to get ahead. Even 1ns advantage helps. I'm sure you will figure out a way to take back control to squeeze every cent from every trade you can from the little people of the world. But I'm not to worried about all the computer chip stuff since I don't use a computer, a smart phone, or anything electronic. It's all paper and pencil over here. My postings are done through a surrogate. I mail out my posts and they enter it for me online. Neat huh? My mail service is fashioned after Bezo's Amazon fast shipping. But for my small scale it seems nearly instantaneous.
 

Starman

New Member
IF I may ...



Whew, finally a chance for the little guy to get ahead. Even 1ns advantage helps. I'm sure you will figure out a way to take back control to squeeze every cent from every trade you can from the little people of the world.

With any luck!
 

Clem72

Well-Known Member
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