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The Debian mailing list has a post relevant to some Skylake and Kaby Lake users: [WARNING] Intel Skylake/Kaby Lake processors: broken hyper-threading

Users are to run

grep name /proc/cpuinfo | sort -u

to obtain their processor details and then to check http://ark.intel.com/products/codename/37572/Skylake or http://ark.intel.com/products/codename/82879/Kaby-Lake as appropriate.

If their processor is listed, they should next run

grep -q '^flags.*[[:space:]]ht[[:space:]]' /proc/cpuinfo && \
echo "Hyper-threading is supported"

According to a follow-up post, the above command which I've struck through is not reliable and users need to run lscpu and check if

the lscpu output reports: "Thread(s) per core: 2", that means hyper-threading is enabled and supported.

If hyper-threading is supported, advice is provided for both Skylake and Kaby Lake.

I have an affected Skylake processor on 16.04 which can be fixed because

grep -E 'model|stepping' /proc/cpuinfo | sort -u

returns

model       : 78
model name  : Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-6006U CPU @ 2.00GHz
stepping    : 3

For such processors the fix suggested is to install

the non-free "intel-microcode" package with base version 3.20170511.1, and reboot the system. THIS IS THE RECOMMENDED SOLUTION FOR THESE SYSTEMS, AS IT FIXES OTHER PROCESSOR ISSUES AS WELL.

But the 16.04 repo shows me an older version:

apt policy intel-microcode
intel-microcode:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 3.20151106.1
Version table:
3.20151106.1 500
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/restricted amd64 Packages

Is it possible to get the recommended version and, if it is possible, how can I do so?

Edit: I found https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/xenial/+package/intel-microcode but they all seem to be older versions.

Second edit: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/intel-microcode has the relevant update but it is for Artful Aadvark.

muru
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DK Bose
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  • The intel-microcode AND a BIOS update are required to fix this problem. Check your computer's manufacturer's web site for BIOS updates. – heynnema Jun 26 '17 at 14:39
  • So use command: lscpu | grep -e Model -e Step -e ^CPU\(s\) -e Thread – david6 Jun 28 '17 at 07:59
  • Unfortunately, a discussion with Acer support suggests that they will soon release BIOS updates but none of them will be usable for linux because they will all be Windows executables. So for some of us BIOS updates are out of the question. – David Scott Jun 27 '17 at 17:27
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    Fix has been committed to the proposed channel in Ubuntu 17.04; see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/xenial/+source/intel-microcode/+bug/1700373/comments/28. – edwinksl Jun 28 '17 at 14:06
  • @edwinksl This seems to not contain updates for Kaby Lake, at least not for mine. Those haven't been released yet AFAIK. – sstn Jun 29 '17 at 12:06
  • Got the update today on Ubuntu 17.04 – Sir_FZ Jul 13 '17 at 11:32
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    As you can see here: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/intel-microcode/3.20170707.1~ubuntu16.04.0/+build/13159263 there is a build for xenial-proposed, which you can install with wget "https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/intel-microcode/3.20170707.1~ubuntu16.04.0/+build/13159263/+files/intel-microcode_3.20170707.1~ubuntu16.04.0_amd64.deb" and dpkg -i intel-microcode_3.20170707.1~ubuntu16.04.0_amd64.deb. – fxtentacle Jul 31 '17 at 15:49

3 Answers3

5

Install the latest official package manually. i.e. for 64-bit OS:

wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/i/intel-microcode/intel-microcode_3.20170511.1~bpo8+1_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i intel-microcode_3.20170511.1~bpo8+1_amd64.deb

Reboot the machine, and you're set. ALSO, you need to install the latest BIOS update from your machine. Consult with your computer's manufacturer for the latest official BIOS update.

Cloud
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    How is BIOS related? New BIOS may have the new microcode. In that case you don't need the deb. – Pilot6 Jun 26 '17 at 17:31
  • @Pilot6 Not 100% sure. Just going by what I found in the only post so far (another site) that had concrete instructions on resolving this. – Cloud Jun 26 '17 at 19:38
  • I would recommend not doing this.

    See https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_make_a_FrankenDebian

     – Kal Jul 08 '17 at 07:25
3

You can install the package that is for artful.

This package contains binary firmware. It is release independent.

Pilot6
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    "It is release independent." That's not entirely true according to some people in the Freenode #ubuntu channel. The reason that some Ubuntu releases lag behind with the intel-microcode package is because newer versions of intel-microcode require appropriate kernel support. This is why you see Trusty still has an old intel-microcode package even though Trusty is a LTS release and it's supposed to be still supported. – Kal Jul 08 '17 at 07:22
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You can install the bios update using windows pe.

Windows setup media contains windows pe. The cmd shell can be brought up by pressing shift + f10 to access the bios executable updater.

user705241
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