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Thanks, interesting reading
Intel has confirmed that its Skylake processors suffer from a bug that can cause a system to freeze when performing complex workloads. Discovered by mathematicians at the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), the bug occurs when using the GIMPS Prime95 application to find Mersenne primes.
Update: We've been informed that the bug was reportedly discovered and tested by the the community at hardwareluxx.de before being passed onto GIMPS, which conducted further testing. Both groups passed their findings onto Intel.
"Intel has identified an issue that potentially affects the 6th Gen Intel Core family of products. This issue only occurs under certain complex workload conditions, like those that may be encountered when running applications like Prime95. In those cases, the processor may hang or cause unpredictable system behaviour."
Intel has developed a fix, and is working with hardware partners to distribute it via a BIOS update.
No reason has been given as to why the bug occurs, but it's confirmed to affect both Linux and Windows-based systems. Prime95, which has historically been used to benchmark and stress-test computers, uses Fast Fourier Transforms to multiply extremely large numbers. A particular exponent size, 14,942,209, has been found to cause the system crashes...
Read more: Intel Skylake bug causes PCs to freeze during complex workloads | Ars Technica
UPDATE: MSI releases Skylake bug fix BIOS beta | bit-tech.net
Music to my ears having recently got a 6700k. Is this actually anything to worry about it in everyday use. I do a fair bit of gaming. As someone who dislikes 'updates' at the best of times a bios update is pretty unpalatable. My system hasn't crapped out on me once in the couple months I've owned it
Very nervous about all I am seeing over the net. I decided to run a few prime tests using parameters on here How to test your PC for the Skylake bug | PCWorld
I only done about 15-20 minutes a time but I got no errors or freeze using my 6700k. Maybe it would of done after a few hours but I don't fancy stressing cpu (although at stock clock) for 100% for hours and hours. It cost too much money to take risks. Maybe not all skylakes are affected and I got lucky? But in real world usage like browsing, gaming, using office, ripping my dvd collection, iTunes. Am I really likely to encounter this bug (if it exists on my cpu)? Am not really into calculating prime numbers in my spare time (head hurts from work as it is!) I really would want to avoid a risky BIOS update (mobo is ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs). I did one years ago on an old laptop and it didn't go well!!!
Cheers,
Wayne
I'm seriously thinking of going to a Skylake 6700K, right now I have Devil's Canyon 4790K on an Asus Maximus VII Formula,,,
I'm an performance overclocker, and with this info on Skylake, would I be better off sticking to the Z97, or (upgrading?) going to Skylake?
I don't want to be dealing with BSOD's all the time, as I push my components to the limit...
Mike
I've been googling and asking a few questions on the Mersenne prime site. The consensus is we are extremely unlikely to encounter this in real world usage. Plus not all skylakes are affected. I ran the test with correct parameters albeit not for that long due to lack of time. But in the few runs I did I couldn't reproduce it. Plus I've had the cpu for about 3 months and never had a glitch. So I think maybe it's a little overblown. But it does make me nervous. Although as someone said 'if it aint broke don't fix it', so I'm going to see how it goes. If I notice anything I will update this thread. Anything not to have to do the risk of updating the bios. That is a tense thing. I hate windows updates as I don't trust MS to QA test properly and fear the outcome, so doing something like the BIOS could be far worse
Plenty of times BIOS updates go just fine, HOWEVER, if you're one of the unlucky ones you'll end up with an expensive
broken electronic door stop. If you damage the BIOS it will be nearly impossible to recover from it, without the help of an expensive
visit to the PC shop. Just letting folks know, if the PC works fine, DO NOT update the BIOS.