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  1. Yep, being an early adopter sucks. Fortunately it can be fixed with a bios update.
    I fondly remember this bug:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug
    A shiny new pentium could be outclassed by a casio calculator ^^
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  2. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    My Skylake encodes video, not calculate primes for the fun of it.
    The only reported issues seem to be from that one program.
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  3. I think this has been tracked to an issue involving HyperThreading so i5s at least should not be affected.
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  4. Originally Posted by ackboo View Post
    Yep, being an early adopter sucks. Fortunately it can be fixed with a bios update.
    I fondly remember this bug:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug
    A shiny new pentium could be outclassed by a casio calculator ^^

    This is highly disputable claim... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary-precision_arithmetic
    And most of the scientific calculators are limited with factorial bellow 69! (due series design limitations - some of them are decimal base devices and they compute up to 100 digits) - http://joemath.com/math124/Calculator/factorial.htm
    Additionally calculators are designed to be extremely low power devices (clock perhaps up to few tens MHz, old P-MOS up to few hundreds kHz) - even old Pentium is able easily beat most of calculators by at least 3 - 5!

    btw this is generally very interesting topic - accuracy of computations (for example
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_point#Accuracy_problems - some DSP's use large integer instead float for example 80 - 96 bits) - sometimes other (than binary) number systems can be better choice.
    Last edited by pandy; 12th Jan 2016 at 14:21.
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  5. Well, back in the days you could take your Taiwanese calculator to a friend's house, type a division, ask him do to the same on his shiny pentium, and get the correct result on the Taiwanese calc. At this point your friend would enter in denial, quickly followed by the 4 remaining stages of anticipatory grief. Fun ^^. And this bug affected excel as well, imagine doing that division in front of an accountant.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE7qMJVll5U
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  6. Originally Posted by ackboo View Post
    Well, back in the days you could take your Taiwanese calculator to a friend's house, type a division, ask him do to the same on his shiny pentium, and get the correct result on the Taiwanese calc. At this point your friend would enter in denial, quickly followed by the 4 remaining stages of anticipatory grief. Fun ^^. And this bug affected excel as well, imagine doing that division in front of an accountant.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE7qMJVll5U
    Well, once again - most of people will be not affected directly by this issue, for increased precision software libraries are used.
    At a cost of speed, software workaround can be created (just verify data before applying operand and if forbidden case detected perform calculations in software).
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  7. If you already have a Sandybridge or better, I wouldn't buy a Skylake for any reason.
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  8. Originally Posted by pandy View Post
    Well, once again - most of people will be not affected directly by this issue, for increased precision software libraries are used.
    At a cost of speed, software workaround can be created (just verify data before applying operand and if forbidden case detected perform calculations in software).
    You have no idea what you are talking about, do you?
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  9. Originally Posted by sophisticles View Post
    Originally Posted by pandy View Post
    Well, once again - most of people will be not affected directly by this issue, for increased precision software libraries are used.
    At a cost of speed, software workaround can be created (just verify data before applying operand and if forbidden case detected perform calculations in software).
    You have no idea what you are talking about, do you?
    Same like you...
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  10. From what I gathered reading about this issue, cpu designers add "chicken bits" to allow for post release modifications, the software can then instruct the cpu to bypass some of its transistors (don't quote me on this ^^). This comes with a small performance cost, how much exactly is unknown yet.

    In the video I linked to a guy tested 2 versions of excel, one fails and a more recent one corrects the error. So yes there are workarounds, that doesn't mean being an early adopter doesn't suck sometimes. Are you bargaining already ?
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  11. Originally Posted by ackboo View Post
    From what I gathered reading about this issue, cpu designers add "chicken bits" to allow for post release modifications, the software can then instruct the cpu to bypass some of its transistors (don't quote me on this ^^). This comes with a small performance cost, how much exactly is unknown yet.

    In the video I linked to a guy tested 2 versions of excel, one fails and a more recent one corrects the error. So yes there are workarounds, that doesn't mean being an early adopter doesn't suck sometimes. Are you bargaining already ?
    https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2015/05/using-esxi-6-0-cpu-microcode-loading-feature.html

    All modern CPUs include a writable microcode store that allows the CPU vendor to fix or work around certain CPU errata in the field by providing customers with updated microcode. Normally, CPU microcode updates are the responsibility of the CPU vendor (in the x86 world typically Intel or AMD) and the hardware platform vendor (such as Apple, Dell, HP, etc.). The processor vendor develops, tests, and digitally signs the microcode update, then makes it available to the platform vendors. The platform vendors test the microcode with their platforms. If all is well, the platform vendors then make the updated microcode available to end users by rolling it into a CPU firmware (BIOS) update.

    Unfortunately, some platform vendors are slow about pulling the latest microcode into their BIOS updates, slow about releasing BIOS updates, or don’t release BIOS updates at all. Usually this is not a big problem, but occasionally you might need a microcode update that you can’t get from your platform vendor yet.
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  12. So if you have a skylake processor not running windows 10 you have 18 months to comply and install windows 10. Or else. Brilliant.
    I always kept a windows partition, this time is coming to an end it seems.
    http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/skylake-users-given-18-months-to...to-windows-10/
    Last edited by ackboo; 15th Jan 2016 at 23:39.
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    Originally Posted by ackboo View Post
    So if you have a skylake processor not running windows 10 you have 18 months to comply and install windows 10. Or else. Brilliant.
    I always kept a windows partition, this time is coming to an end it seems.
    http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/skylake-users-given-18-months-to...10/?comments=1
    So? You will still get most critical security fixes from MS, but you will have to get driver updates from the manufacturer. Some here currently don't update drivers on their Windows machine via Windows Update. Others don't even worry about security patches.
    Last edited by usually_quiet; 16th Jan 2016 at 00:14. Reason: removed an extra word
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  14. only the "most critical" security fixes will be released for those platforms and those fixes will only be made available if they don't "risk the reliability or compatibility" of Windows 7 and 8.1 on other (non-Skylake) systems.
    You will get some of the most critical security fixes, not all of them. It certainly isn't a problem if your workstation is airgapped but for regular joes it is a bit worrying. Microsoft wants to switch business model, whether we like it or not.
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    Originally Posted by ackboo View Post
    only the "most critical" security fixes will be released for those platforms and those fixes will only be made available if they don't "risk the reliability or compatibility" of Windows 7 and 8.1 on other (non-Skylake) systems.
    You will get some of the most critical security fixes, not all of them. It certainly isn't a problem if your workstation is airgapped but for regular joes it is a bit worrying. Microsoft wants to switch business model, whether we like it or not.
    A regular joe who bought a pre-built Skylake system likely received it with Windows 10 pre-installed. If someone is currently running a Skylake system with Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 installed, chances are that individual is more computer literate than average, or has an IT department backing him/her up.
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  16. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/skylake-users-given-18-months-to...to-windows-10/It's kind of scary really. First Microsoft try to prevent me from ever upgrading Windows again by releasing Win10, now they're having a go at preventing me from ever upgrading the hardware too.
    I wonder what's happen if you tried to install Win7 on a newer-than-Skylake CPU. Would it refuse to install?

    Microsoft announced today that after July 17, 2017, only the "most critical" security fixes will be released for those platforms and those fixes will only be made available if they don't "risk the reliability or compatibility" of Windows 7 and 8.1 on other (non-Skylake) systems.

    I wonder how security updates "risk the reliability or compatibility" of Windows 7 and 8.1 on other (non-Skylake) systems?

    Ensuring high quality support for Skylake on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 took a "large investment," and future processor innovations will demand continued investment.


    I'm not saying that's a lie, but does anyone running Win7 know what the Skylake specific Microsoft updates/patches were, and how many of them there were?

    Windows 7 was designed nearly 10 years ago before any x86/x64 SOCs existed.

    The first AMD64-based processor, the Opteron, was released in April 2003.
    Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on 22 July 2009.

    I appear to be missing something.
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    https://www.google.com.au/?gws_rd=ssl#q=SOC

    System on a chip.

    The Graphic processors are part of the CPU in some cases now. As is the memory controller and a lot of the PCI-E channels.

    I believe the gist is, technology is evolving. Nvidia graphics cards are going to be sharing pointers with system memory soon and Windows 7 was never designed for any of this.
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  18. In that case it makes sense. Whether Microsoft's claim is true or not...... but the statement makes sense at least. I was thinking purely of the existence of AMD64 CPUs.
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  19. Re: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/skylake-users-given-18-months-to...to-windows-10/

    Consumers could change MS' mind real fast if they would just "cut the cord" and stop using Windows for anything. I currently have Linux Mint 17.3 running the 4.2 kernel and in a bit of sacrilegious twist I have it themed out to look like Win 8.

    This is about more than Win 10 and the built in telemetry aka spying, it's that MS flat out says that new cpu's, including Excavator based APUs, Zen and next gen Intel cpu's won't be supported by non-Win 10 MS OSes, meaning that while it may be possible to install Win 7/8 there may be stability issues, maybe you won't be able to install drivers, maybe MS already has checks built into Win 7 and 8 to ensure that it can't be installed on newer cpu's

    The worst part is where it says that "Going forward, the company says that using the latest generation processors will always require the latest generation operating system.", imagine the nerve, who are they to tell the end user what version of Windows they wish to use with their new builds.

    The HELL with that!!! I would rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven and Linux is definitely not Hell.
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    You are obviously someone who doesn't mind cutting off his nose to spite his face, but most of the world is not quite that obsessed and not delusional enough to think that a few people more defecting will change Microsoft's mind. A few is all there will be. 1.5% of PCs run Linux after many years, in spite of it being available for free. This statistic is not coincidental and not the result of a vast organized conspiracy against Linux. Linux itself and the Linux community is to blame.

    In my case, switching my HTPC to Linux would prevent me from having the type of set up that I want. What I want is what I have now with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 -- DVR software that can both record copy-once protected content from my CableCARD tuner and play back those recordings using just one machine, and a machine that I currently own.

    SiliconDust is creating DVR software that would let me record protected content using my CableCARD tuner, and play it back on the same machine, but only if that machine is a PC running Windows 7/8.1/10 or a Mac. Since I don't own a Mac, a Windows solution is the only choice that will allow me to do what I want.

    There will be a Linux app for recording. (Linux supports using the type of encryption that SiliconDust chose from the three options Cable Labs permits.) There will not be a Linux app for playback of protected content. I would need a second machine running OSX, Android or Windows 7/8.1/10 for playback when using Linux to record. That does not suit me. (Android will be supported for the player app, but not for recording. Writing a recording app for Android would apparently be quite difficult.)

    SiliconDust would have been open to writing a suitable player for Linux too, but unfortunately existing Linux distros do not provide a built-in protected path for playback like the other operating systems do. Without a protected path for playback, a player app won't pass Cable Labs certification.
    Last edited by usually_quiet; 17th Jan 2016 at 11:14. Reason: spelling, accuracy
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  21. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by usually_quiet View Post
    You are obviously someone who doesn't mind cutting off his nose to spite his face, but most of the world is not quite that obsessed and not delusional enough to think that a few people more defecting will change Microsoft's mind.
    My next online system will be Linux based. MS can go **** itself. I've been using Windows since, well, before it existed (DOS). So understand this isn't a POV that I'm come to lightly. I already have one laptop running Xubuntu, and use Mint in a VM.

    I have a tablet with Windows 8, and it's ... better than iOS? Windows 8 really sucks when you're used to Windows 95 though 7. From what I've seen Windowsw 10 is worse, and a privacy nightmare.

    Only my video systems have Windows XP and Windows 7.
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  22. Originally Posted by lordsmurf View Post
    My next online system will be Linux based. MS can go **** itself. I've been using Windows since, well, before it existed (DOS). So understand this isn't a POV that I'm come to lightly. I already have one laptop running Xubuntu, and use Mint in a VM.

    I have a tablet with Windows 8, and it's ... better than iOS? Windows 8 really sucks when you're used to Windows 95 though 7. From what I've seen Windowsw 10 is worse, and a privacy nightmare.

    Only my video systems have Windows XP and Windows 7.
    ReactOS may began to be important player soon - not just ubiquitous curiosity...
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  23. Originally Posted by usually_quiet View Post
    You are obviously someone who doesn't mind cutting off his nose to spite his face, but most of the world is not quite that obsessed and not delusional enough to think that a few people more defecting will change Microsoft's mind. A few is all there will be. 1.5% of PCs run Linux after many years, in spite of it being available for free. This statistic is not coincidental and not the result of a vast organized conspiracy against Linux. Linux itself and the Linux community is to blame.
    I'm not a Linux user (yet) but from a user perspective Windows doesn't effectively cost anything when you buy a new PC because it comes with Windows (I know it's not free but Windows isn't something you pay extra for unless you're building the PC yourself). And for the same reason IE killed off the browser competition for a while, everyone uses Windows because it comes pre-installed. If every single PC came with a button to switch to Linux when it booted, maybe the world would be a different place.

    I'm with you though, in that it's the software that's kept me using Windows this long, and that's mostly open source or free software too. If it all came in a flavour that'd run on an open source OS I'd run one too, but unfortunately much of it doesn't.
    Fortunately for me though.... there's Linux alternatives, and even though I'd prefer to use the Windows versions, I at least have a choice.

    I remember though, back in the days when IE ruled the world, I had to browbeat people into trying a tabbed browser (usually an IE shell as it was before Firefox existed), or at least one that'd let you disable ActiveX. Then Firefox came along and things changed. It gives me hope that maybe one day when it comes to the OS we run, something similar might happen.
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  24. I have WinX on my new rig, but that was built primarily as a gaming machine. Win7 on my older office rig, which also dual boots Kubuntu at the moment. LXLE on my laptop. Just built my Mother a new computer to replace her aging Win7 rig. The new one is a zippy i3 with a nice SSD and Mint 17.3 on it. Sad that her budget build boots in half the time as my much higher specced gaming machine all due to the difference in OS. Honestly, if game support was any good for Linux at this point WinX never would have touched my new build. I've gotten fairly comfortable with the buntu distros over the last few years and wouldn't hesitate to make the jump completely except for gaming. Steam is getting there but I think we are years away from it really being a viable alternative for everything. Being free and open source is great except for not having one unifying entity to really push it to where it needs to be. Right now it's just so fragmented between so many distros that it's hard to pick what to even use. I don't want to spend months trying different distros to find what I like.
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    Originally Posted by hello_hello View Post
    If every single PC came with a button to switch to Linux when it booted, maybe the world would be a different place.
    Originally Posted by hello_hello View Post
    I remember though, back in the days when IE ruled the world, I had to browbeat people into trying a tabbed browser (usually an IE shell as it was before Firefox existed), or at least one that'd let you disable ActiveX. Then Firefox came along and things changed. It gives me hope that maybe one day when it comes to the OS we run, something similar might happen.
    There is no browser ballot here in the US, and yet Chrome is the number one browser here and Safari is number three. http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-most-u-s-popular-web-browsers/ These products succeeded because they were more appealing in some way to large segments of the public than IE. Existing Linux distros have not given the public what it wants.
    Last edited by usually_quiet; 17th Jan 2016 at 12:00. Reason: Safari is number three. clarity
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  26. who are they to tell the end user what version of Windows they wish to use with their new builds.
    Windows 10 is the last version of windows there will ever be, microsoft wants to have only one version to maintain and no big releases years apart. This is just a way to drive up the win10 adoption rate. There are certainly technical reasons but I believe they simply want to avoid windows7 becoming the new windows xp. Without the new eula and privacy issues I would certainly embrace a win10 upgrade.

    I've been playing around with linux since 2001, really using it since 2006. I remember mandriva 2008.1, it was just as good as windows xp. And then in 2009 they switched to kde 4.0. The linux community tossed away a mature Desktop Environment for a complete rewrite. It was unstable, unusable. Later gnome attempted to badly copy OSX and became the hipster DE. Then came Unity the linux attempt at cross platform DE. Today there is Mint/cinnamon and it seems that linux is finally usable again for regular joes. Yet mint is lagging behind ubuntu for security updates.

    Some people might switch to linux over this, but not many, and they will switch back after the first "simply type this in a terminal". OSX is expensive. Microsoft is currently reminding everyone that they hold all the cards. That's who they are.
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  27. Originally Posted by usually_quiet View Post
    Originally Posted by hello_hello View Post
    I remember though, back in the days when IE ruled the world, I had to browbeat people into trying a tabbed browser (usually an IE shell as it was before Firefox existed), or at least one that'd let you disable ActiveX. Then Firefox came along and things changed. It gives me hope that maybe one day when it comes to the OS we run, something similar might happen.
    There is no browser ballot here in the US, and yet Chrome is the number one browser here and Safari is number three. http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-most-u-s-popular-web-browsers/ These products succeeded because they were more appealing in some way to large segments of the public than IE. Existing Linux distros have not given the public what it wants.
    Browser ballot?
    I don't live in the U.S.
    Firefox was released about 4 years before Chrome. It was for a time the main/only alternative to IE.
    I expressed a hope another OS might come along and find a user base the way alternative browsers to IE have.
    I don't really understand what the point you're making might be.

    Not that I had the slightest intention of started a debate over browsers, but .....
    http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-most-u-s-popular-web-browsers/
    Safari's surprisingly high rating is almost certainly because DAP 's top level numbers don't distinguish between desktop and mobile-based browsers. 67.5 percent of visitors to the government's web site used a desktop, while 24.9 percent used a smartphone and 7.6 percent visited with a tablet.

    Originally Posted by hello_hello View Post
    If every single PC came with a button to switch to Linux when it booted, maybe the world would be a different place.
    Looking close at IE, which unlike Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, tends to have multiple versions out, you'll see that IE 11 is easily the most popular edition with 14.8 percent of users. Curiously, it's followed by IE 9 at 5.5 percent, then IE 8.0. at 3.3 percent and only then do you find IE 10 with 3 percent. IE 7 then comes in next to last with 1.7 percent.

    Would that support my point that a lot of people just use whatever comes installed on the computer?
    Or what ends up installed on their computer after running Windows update?
    Last edited by hello_hello; 17th Jan 2016 at 13:09.
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  28. Originally Posted by usually_quiet View Post
    SiliconDust would have been open to writing a suitable player for Linux too, but unfortunately existing Linux distros do not provide a built-in protected path for playback like the other operating systems do. Without a protected path for playback, a player app won't pass Cable Labs certification.
    This statement is grossly misleading, it may be what the company has said but it conveniently ignores the fact that one of the basic founding ideas behind Linux distros is that nothing is "built-in". Linux is built around the idea of choice. If the company really wanted to they could code a proprietary closed source player player that ran on Linux (the GPL does not forbid that no matter what anyone will claim) that included the built-in content protection needed.

    Now I am not unrealistic, I am not going to claim that there are not limitations associated with using Linux on the desktop, such as the specialized functionality that you described but that is not a Linux problem if certain companies don't wish to support it. Why is it that a company like Black Magic can release a full featured version of DaVinci Resolve for Linux (the high end version works on OSX, Win and Linux and costs $995, the free version is Win and Mac only) but companies like Sony and Adobe can only make excuses as to why they don't?

    You can do whatever you want or feel you have to, me I switched completely away from Windows in my personal life, my desktop uses Linux, my smart-phone is Linux based, my tablet is Linux based, aside from work where I don't have a choice due to corporate decisions I haven't touched a Windows based device in a long time, in fact I had the change to buy an XBox One dirt cheap and I refused because it uses Windows, I'd rather wait to find a good deal on a PS4.
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  29. Originally Posted by pandy View Post
    ReactOS may began to be important player soon - not just ubiquitous curiosity...
    That's one that I have been keeping my eye on but I don't think it will get anywhere, as soon as it offer a viable alternative to Windows in the form of being to use Windows drivers and run Windows software I have no doubt MS will shut it down, either by threatening them with lawsuits or just throwing a bunch of cash at them to go away.
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