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Walf
Asked: 2019-10-28 19:02:24 +0800 CST

Intel microcode not updating, where do I look to see what's failing?

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I've rebooted the server multiple times for kernel updates, but the microcode doesn't update. I've tried manually initiating it with echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/microcode/reload, etc. steps.

needrestart keeps telling me

The currently running processor microcode revision is 0xb4 which is not the expected microcode revision 0xb8.

dmesg says

[    0.000000] microcode: microcode updated early to revision 0xb4, date = 2019-04-01
[    4.287003] microcode: sig=0x906e9, pf=0x2, revision=0xb4
[    4.323918] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.2.

(There are no other messages before that first one in unfiltered dmesg output, so no clues as to why it's loading an old one.)

apt list --all-versions intel-microcode says

intel-microcode/bionic-updates,bionic-security,now 3.20190618.0ubuntu0.18.04.1 amd64 [installed]
intel-microcode/bionic 3.20180312.0~ubuntu18.04.1 amd64

None of the manual upgrade steps showed an error, so I'm guessing that if there is one, it's written somewhere else at boot time.

Results of iucode-tool showing both 0xb4 and 0xb8, but also 0xae (which was absent from any prior messages):

selected microcodes:
  031/001: sig 0x000906e9, pf_mask 0x2a, 2019-04-01, rev 0x00b4, size 99328
  073/001: sig 0x000906ea, pf_mask 0x22, 2019-04-01, rev 0x00b4, size 98304
  001/001: sig 0x000906eb, pf_mask 0x02, 2019-04-01, rev 0x00b4, size 99328
  048/001: sig 0x000906ec, pf_mask 0x22, 2019-02-14, rev 0x00ae, size 98304
  024/001: sig 0x000906ed, pf_mask 0x22, 2019-03-17, rev 0x00b8, size 97280
intel

1 Answers

  1. run as root:
    iucode_tool -Sl /lib/firmware/intel-ucode

    It will tell you which microcode updates are installed, and might be usable on a system "like yours". Search 0x906e9 in them.

    Or do:
    iucode_tool -s 0x906e9 -l /lib/firmware/intel-ucode

    And check the version of the ucode it finds.

    On the latest release of the Debian/Ubuntu microcode packages, it will be 0xb4, I have no idea where whatever tells you it should be 0xb8 is getting that information.

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