[Update] Watch out! Your Intel processor may have errors with 64-bit programs

[Inkriql]

It is a problem as serious as it is limited, but the reality is that Intel is again current due to problems in its processors, which added to the shortage of many of these are getting close a week not too good. The discovery has been a joint work of Google and Mozilla, since it has affected first of all the two most po[CENSORED]r browsers in the world: Chrome and Firefox.

The Google team has been working intensely on a problem that they detected months ago with Intel Gemini Lake processors, where they state verbatim, they have been observing "impossible" bugs on that Swan platform.

Specifically, they detail that the failures occur in the processors within the family 6 model 122 and Stepping 1, where for the moment such blockages only occur in the 64-bit version of Chrome and in the prologue of two functions.

According to Google, given that blocking involves reading bytes of incorrect instructions when crossing a 16-byte limit and since blocking seems to happen only with particular 16-byte alignments, it seems reasonable to force the function's alignments to a multiple of 32 to See if this safely prevents blockages.

This would prevent, at least in theory, that your Chrome browser crashes, which basically forces you to align the functions to 32 bytes, that is, if we get the 32-bit version of the browser the processor should not be seen in this position, avoiding Possible blockages

It should be remembered that Gemini Lake is the successor of Apollo Lake, so they are low-power processors aimed at laptops and low-power equipment. They are manufactured in the 14 nm lithographic process and are based on the Goldmont Plus architecture, so it includes the Celeron J4005, J4105, N4000, N4100 and Pentium Silver J5005 and N5000.

 

Mozilla through Firefox is reporting the same problems that Google has had with Gemini Lake, but it goes further, as they claim the whole problem seems to have been introduced through a microcode update for the CPU.

Given these criticisms and problems, Intel has offered an answer, where they have affirmed that the reliability of their products is a priority. They ensure that under a complex set of micro architectural conditions, users may experience failures in applications and systems based on Intel Pentium Silver and Intel Celeron processors under the Gemini Lake architecture.

Therefore, Intel has released a microcode update to its customers and partners that mitigates this problem, so they are working with them to make it available as quickly as possible to end users.

This is certainly hopeful, but it must be confirmed that, in effect, said microcode solves the problem of blockages, since we are talking about the two most used browsers currently in the world, so the number of users that may be affected should be very large.

Until such a microcode update arrives in the form of UEFI or BIOS, it is recommended that if the crashes are suffered, opt for the 32-bit version of any of the browsers described.