Is there an HP response to Critical Flaw In Intel Skylake&KabyLake HyperThreading Requiring BIOS Fix

[djk_1]

Does HP have a response for the recent announced discovery on Intel SKylake and Kaby Lake HyperThreading flaw?

Intel errata KBL095, KBW095 or the similar one for Kaby Lake processor
Intel erratum SKW144, SKL150, SKX150, SKZ7, or the similar one for Skylake processor

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2017/06/msg00308.html

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/251499-major-hyper-threading-flaw-can-destabilize-intel-cpus-b...

https://hothardware.com/news/critical-flaw-in-intel-skylake-and-kaby-lake-hyperthreading-discovered-...

[banhien]

@djk_1

Those articles are few days old. I believe Intel and HP will work together to get the best outcome for their customers. Too early at this time.

Both are big companies, I would wait for few more weeks.

Hope this makes sense.

Regards.

[djk_1]

It makes sense that a fix is not available currently. Both companies should be providing a response of acknowledging the issue and any guidence to the customer for work arounds and what type of usage should be of more concern than others. They should also provide periodic status updates to retain a positive customer experience and demostrate awareness and concern of the issue, even if the update is simply the issue is still under investigation.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi, @djk_1 :

Then I suggest you bring this matter to the attention of the HP Executive Team at the link below.

https://ssl.www8.hp.com/us/en/contact-hp/connect-with-hp.html

This is a peer to peer forum. 

HP maintains no official presence on this forum, other than to make sure we comply with the forum rules of participation.

[djk_1]

Thank you for the link. I was looking for the official HP support contact but not locating it easily.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

[GoodMirek]

Writing to HP Executive Team proven to be pretty useless. See what response I got:

EDIT: For an unknown reason the picture disapppeared from this post, so I have re-added it again. If anyone has any issue seeing it, it is available also on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/GoodMirek/status/887602407408111616

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Yes, it seems so.

But in their defense, the person who wrote that reply is correct.

Intel will be responsible for issuing any patches to the flaws and will pass that info along to the PC OEM's such as HP, probably in the way of BIOS updates.

It would seem to me that no info is available at this time, so HP would have no response to this matter.

I briefly looked at the Intel site, and don't see an easy way to contact their management team.

[GoodMirek]

Paul,

Honestly, your response seems to me as bad as the one from the official HP Support.

If you buy a car and it sometimes does not work, will you want to hear excuses from the car manufacturer that it is issue with one of the components and you should contact their subcontractor?

I did not buy a processor from Intel. Neither I bought a display from LG, NVMe SSD from Samsung etc.

I bought a whole product - the laptop - from HP.

I really believe it is not up to me nor any other consumer to arrange for exchange of information between HP and Intel.

Anyway, I have further investigated the matter and found that Intel has published related errata back in May, saying that manufacturers may include a fix in their BIOS. See the linked document, look for KBL095:

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/specification-updates/7th-gen-core-fami...

There are other sources on internet saying that the fix has been provided by Intel to the BIOS manufacturers and it is up to them to implement it.

What I would appreciate to know is whether HP did it already or not.

Regards,

Mirek