topic Re: Intel Xeon W-2145 - hyper threading issue in Mobile and Desktop Processors

Intel Xeon W-2145 - hyper threading issue

PH2 — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 14:07:41 GMT

Hi,

Is this processor (Skylake - Intel Xeon W-2145) affected by issue described as SKZ7/SKW144/SKL150/SKX150/SKZ7/KBL095/KBW095?

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

I am using HP Z4 G4 with Ubuntu 16. I am facing issues like suspicious crashes of application on whole system freeze. It happens when I am running single application (in my case pybot - part of robotframework) many times (12 or more).

I did many experiments:

- I have similiar workstation (instead of Skylake there is a Broadwell) with the same software configuration - no issues

- I have installed on my system Ubuntu 18 - still issue appears

- I have upgraded BIOS with the newest downloaded from HP - still issue appears

- Finally I found that information about hyper threading issue from June 2017 and as a suggestion I turned off hyper threading support in BIOS - no issues

This is output from my system:

processor : 7

vendor_id : GenuineIntel

cpu family : 6

model : 85

model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-2145 CPU @ 3.70GHz

stepping : 4

microcode : 0x200004d

[ 0.000000] microcode: microcode updated early to revision 0x200004d, date = 2018-05-15

[ 1.661714] microcode: sig=0x50654, pf=0x2, revision=0x200004d

[ 1.661841] microcode: Microcode Update Driver: v2.2.

It strange because I am using microcode which should contain fixes for that issue. It was fixed here: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/intel-microcode/3.20170707.1~ubuntu16.04.0 3.20170707.1~ubuntu16.04.0 : intel-microcode package : Ubuntu

Is there any known other issue which is not fixed yet and may cause platform instability described above?

This is signature of my hardware: Hardware name: HP HP Z4 G4 Workstation/81C5, BIOS P61 v01.67 08/15/2018

And there is example of segfaults:

Oct 25 13:50:31 hp-ff-1-HP-Z4-G4-Workstation kernel: [ 5215.553430] pybot[26349]: segfault at 30 ip 000055b4b860acef sp 00007ffe728e7ac0 error 4 in python2[55b4b8516000+2ff000]

Oct 25 13:51:24 hp-ff-1-HP-Z4-G4-Workstation kernel: [ 5269.010635] pybot[25804]: segfault at 10 ip 0000562186892cb2 sp 00007ffc04505d10 error 4 in python2[5621867b1000+2ff000]

Oct 25 13:54:52 hp-ff-1-HP-Z4-G4-Workstation kernel: [ 5476.908069] pybot[24524]: segfault at 7f12eeab9000 ip 0000561827317029 sp 00007ffca9889890 error 4 in python2[561827169000+2ff000]

Oct 25 13:59:39 hp-ff-1-HP-Z4-G4-Workstation kernel: [ 5763.718095] pybot[25023]: segfault at 8 ip 0000561082030197 sp 00007ffc73df4200 error 4 in python2[561081f36000+2ff000]

Regards,

Pawel

Re: Intel Xeon W-2145 - hyper threading issue

idata — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 08:17:03 GMT

Hello depablo,

Hope you are doing fine.

Please let us research about it and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Thank for your patience.

Regards,

Charlie_Intel

Re: Intel Xeon W-2145 - hyper threading issue

idata — Sun, 11 Nov 2018 09:03:17 GMT

Hello depablo,

Hope you are doing fine.

Here is the information:

Intel released updated microcode addressing the issue for some Skylake based processors already
There's a perl script in the article: https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2017/06/msg00367.html https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2017/06/msg00367.html that may help identify if the microcode running on the system is affected by the issue

Regards,

Charlie_Intel

Re: Intel Xeon W-2145 - hyper threading issue

PH2 — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 09:09:13 GMT

Hi,

Thank your for your response.

I run this script on my system and I've got following output:

cpu 0: You may need a BIOS/UEFI update (Kaby Lake, or Skylake-X processor)

Note: Kaby Lake X-series processors (i7-7740X, etc) are not affected

I have the newest possible bios and microcode.

In the meantime I looked into following document:

https://www.intel.co.uk/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/specification-updates/desktop-6th-gen-core-family-spec-update.pdf https://www.intel.co.uk/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/specification-updates/desktop-6th-gen-core-family-spec-update.pdf

There is written that issue SKL150 has no fix. So I am confused it this issue is fixed or not.

Regards,

Pawel

Re: Intel Xeon W-2145 - hyper threading issue

idata — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 09:07:36 GMT

Hello depablo,

Let us go deep on this and a will get back to you as soon as possible.

Regards,

Charlie_Intel

Re: Intel Xeon W-2145 - hyper threading issue

idata — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 09:12:29 GMT

Hello depablo,

This is information for microcode update located at the following site:

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/sa00115-microcode-update-guidance.pdf https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/sa00115-microcode-update-guidance.pdf

and the Microcode update download site for Linux OS is here:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/595/Intel-Xeon-Processors https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/595/Intel-Xeon-Processors

Please let us know if you have further questions.

Regards,

Charlie_Intel

Re: Intel Xeon W-2145 - hyper threading issue

PH2 — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 09:31:44 GMT

Hi,

It actually doesn't change anything. I already have the newest version of microcode: 0x200004d. (The same version as in your document)

Question is when this issue SKL150 will be fixed? Because this document says it is not fixed yet.:

https://www.intel.co.uk/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/specification-updates/desktop-6th-gen-core-family-spec-update.pdf

Regards,

Pawel