microcode
Firmware Test Suite - microcode test
This test checks to see if the firmware is loading that latest microcode for the CPUs. The microcode version field /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/microcode/version for all CPUs is checked against the microcode version by loading this and checking this against the original version.
Processor specific features are fixed in new microcode updates. Firmware updates are required to load these in at pre-OS boot time, however Linux does provide loadable microcode updates to load these at run time. However, for some classes of bugs, this may be too late, in which case a firmware update is required to load these earlier in the machine boot phase.
Examples:
sudo fwts microcode -
..runs the test on your machine and dumps the output to stdout.
Explanation of test results
Certain test results may require a little more explanation. This section will try and give some context to specific test failures.
Error ID |
Explanation |
MicrocodeVersion |
The kernel does not export microcode version. A 2.6.19-rc1 kernel or later is required for this to test to check the microcode version number. |
MicrocodeOutdated |
The CPU is running with an outdated version of the microcode. Either load the new one by the operating system, or check if a firmware update will load the new microcode at boot time. |
FirmwareTestSuite/Reference/microcode (last edited 2016-01-11 07:25:05 by anthonywong)