Re: [RT] [RFC] simple SMI detector

[Bastien ROUCARIES <roucaries.bastien@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> wrote:
> On Sat, 24 Jan 2009, Theodore Tso wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 01:12:45PM +1100, Sven-Thorsten Dietrich wrote:
>> I will also note that for some applications (i.e., military hardware
>> running under battle conditions), where it might be that running the
>> hardware beyond its thermal limits might actually be *desirable*.
>> After all, an extra 15 minutes of running beyond thermal limits that
>> eventually causes the CPU to get flakey might be worth it if the
>> alternative is the ship getting sunk because the BIOS decided that
>> shutting down the CPU to save it from thermal damage was more
>> important than say, running the anti-aircraft guns....
>
> In that case the system designer knows exactly what he is doing and he
> is aware of the consequences.
>
> My concern about the SMI disable module is that it can damage Joe
> users hardware. I have at least two reports where the CPU got fried
> and some others where people got confused because chips started
> behaving weird and it took quite a time to figure out that they used
> the SMI disabler. A big fat warning about this code is definitely
> necessary.
>
> Thanks,


I suppose the non joe user could flash their motherboard with
linuxcore and therefore do not distrub by SMI :)

Regards

Bastien