From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:02:00 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:01:50 -0400 Received: from neon-gw-l3.transmeta.com ([63.209.4.196]:47881 "EHLO neon-gw.transmeta.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:01:34 -0400 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: torvalds@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds) Subject: Re: Re[2]: [PATCH] Athlon bug stomper. Pls apply. Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 16:00:30 +0000 (UTC) Organization: Transmeta Corporation Message-ID: <9oafeu$1o0$1@penguin.transmeta.com> In-Reply-To: <20010919154701.A7381@stud.ntnu.no> <20010919165503.A16359@gondor.com> X-Trace: palladium.transmeta.com 1000915299 7439 127.0.0.1 (19 Sep 2001 16:01:39 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@transmeta.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Sep 2001 16:01:39 GMT Cache-Post-Path: palladium.transmeta.com!unknown@penguin.transmeta.com X-Cache: nntpcache 2.4.0b5 (see http://www.nntpcache.org/) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In article <20010919165503.A16359@gondor.com>, Jan Niehusmann wrote: > >Additionally, look at who tested the 'fix' up to now: Probably only >people who had a problem before. And for all of them, the problem got >fixed. But do we know what happens if we use this 'fix' on a computer >that is not broken? No. Perhaps it breaks when we apply the 'fix'? This is my personal main worry. The problem with things like these is that people for whom the old code works fine don't tend to be interested in "fixes" floating around on the net - whether it is for Athlon chipset problems or for driver bugs or anything else. Which means that the "statistical sampling" is very skewed by self-selection, and anybody who knows anything about statistics knows that sample selection is _very_ important. Right now, for example, I'm leaning towards applying the patch, but quite frankly I'm still not certain. Getting _some_ kind of information out of VIA would be really good - even just an ACK from somebody who is under NDA and can say just "yes, it's safe to clear bit 7 of reg 0x55". It is _probably_ an undocumented performance thing, and clearing that bit may slow something down. But it might also change some behaviour, and knowing _what_ the behaviour is might be very useful for figuring out what it is that triggers the problem. Linus