Intel Atom C2xxx LPC failures
-
I asked for a source for the assertion "a component that is likely to fail prematurely" and you quote "slightly higher expected failure rates under certain use and time constraints". "likely to fail" != "slightly higher…failure rates [with conditions]".
I find it amusing that engineers are willing to blindly accept vague phrases such as "slightly higher expected failure rates…" without demanding something more specific. This isn't directed at you, VAMike (your quote was just handy.) It's just a general observation. "slightly higher" can mean "0.00001% higher chance" or it can mean "40% higher chance."
I'm of the opinion that if it is "0.00001%", that Intel would come right out and say that in order to put their customers at ease. The same train of thought suggests that the actual "higher chance" is much greater... at least a high enough percentage that Intel felt the need to hide the number AND force anyone with an NDA to also hide the number.
Perhaps most telling is that not only is the issue costing Intel a significant enough amount of money that it has to be reported to shareholders, but also the speculation that this issue is causing delays in them ramping up the C3xxx lines.
Oh, and even netgate is using phrases that are so vague as to be meaningless (probably due to NDA.) I believe someone from pfSense/Negate posted "The majority of at-risk Netgate products will not experience this failure over their entire service lifetime." That statement didn't include what "service lifetime" means, and uses the term "the majority." If 49.9% of the units experience this failure, the statement would still be accurate.
-
I asked for a source for the assertion "a component that is likely to fail prematurely" and you quote "slightly higher expected failure rates under certain use and time constraints". "likely to fail" != "slightly higher…failure rates [with conditions]".
I find it amusing that engineers are willing to blindly accept vague phrases such as "slightly higher expected failure rates…" without demanding something more specific. This isn't directed at you, VAMike (your quote was just handy.) It's just a general observation. "slightly higher" can mean "0.00001% higher chance" or it can mean "40% higher chance."
I'm of the opinion that if it is "0.00001%", that Intel would come right out and say that in order to put their customers at ease. The same train of thought suggests that the actual "higher chance" is much greater... at least a high enough percentage that Intel felt the need to hide the number AND force anyone with an NDA to also hide the number.
Well, I'm less of a conspiracy theorist and assume that means that the actual number is highly dependent on other factors, and that a blanket figure is meaningless. But hey, maybe the illuminati really are manipulating this thing. I guess you could demand harder. You could threaten to hold your breath until you turn blue. You could complain a lot on the internet. But it seems unlikely that anything you do here will make intel release specific failure rates for your device. Accept that and plan accordingly. I intend to use my avoton gear until it reaches obsolescence or until it stops working, and I'm not losing any sleep over it. I could probably get supermicro to RMA, but I don't have any deployed as SPOFs without redundancy–so the vague possibility of failure is much less significant than the guaranteed headache of having to bring stuff down, pull it apart, and deal with shipping. If some new data comes out to suggest that failure is imminent, I'll reevaluate.
If you really just can't live with a known unknown, throw the thing out, buy yourself unknown unknowns, and move on with your life.
-
But hey, maybe the illuminati really are manipulating this thing. I guess you could demand harder. You could threaten to hold your breath until you turn blue.
Do you always respond to a different opinion with outrageous sarcasm?
-
Do you always respond to a different opinion with outrageous sarcasm?
It really depends on how ridiculous people are being, and for how long, and how many times they stand the dead horse up to beat it again.
-
I agree with the comments netgate should stick 2 fingers up at the NDA, they are the customer of intel and they want to keep your business, so intel will probably do jack about the NDA been breached. I also think the NDA is technically illegal in various countries and contracts do not override law.
While it's true that NDAs (which are civil contracts) do not trump (criminal) law, most good NDAs (including the one in question) include provisions for notice to the disclosing party should a court compel disclosure. This allows the disclosing party to seek a protection order prior to disclosure, and you're back to square one.
That you're willing to voluntarily breech an agreement that you freely entered says something about you.
-
The workaround disables SERIRQ to prevent indeterminate interrupt behavior for systems that do not have external pull up resistor on SERIRQ PIN.
Anyone else see this resistor on their Supermicro replacement boards?
-
The workaround disables SERIRQ to prevent indeterminate interrupt behavior for systems that do not have external pull up resistor on SERIRQ PIN.
Anyone else see this resistor on their Supermicro replacement boards?
If I knew what, exactly, to look for… and where... I'd look (and even take pictures.) I have a(nother) replacement board in front of me right now.
-
The workaround disables SERIRQ to prevent indeterminate interrupt behavior for systems that do not have external pull up resistor on SERIRQ PIN.
Anyone else see this resistor on their Supermicro replacement boards?
If I knew what, exactly, to look for… and where... I'd look (and even take pictures.) I have a(nother) replacement board in front of me right now.
I too have both to look at…. The "what" is easy, a pull-up resistor are those little black things all over the board. They look like this:
http://www.galigear.com.au/image/cache/catalog/Misc/a3c5_35-500x500-500x500.jpg
What actually gets written on it will vary, but its a little black rectangular chip that's hand-soldered on the board. It may stand out more than other resistors since its likely done by hand than by a machine like the other resistors.The "where" is the hard part. Resistors all all over the board so its unclear where the PIN is. I'm currently looking for a resistor that is present on the new board that isn't on the old board. It can be on the top or the bottom of the board.
All that being said, if it can be located, anyone with a precision soldering iron can just put the resistor on there themselves without having to send anything back to SuperMicro.
-
One of the things to note is that the LPC bus (including SERIRQ) is not used on RCC-VE (SG-8860, SG-4860, SG-2440), and RCC-DFF2 (SG-2220).
The LPC bus is used on RCC (XG-2758), and all these units have been reworked to implement the fix.
The LPC bus is also used on the affected units from companies including Supermicro, Lanner, HPE, ASRock, and yes, even Cisco.
A design that uses the component in question will place potentially big loads on the signal in question at the board level. Every time the signal transitions from 0 to 1, there is a big current spike through the weak pullup charging the external capacitance (board traces, external loads), plus DC driver requirement for the off-chip inputs, termination networks, etc.
Hypothetically, consider the situation where the on-chip output pullup drivers that are “weak” in a given design would have much, much less loading on our boards. Our design presents zero external load, only the on-chip load. This on-chip load is on the order of 10x lower than a board where the LPC bus is in-use. This lower loading stresses the weak pull-up transistor much less than a design that has all the additional capacitive loading on the signal(s) in question due to the presence of the LPC bus.
Capacitive loading is a thing. Feel free to educate yourself.
Rangeley and other embedded communications processors have a rated lifetime characterized for 24x7 usage and 10 years. Desktop CPUs and even Avoton are characterized for an 8 hour workday usage for 5 years. This number actually depends on the SKU in question, but is generally true.
Before you protest that Rangeley and Avoton are the same die: true, but fails to account for the bin sorting/yield management that makes for different SKUs and families. Chips are extensively tested while they're still on the wafers.
One failed core (for any reason) probably means you get a quad core. Out comes the laser to cut the fuses, and bam, 4 cores evaporate off the die. More than one failed core, but less than 4: IDK, ask Intel. More that 4 failed cores, or won't run at 2.4GHz plus some margin, and for sure you have a 2 core. QAT part failed, or something else wrong, and they make it an Avoton.
In case I'm not being clear: here's something to think about: They're all the same die, but Rangeley is rated for much longer lifetimes. Ask yourself why.
5 years * 365 * 8 = 14.6k hours. (This number is really 5 x 52 x 5 x 8 = 10,400 hours, but use the higher figure as you wish.)
10 years * 365 * 24 = 87.6k hours.
Capacitive loading is, again, a thing.
Not using the LPC bus is… unusual for an Intel design.
We have zero need for it, so we didn't use it.
-
I agree with the comments netgate should stick 2 fingers up at the NDA, they are the customer of intel and they want to keep your business, so intel will probably do jack about the NDA been breached. I also think the NDA is technically illegal in various countries and contracts do not override law.
NDA clauses in contracts are common practice and are not illegal. And the consequences of violating your NDA with Intel won't be that Intel will take legal action against you. They will simply terminate your contract for cause. You loose access to all information that Intel considers proprietary and confidential. You loose access to all future plans and schedules. You loose the ability to directly conduct business with Intel in any fashion. In short, you effectively loose the ability to build competitive products using Intel components. This situation will be permanent.
-
Well, they can also enjoin you from (further) disclosure, and get the court to require that the disclosure be removed. There are other consequences as well.
-
@jwt:
One of the things to note is that the LPC bus (including SERIRQ) is not used on RCC-VE (SG-8860, SG-4860, SG-2440), and RCC-DFF2 (SG-2220).
The LPC bus is used on RCC (XG-2758), and all these units have been reworked to implement the fix.
jwt, can this (finally) be interpreted as meaning that all units currently shipping as new from pfSense/netgate either aren't impacted by the issue at all, or have the issue fixed?
If so, that resolves one of the major questions repeatedly asked in this thread (despite the fact that many people seem to ignore that and instead talk about nuclear bombs, exploding capacitors, and physically abusing horse corpses.)
-
If you are a customer, there is additional information that I can disclose under NDA, some of it is written, the rest can only be disclosed orally.
Note that you'll have to be under NDA with Rubicon Communications, LLC (Netgate) prior to such disclosure.
-
@jwt:
If you are a customer, there is additional information that I can disclose under NDA, some of it is written, the rest can only be disclosed orally.
Note that you'll have to be under NDA with Rubicon Communications, LLC (Netgate) prior to such disclosure.
Doesn't that create a dilemma when a POTENTIAL customer needs the answer before becoming an actual customer?
Let me rephrase my question, then:
I'm interested in purchasing the SG-4860 unit that contains the C2558 processor. If I do so today, will I be shipped a unit that is not impacted by the known C2xxx early LPC failure issue?
(Considering releases by Cisco, ASRock RACK, and several other vendors, answering this question shouldn't cross any NDA lines.)
-
@jwt:
I agree with the comments netgate should stick 2 fingers up at the NDA, they are the customer of intel and they want to keep your business, so intel will probably do jack about the NDA been breached. I also think the NDA is technically illegal in various countries and contracts do not override law.
While it's true that NDAs (which are civil contracts) do not trump (criminal) law, most good NDAs (including the one in question) include provisions for notice to the disclosing party should a court compel disclosure. This allows the disclosing party to seek a protection order prior to disclosure, and you're back to square one.
That you're willing to voluntarily breech an agreement that you freely entered says something about you.
Yes that I care about my customers more than my suppliers. Is that something you dont agree with then? Given you smited me.
-
I agree with the comments netgate should stick 2 fingers up at the NDA, they are the customer of intel and they want to keep your business, so intel will probably do jack about the NDA been breached. I also think the NDA is technically illegal in various countries and contracts do not override law.
NDA clauses in contracts are common practice and are not illegal. And the consequences of violating your NDA with Intel won't be that Intel will take legal action against you. They will simply terminate your contract for cause. You loose access to all information that Intel considers proprietary and confidential. You loose access to all future plans and schedules. You loose the ability to directly conduct business with Intel in any fashion. In short, you effectively loose the ability to build competitive products using Intel components. This situation will be permanent.
You are correct intel can do all that, however how confident are you that they would actually do that, and there is other suppliers out there.
Whilst NDA's in contracts may be common, and many such NDA's are perfectly legal, it doesnt mean all NDA's are legal, just because it may be common practice it doesnt mean its ok. NDA's I have signed relate to confidentiality of customer data, commercial arrangements and such. If I was asked to sign a NDA that prevented me from reporting details of faults to my customers I would walk away from the agreement and seek a new supplier, or sign it but knowing if push comes to shove it will be breached if it means doing the right things by my customers. I have never signed such an NDA tho so not been faced with the decision of breaching a NDA. I can understand NDA's related to things like technical secrets so competitors dont get hold of them, but not one's that forbid customers been told details of fauls, expected fault levels, expected lifetime etc. Also I think this NDA has already been breached given what we have seen in the media.
-
For those suggesting that Intel NDA's should be ignored…
That's a Really Bad Idea. I don't know about other countries, but here in the US, the corporate dollar rules all. Intel has, in the past, proven that it's clout in the industry can easily put companies out of business (and it really doesn't matter if you're legally/ethically right or wrong when you don't exist anymore.)
It doesn't do much good being "right" when your standing on a street corner begging for coins.
-
Thread locked.
Due to the increasing amount of false information spread by individuals with questionable intentions this thread is now locked. We encourage all Netgate and pfSense customers to contact us via official support channels if they have any doubts or questions.
Opening a new thread will result in a 30 day ban.
