linux-kernel - Re: [RT] [RFC] simple SMI detector

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Message-ID: <20090125090454.753c05dd@torg>
Date:	Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:04:54 -0600
From:	Clark Williams <williams@...hat.com>
To:	Bastien ROUCARIES <roucaries.bastien@...il.com>
Cc:	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>, Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>,
	Sven-Thorsten Dietrich <sdietrich@...ell.com>,
	Jon Masters <jcm@...hat.com>,
	Lee Revell <rlrevell@...-job.com>,
	linux-rt-users@...r.kernel.org,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"Luis Claudio R. Goncalves" <lgoncalv@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [RT] [RFC] simple SMI detector

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On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 12:49:18 +0100
Bastien ROUCARIES <roucaries.bastien@...il.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de> wrote:
> >
> > 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 :)
> 

Except for the fact that linuxcore is unaware of the specific
requirements a particular motherboard has for thermal management.

Turning off SMI's unconditionally is a *bad* idea. Better to start
telling hardware vendors that we can't use their platform because of
unexplained latencies (which we presume to be SMI's). 

Clark
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