Arch Linux

Splork

Member

Registered: 2017-05-31

Posts: 6

Question regarding microcode updates

Hello,

from what I understand, during initialisation, the BIOS will load an initial microcode version into the CPU, and then hand over control to the OS, where we can load another microcode version as described in https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Microcode

My question is the following: are there any parts of the microcode which cannot be updated once the CPU is initialised? So should I always update my BIOS, or will I be fine as long as I keep the {amd/intel}-ucode package up-to-date?

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,456

Website

Re: Question regarding microcode updates

I'm commenting largely to 'subscribe' to the thread as this is a great question.

But I can contribute that I've been using linux almost exclusively for 20 years and I have never once in my life done any BIOS update on any system I've had - I just keep the package up to date.  Though it's certainly possible that I've just been lucky to not experience any fallout from this (or maybe I have and haven't noticed, like a small decline in performance or power efficiency, etc).

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,146

Re: Question regarding microcode updates

Microcode wise you're most likely going to be fine.  depending on your actual processor, e.g. amd has somewhat of a track record for not releasing amd-ucode updates for consumer CPUs, so if you don't have a epyc or threadripper you have to do UEFI updates or opt for this inofficial source that tries to extract newer versions from vendors: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/amd- … de-platoma .