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Bug Portables Intel Operating Systems Power Software Windows Hardware

Faulty Microsoft Driver Saps Intel Core Duo power 268

Posted by CowboyNeal from the chink-in-the-armor dept.
Critical_ writes "Tom's Hardware recently discovered a bug in Microsoft's ACPI driver implementation under Windows XP SP2 that causes a loss of more than one hour of battery time when connecting any USB 2.0 device to an Intel Core Duo based system. Apparently Microsoft, Intel and ODMs have known of this problem under a confidentiality agreement since July 12, 2005 via (a still private) Knowledge Base article KB899179. The bug lies in the asynchronous scheduler component inadvertently being left running causing Windows' internal task scheduler (ITS) to treat it as a running process involving the attached device. This in turn prevents the ITS from powering down the processor into one of the ACPI sleep states causing the system to use more battery power. At this time there seems to be no fix. Strangely, single-core systems and AMD systems are not affected. This leads one to wonder if it is truely a software problem or if there a much larger hardware problem that may affect Core Duo equipped Apple systems."
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Faulty Microsoft Driver Saps Intel Core Duo power More

Faulty Microsoft Driver Saps Intel Core Duo power

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  • And thanks to the confidiality agreement (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 28, 2006 @10:17AM (#14587876)
    You'll never know if you're being asked to buy broken hardware or broken software.


    Seems best to stay away from both companies.
    Why can't they just be honest and say "this is the problem and this is what we're doing about it"

    • Re:And thanks to the confidiality agreement (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MadTinfoilHatter ( 940931 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @10:56AM (#14588030)

      Why can't they just be honest and say "this is the problem and this is what we're doing about it"

      Because they don't want people to know there is a problem, and that they're not doing anything about it, maybe?

      • The bug probably has been fixed already

        The problem is the stupid Microsoft's cicle release. That kind of fixes won't ve delivered via windows update unless they're really critical, but through service pack updates. IOW: You'll have to wait until 2007 (service pack 3 planned release date I think) if you're lucky. Notice that this bug was introduced by service pack 2 BTW

        They usually tell you to "contact" Microsoft through a number phone to get a patch if you want to get it earlier, something like this:

        To reso

    • full disclosure of bugs (Score:5, Insightful)

      by l2718 ( 514756 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @11:10AM (#14588090)

      I'm not sure you can label the product as "defective". Software is too complicated to be labelled "defective" just becuase it has bugs. Moreover, I'm not sure you could legally require Microsoft to reveal every bug they know about, especially since the software you bought carried a prominent notice in the EULA saying, roughly "This software is not guaranteed to work; if it fails to function in some way it's not our problem -- you shouldn't have relied on it in the first place". They never promised the ACPI driver will actually work. Note that the GPL carries a similar clause.

      That said, I'd rather rely on free software to function as advertized. When the big pieces fail (kernel, web broswer, ...) fixes are usually quick since many experts are working transparently. When small pieces fail (my favorite editor) I can fix them myself and submit a patch.

      The other solution, of course, is to pay for warranty. The problem is that no-one is willing to guarantee Windows will work, and that includes the hardware OEM -- I'm sure the people who make the laptop will say that they can't warranty someone else's OS.

      • With the very important distinction that I paid $200 for MS EULA to tell me that they are not responsible for broken software. The GPL didn't charge me anything. Even if Debian had cost $20 I still wouldn't be really concerned about bugs. $200, though, is a significant portion of most people's monthly incomes.
      • If something isn't working as intended,it's buggy and defective. There is no way around that even if it's just a minor defect.

        And yes, the GPL has a similar clause to the MS EULA, but with the GPL and my OS (Debian) I can be sure that the Debian devs don't withhold information about bugs affecting me (bugs.debian.org and Debain Social Contract clause 3).

        The problem here is not that bugs in a driver/CPU combo exist. There are many of those: recently there was a bug with AMD dualcores and Cool'n'Quiet under W

      • Software is too complicated to be labelled "defective" just becuase it has bugs.

        Just about everything is "too complicated" to be labeled "defective" if you're going to take that approach.

        But "defective" is simply as defective does.

        If your car engine tears itself apart after 10k miles because a piston was made out of tolerance that is a defect because the part is a piston, not due any actual property of the object itself. It's role is to play a part in a system, and it is the system that defines the defect.

        P

    • What is it that Slashdot has against mainstream OS's? Now that Mac OS X is finally gaining some marketshare, we see FUD warning people to avoid it because of the Intel chips. I thought that everyone was pro-switch. There's no evidence that this is a hardware bug, or if it is, that OS X's (Or any other *BSD or *NIX's) implementation of the USB stack is vulnerable.

      If it is a hardware bug, though, it reminds me of an old joke:

      How many Hardware Engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
      None. It can

    • "This leads one to wonder if it is truely a software problem or if there a much larger hardware problem that may affect Core Duo equipped Apple systems."

      I guess the correct amount of the appropriate drug might lead "one" to wonder just about anything. In case you're not aware, you are practicing what is called "science via analogy". A fine example of this type of "science" is the "witch" scene in The Holy Grail, where peasants conclude the woman is a witch because she floats.

      Using the Scientific Method, t
    • Is this a BIOS bug perhaps?

      I'm not sure I understand the problem well enough to know if an alternative OS like Linux wouldn't have the same problem. Can anyone dig into that a bit?

  • Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stefman ( 37546 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @10:19AM (#14587888)
    Why does the last phrase target specifically Apple computers since the beginning mentions Win XP. Obviously, this affects XP laptops with a core duo.

    • Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by smalljs ( 896225 )
      Well, if the problem exists in Apple's hardware as well, it just would lead one to believe that it's a problem with the processor rather than Windows. I didn't take it as a shot at Apple...
      • I understood that macbooks will have socketed processeors (?? for upgrade).

        So if I have to send my new macbook (delivery 15th Feb haha believe it when I see it) back for a newer faster processor sometime down the track I won't lose any sleep over it.

    • Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by goldn_64 ( 912464 )
      Because the article also hints that it might not be only be a software problem, but that maybe there's a hardware problem too.

    • Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nurb432 ( 527695 )
      Beacuse if its actually a hardware issue, as the story suggests it may be, it may equally effect other OS's that follow the proper ACPI rules. Espcially if Intel and Microsoft are hiding these facts from other manufacturers.

      That, and who around here cares about problems that effect only XP ? :)

      • Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by peragrin ( 659227 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @11:00AM (#14588047)
        The problem is where does the failure lie?

        My bet the problem is in BIOS, and not EFI. Since this affects only XP computers and those require bios to function. BIOS with ACPI has always been a poor hack. Windows Computers have always had a hard time returning from sleep with 100% accuracy. Maybe it wasn't windows fault but the bios underneath.

        Wait did I just say it wasn't windows fault? damn I have got to get some sleep.

        • Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)

          by undeadly ( 941339 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @11:52AM (#14588253)
          My bet the problem is in BIOS, and not EFI. Since this affects only XP computers and those require bios to function. BIOS with ACPI has always been a poor hack.

          Yeah, listen to what OpenBSD developers implementing ACPI support thinks about ACPI [undeadly.org]

          Also the ACPI spec blows other specs out of the water when it comes to unreadability. It's a classical spec in the sense that someone was bribed to go to Honolulu to "talk the spec over" and "reach a compromise". They don't even use spec language like shall and optional! It's deliberately vague so that everyone involved could agree. So Marco's engineering assessment is ACPI is a pile of camel pooh.
    • Ummm, because Apples use the same chip, and it might not be a software problem (if it was, they would have fixed it by now).

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @11:11AM (#14588093)
      Because nobody cares about another bug in Windows. But what if it's not in Windows, and it can affect the Mac?? Panic!

    • Re:Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Overly Critical Guy ( 663429 )
      Because Apple's got the buzz, and randomly tying into it for no reason at all generates more page hits for Slashdot. Accuracy isn't a concern anymore; bombast is.
    • Why doesn't somebody take one of each an Apple (EFI) and other make (BIOS) Core Duo notebook and run Linux on them. It runs on both kinds and has different drivers than XP does. Then see if the same bug results. If the bug is present in Linux under the BIOS model but not the EFI model, then it is a HW problem on the BIOS model. If the bug occurs in both, it might also be a HW problem but could also be a Linux bug too (but not likely.) If the bug is not noticed in either, then it is a Windows problem only.

  • confidentiality agreement (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @10:20AM (#14587892) Homepage Journal
    This sort of thing should not be permitted. We arent talking about R&D agreements here, this is a *currently selling product*. They are hiding the fact its known defective from the consumer.

    Isnt this a basis for a class action fraud suit? If not, it should be investigated by the SEC at least.

    • Re:confidentiality agreement (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dysk ( 621566 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @10:37AM (#14587960)
      Isnt this a basis for a class action fraud suit? If not, it should be investigated by the SEC at least.
      The SEC investigates fraud which victimizes shareholders. This is fraud against consumers, a much less important group.
      • Yes, i agree, however these are both publically held companies, and disclosing known bugs would effect their stock value. Sooooo... SEC could be involved.

        The class action suit part would be for the 'consumer side'.

    • Re:confidentiality agreement (Score:5, Insightful)

      by shaka999 ( 335100 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @11:02AM (#14588058)
      Would you sue ATI or NVIDIA for updating their drivers and getting more out of the hardware? Obviously there was a problem where the hardware wasn't being used to its full potential?

      How does the shorter battery life make this defective? If the company had sold this as having a much longer battery life then failed to live up to it then that would be a problem. Just because the software (or hardware bug) isn't shutting down a processor doesn't make this a legal issue.
      • I'm pretty certain they are selling it with the longer battery life listed. The problem only happens when you hook up a USB device, and generally the battery life listed on the laptop is in it's super-efficient mode with nothing attached.

        Microsoft/Intel/Laptop Manufacturers definitely should have warned people that plugging in a USB device would disable their CPU's power-saving features and while I hate litigious bastards, the grandparent is probably right. I'm betting Microsoft is going to end up paying
        • Microsoft/Intel/Laptop Manufacturers definitely should have warned people that plugging in a USB device would disable their CPU's power-saving features

          I was thinking the same thing, but I wonder if anyone's checked that somewhere buried in the manual no one ever reads, in fine print hidden on some sub paragraph on page 247 or something, that maybe it does, in fact, say that.

          The question is not only what constitutes what must be disclosed (plugging in a USB Device will shorten battery life) but what prominen
    • Why do we have to sue everyone over every little flaw??

      OMG It eats up a little battery life. Hey, nothing is perfect! Are you insane, why would you sue over every inperfection?

  • AMD Looking Good (Score:2, Interesting)

    by gasmonso ( 929871 )

    Yet another reason to buy AMD. I dumped Intel back when I had a brandnew Celeron 400 and have never looked back. I see a class action lawsuit in the future :)

    http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]
    • Indeed. At this point I won't recommend Intel products for home/personal usage, but more importantly I won't recommend them to my clients for business usage.

      Most businesses relying on computer systems cannot afford to have downtime caused by nonsense such as this. A laptop unexpectedly running out of battery while writing an important email, or even dying during a presentation to potential clients, could prove to be a massive disaster.

      Until things change an Intel, I will only recommend AMD-based systems, an
      • That might be going a little far. My laptop tells me I'm running low on battery power well before it actually runs out, so in your scenario it means I'm too brain dead to heed the warnings. As for your second example, well ... I'll just take the A/C adapter out of my laptop bag and plug one end of it into the wall, and the other into my laptop. I worry more about Windows crashing or otherwise acting dumb much more than I worry about the proc.

        And I only buy AMD Opteron servers these days :-). Just beca

      • For a desktop system, I'll take AMD over Intel any day, especially one I've specced and built myself. I've got the parts for an Athlon 64 X2-based system on the way to my door from NewEgg right now. :)

        For a pre-purchased desktop system, I'd prefer AMD over Intel, but unfortunately, prebuilt systems with AMD CPUs often aren't the nicest systems available. There are some (such as Sun's Opteron-based machines), but it's a lot harder to find a prebuilt system with high overall quality which contains an AMD CP
        • Intel has had exclusive contracts with a lot of laptop vendors. That is changing, at least in part because AMD won an anti-trust lawsuit in Japan against Intel - so these contracts are now illegal in Japan. Lenovo is also not an Intel only shop while IBM was, so it is logical to expect AMD ThinkPads in the future.

          Ultimatley the reason you were not able to find quality AMD laptops has a lot to do with Intel using it's near monopoly position to extort exclusive contracts from laptop suppliers. Fortunatly that
        • Funny, since the low-power laptop Core Duo chip manages to compete performance-wise with the desktop Athlon64 3800+ X2, all the while consuming less power at 100% than the Athlon does when idle. Think about it, a laptop chip competing with the beloved AMD desktop chips. One wonders how far ahead Intel will be when the desktop-focused Conroe ships later this year.

    • Re:AMD Looking Good (Score:2, Insightful)

      by goldn_64 ( 912464 )
      Seeing that this problem is caused by Windows, I don't see the point of dumping Intel over it ;) It's like saying, hey that guy can't handle his car so his car must be useless.
      • But that's not the whole situation here. AMD-based systems are apparently not affected, if the summary is correct.

        So it's more akin to the driver being useless in one car, but perfectly fine in a very similar car from a different manufacturer. That would suggest that it is perhaps more of a problem with the particular model of car, as well as perhaps a problem with the driver.

        • Microsoft makes it sound like the ACPI daemon isn't thread safe, which if it is, then all Windows SMP(multi-CPU) computers are effected. It's just that the Core Duo is the first laptop with multiple CPUs.

          From TFA:
          "The issue, according to Microsoft, concerns the asynchronous scheduler component - a part of the USB 2.0 driver that determines when devices can access local memory. With the revision to that driver implemented in Windows XP Service Pack 2, the scheduler can inadvertently be left running. As a

  • Kinda First Post (Score:5, Funny)

    by BasharTeg ( 71923 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @10:21AM (#14587897) Homepage
    First post from a laptop running XP SP2 with a USB 2.0 device connected with the asynchronous scheduler component running preventing my CPU from entering one of the ACPI sleep states and thus draining my battery life.

  • Submitter didn't RFTA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rosalindavenue ( 948022 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @10:22AM (#14587902)
    Quote: "Since Microsoft's drivers are now believed to be directly involved, then all of Apple's upcoming MacBook Pro systems - which use the Core Duo processor and 945 chipset - should be unaffected by this issue. We have yet to attain access to a MacBook Pro to verify this." Why bring Apple into a conversation about a defective XP driver?
    • It is suggested that it may not be the Windows driver that is purely at fault here. It is said that this problem does not manifest itself on AMD systems, for instance. Thus, it should be considered that the problem is more hardware-based, rather than just confined to the Windows XP driver. And when you consider that Apple is using such hardware in their recent systems, it is clearly obvious that they may be affected as well.

    • There's a difference between people believing MS's drivers to be involved, and them actually being involved. Even assuming that they *are* involved, though, that doesn't mean that OS X's drivers won't exhibit exactly the same behaviour.

      The most likely thing at the moment appears to be that MacBook systems won't be affected, but it'd still be nice to have some confirmation on that.
    • There are already none Apple Core Duo laptops around (but they are expensive), why not see if the problem exists under Linux on these devices? If it doesnt, then it isnt the hardware. Infact, you should be able to put the Intel iMacs into the same state and see if a larger than expected current is drawn from the mains.
    • What if the current ACPI driver isn't faulty but the previous one was? What if Intel relied on the previous driver to design the sleep functions for the Core Duo? Then Microsoft fixes the ACPI driver. Uh-oh. This kind of thing happens in software all the time. There does seem to be some evidence for this scenerio in the article.

      The problem is only reported on the latest Service Pack.

      The problem has been known for seven months but not "fixed."

      The problem only occurs on the Core Duo.

      Microsoft seems ready to t
    • "Why bring Apple into a conversation about a defective XP driver?"

      Because this whole issue has a very dodgy feel to it. The secrecy, the lack of a fix, etc. It seems quite weird for a software-only problem. If we're not getting the whole story and there is indeed a hardware component to the problem, it could have a serious impact on Apple and others (Linux, etc).

      Also, Macbook Pros have a camera that's always connected, and it uses USB2. You can't disconnect it, so if this affects everyone, Apple will be mor

  • You hit the nail on its head! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 28, 2006 @10:24AM (#14587910)
    "Hmm... Microsoft, a bug, Intel, Apple and dual core in the same article. I wonder if this couldn't generate some tasty clicks? Quick, put it on the frontpage!"

  • Comon.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by evilNomad ( 807119 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @10:26AM (#14587915)
    "Strangely, single-core systems and AMD systems are not affected."

    So once again we have a chance to bash Intel, perfect!

    Did you ever stop to consider that maybe that specific state, which cannot be reached, is only utilized by the Core Duo? Maybe if AMD had a laptop dual core chip we'd see the same behavior.. But hey, if we can make Intel look bad because of a Microsoft bug, then we are two for two!
    • How exactly is it "Intel bashing" to point out that similar systems from other manufacturers do not suffer from the same problem? Indeed, following such a faulty train of thought one could easily argue that pointing out the higher stability of Linux relative to Windows 98 is "Microsoft bashing". It obviously isn't "bashing" in any way, but merely pointing out that one manufacturer's product is deficient when compared to another product from another set of developers.

      AMD does have dual core chips available,

  • It looks like a software problem. (Score:5, Informative)

    by stikves ( 127823 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @10:26AM (#14587916) Homepage
    I do not know the exact details, so accept this as a pure speculation.

    It seems like a software problem. Think it like the "Weak Reference" issue in garbage collection. Since a system task is always demanding CPU the ACPI subsystem will of course not decrease the power.

    Such things also happen in Linux world. For example the update daemon [tuwien.ac.at] causes disk activity every 10 minutes, which prevented the hard disk from spinning down. Since this was a big issue with laptops, it's now fixed in later versions (my system no longer has /sbin/update).
    • /sbin/update would cause power saving to fail on *all* systems, not just some mysterious new systems. This is as though somehow /sbin/update did not use power at all when running (due to some clever hack), and thus there was no reason to be removed from Linux, but when you get this new processor, somehow that new one causes the hack to break and /sbin/update starts using power.
  • I just recently upgraded to X2 4400+ running Win XP SP2 and 2GB dual channel ram. OS is running off a 15k RPM drive, and storage is on 3 x 250GB 16mb cache drives. The motherboard is A8N32-SLI. Video card is eVGA nvidia 7800GT.

    I can't run Windows for more than 24 hours before Outlook takes a hold of one of the CPU's. ending outlook process makes the system pick another process, usually explorer.exe, to take 50% of total CPU (or one whole processor). Shortly after, the entire system freezes.

    Seems like A

    • Re:AMD's Dual Core x2 4400+ problem as well (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 28, 2006 @10:39AM (#14587969)
      I have almost exactly the same hardware (except for the graphics card, I use a Quadro FX4000), and there is absolutely no problem.

      I dual boot between Windows XP Pro SP2 for gaming and Windows XP Pro x64 for work, and both work absolutely perfectly. The only issue so far has been that of stable 64-bit driver, but that only pertains to the graphics card.

      You might want to check your system for memory errors (if you are using cheapo RAM) or for a motherboard problem. Windows itself (assuming you arent using any broken drivers) works brilliantly with this hardware.

      I have been running this system since November with only one or two reboots.

      • WTF? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        This:

        I dual boot between Windows XP Pro SP2 for gaming and Windows XP Pro x64 for work, and both work absolutely perfectly.

        and this:

        I have been running this system since November with only one or two reboots.

        does not compute.

    • What about linux? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by maynard ( 3337 )
      Our quad opterons (two dualcore) appear perfectly stable under Linux. Have you tried that as a test to rule out hardware?
    • I have two almost identical systems (only difference --4GB of ram) and have had no problem with XP or XP64. Infact Id say they're the best computers Ive ever owned.

  • Yawn, non free sucks. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by twitter ( 104583 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @10:45AM (#14587991) Homepage Journal
    Strangely, single-core systems and AMD systems are not affected. This leads one to wonder if it is truely a software problem or if there a much larger hardware problem that may affect Core Duo equipped Apple systems.

    Critical_ sees a typical Wintel bug and thinks Apple has a problem. It's an interesting thought, but not one to publish without checking.

    APM [wikipedia.org] and ACPI, designed in part by Microsoft [wikipedia.org], have always been secretive and buggy. Tricky hardware that constantly varies like Winmodems is the rule and I'm amazed the Linux works so well with any of it.

    The only thing worse than the hardware has been Microsoft's software on top of it. While I'm able to keep laptops up for more then 40 days by using APM and hibernation or ACPI and suspend, my Microsoft using friends have to reboot. They tell me that their Word documents get corrupted on resume if the machine resumes at all. Cluster on cluster, all of their complex nasties designed to thwart competitors only bite them in the rear despite the fact they wrote the specs themselves and have hardware details no one else does. This is what to expect from non-free.

    IBM cell based hardware running GNU/Linux is going to blow all of this trash into a distantly remembered nightmare.

    • Re:Yawn, non free sucks. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Critical_ ( 25211 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @11:08AM (#14588080) Homepage
      Critical_ sees a typical Wintel bug and thinks Apple has a problem. It's an interesting thought, but not one to publish without checking.

      I never concluded Apple had a problem. Rather I suggest it could be a problem because Microsoft's ACPI driver communicates with the ICH7-M Southbridge. If I am not mistaken, Apple uses the same southbridge on it's hardware. As the article repeatedly states, this issue can be anywhere on the chain from the southbridge, the Microsoft driver or even the attach peripheral. If it's purely a driver problem then why has it taken Microsoft and Intel 6 months of a non-working fix? Why are single core systems not affected by the same driver? Could this issue affect Linux or Mac OSX users on those platforms? Sure it could be a state-based issue but no one can really know until further testing takes place and Intel/Microsoft release more details.
      • If it's purely a driver problem then why has it taken Microsoft and Intel 6 months of a non-working fix?

        I'll answer your question with one of my own; how often does Microsoft get a patch out of the door early, let alone "on time"? Why are there still bugs in Windows which were originally exposed over 3 years ago which haven't been fixed, when they're getting ready to release another version of Windows based on that exact same code?

        Why are single core systems not affected by the same driver?

        Because
    • IBM cell based hardware running GNU/Linux is going to blow all of this trash into a distantly remembered nightmare.

      You are seriously mistaken. The Cell is optimized for single-precision, floating-point workloads hand-coded to take advantage of the SPE units (which their "local memories" which is essentially just a programmer-managed cache). The Cell will be nothing special for typical integer workloads...in fact it will probably perform inferior to offerings from Intel and AMD. In fact any double-prec

    • God I wish I had mod points right now. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7@@@cornell...edu> on Saturday January 28, 2006 @11:56AM (#14588275) Homepage
      "IBM cell based hardware running GNU/Linux is going to blow all of this trash into a distantly remembered nightmare."

      No, it isn't. It's not even going to come close. It's not even going to exist, ever. 90% of the Cell's computing horsepower is in the SPUs, which are optimized for signal processing and geometry processing applications (namely, grinding away on lots of number crunching). No instruction reordering, floating-point only, and very limited branching functionality. The coprocessors are more comparable to devices such as Analog Devices' TigerSHARC or TI's TMS320 series than any general purpose CPU. Despite the insane floating point performance, you don't see TigerSHARC or TMS320 based computers, do you? That's because they are not suitable for general purpose computing in any way.

      The Cell's general purpose "controller" CPU is an incredibly stripped down PPC core that has incredibly low performance compared to any standard general purpose CPU.

      While it will have incredible performance for gaming and signal processing, the Cell is an utterly crap CPU for general purpose computing. Using a Cell in a normal desktop machine is like trying to cut a tree trunk with a cordless electric drill rather than a reciprocating saw. No matter how nice of a drill it is, it's going to do a shitty job compared to even the cheapest recipro saw, if it manages to do the job at all.
  • ...to not bother wasting nice new Apple hardware on Windows XP. Stop the dual-boot project!

    I wonder how Linux handles the defect, dependant upon how much the defect lies in the hardware.

  • YEAAAAHHHHHH... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CODiNE ( 27417 ) on Saturday January 28, 2006 @11:06AM (#14588073) Homepage
    This article really pinpoints to me one of the best things of all about Apple switching to Intel, REAL OS COMPETITION. Now at last if Windows seems dog slow, you can't claim it's the Intel chip... or when the Finder seems the suckage, you KNOW it's the Finder and not the PPC chip running at a lower MHz. Once we start seeing these systems getting into people's hands and they notice a real difference between the two OS' on the same hardware you can bet they'll be whining about it and performance will definitely be a focus for both OS venders. In the past they could have been lax about it... thinking "But what can they compare it to?" but now if they can show that Quartz drawing is 3x slower than DirectX or vice versa, you can bet there will be performance updates in the near future. This is better for all of us.

    P.S. Linux doesn't really count in this manner because it gets ignored as a "geek OS" and not really something anybody can run.

  • heh (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nexcomlink ( 930801 )
    No offense while I am not a intel supporter or a mac zealot I find it quite funny that every time there is a problem with Intel everyone begins to bash them simply because of a list of problems. No problem simply do a recall. It's quite obvious to me that the Yonah chips where rushed because of Apple. Plus it states XP driver. Nothing related to Apple because they don't use "XP drivers". Or maybe these flaws are intentional so that Windows runs poorly on them. But I seriously doubt they would sacrifice ther

  • So the big deal is that the processor doesn't sleep and may run your laptop battery down a tiny bit faster?

    Okay, so maybe the big deal is that they were (are?) keeping this secret. If it is such a big secret, then why, and how, do we know about it?

  • for the last little while, I've been noticing that my compaq R3000 AMD64 WinXP SP2 laptop has been running with the fan at full tilt almost all of the time.
    I normally run plugged into power with music playing so I didn't think much about it, other than noting it being weird.

    right now the fan is running at full tilt. and has been for hours. even when the system is 99% idle. the ambient temp is about 70F. the computer is cool to the touch everywhere.

    I unplugged my ipod shuffle.

    the fan went into halfspeed

  • Dual core the culprit (Score:2, Informative)

    by cnettel ( 836611 )
    The Windows scheduler is different in single and dual core, or more specifically: single or multi CPU. This is quite understandable, as there are some optimizations possible for the synchronization objects if you know for a fact that there is only one real execution path. Synchronization in different forms is used A LOT in the NT kernel, as it's a piece of full reentrancy fetishism.

  • There may be no fix, but there is a workaround (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 28, 2006 @12:23PM (#14588389)
    I assume this has been posted previously, this is what you've got to do:

    1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
    2. Locate, and then click the following registry subkey:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\USB
    Note If the USB subkey does not exist, create it. To do this, follow these steps:a. Select the Services key. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click Key.
    b. Type USB in the New Key #1 box to name the new key "USB."

    3. Right-click USB, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
    4. In the New Value #1 box that appears, type EnIdleEndpointSupport, and then press ENTER.
    5. Right-click EnIdleEndpointSupport, and then click Modify.
    6. In the Value data box, type 1, leave the Hexadecimal option selected, and then click OK.
    7. Quit Registry Editor.

  • KB Article (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A Windows XP SP2-based portable computer uses its battery power more quickly than you expect when a USB 2.0 device is connected
    View products that this article applies to.

    Partner Only Article Article ID : 899179
    Last Review : July 12, 2005
    Revision : 1.0
    Important This article contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure to back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, an
  • They'll be releasing a new driver with the latest version of Windows that extends batery life by 1 hour. Ingenius!

  • Given that ACPI barely works on it and is very buggy, therefore most people usually avoid doing anything fancy such as configuring power saving functionalities...

  • We have this XP driver work fine with all CPU's from AMD and Intel, including Core Solo, but bugging out with Core Duo.

    Given it was written before Duo existed, it's not really fair to call it "bug in the driver". Intel and MS are probably to share the blame, with Duo not exactly working as per spec, and XP maybe taking a shortcut or two that happen not to work on the Duo.

    This is called incompatibility, not bug. Also even if it's a hardware bug, it's most likely possible to work around with a software patch
  • Windows is full of bugs like these. I own a laptop, running Windows XP, it is an Acer 8100 series. I upgraded the RAM to 2GB from the installed 1GB of RAM. Occasionally the computer would not enter hibernate while in standby and would instead wake up, stay awake and suck down battery power. XP would throw up an error about being unable to complete the API because of insufficient resources. Why a machine with 2GB of RAM would ever have not enough resources is beyond me. At any rate, to obtain the fix I

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This is clearly another case of too many mad scientists, and not enough hunchbacks.

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