Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754045AbZAYJlM (ORCPT ); Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:41:12 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751649AbZAYJk5 (ORCPT ); Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:40:57 -0500 Received: from www.tglx.de ([62.245.132.106]:50081 "EHLO www.tglx.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751755AbZAYJk4 (ORCPT ); Sun, 25 Jan 2009 04:40:56 -0500 Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 10:40:31 +0100 (CET) From: Thomas Gleixner To: Theodore Tso cc: Sven-Thorsten Dietrich , Jon Masters , Lee Revell , linux-rt-users@vger.kernel.org, LKML , williams , "Luis Claudio R. Goncalves" Subject: Re: [RT] [RFC] simple SMI detector In-Reply-To: <20090125040246.GE9216@mit.edu> Message-ID: References: <1232751312.3990.59.camel@perihelion.bos.jonmasters.org> <75b66ecd0901231833j2fda4554sb0f47457ab838566@mail.gmail.com> <1232845026.3990.71.camel@perihelion.bos.jonmasters.org> <1232849565.29318.112.camel@sven.thebigcorporation.com> <20090125040246.GE9216@mit.edu> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (LFD 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1361 Lines: 29 On Sat, 24 Jan 2009, Theodore Tso wrote: > On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 01:12:45PM +1100, Sven-Thorsten Dietrich wrote: > I will also note that for some applications (i.e., military hardware > running under battle conditions), where it might be that running the > hardware beyond its thermal limits might actually be *desirable*. > After all, an extra 15 minutes of running beyond thermal limits that > eventually causes the CPU to get flakey might be worth it if the > alternative is the ship getting sunk because the BIOS decided that > shutting down the CPU to save it from thermal damage was more > important than say, running the anti-aircraft guns.... In that case the system designer knows exactly what he is doing and he is aware of the consequences. 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, tglx -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/