Is Microcode really necessary?

[bester69]

Hi,

Ive relealised that microcode (in my case, intel microcode) is very necessary as CPU activity become more stable. I was having a KDE bug about high CPU Xorg that occured eventually, that had no solution (i really tried in google), and just the workaround to having to kill and restart the plasma-desktop or kwin in order to go back to normal process cpu activity. Then i installed the microcode and the problem was gone for good, and the system feels now more robust and stable, perhaps is placebo .ç

As it tolds in benefits section..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcode

Microprogramming also reduces the cost of field changes to correct defects (bugs) in the processor; a bug can often be fixed by replacing a portion of the microprogram rather than by changes being made to hardware logic and wiring.

I'd recommend you to install microcode packages..

what do you think about it?

[lukas]

pretty much all i can tell you:
i always install it. Most of my devises come with intel.
I neither know what it does, nor have seen any differences.

I seem to recall someone made a thread, short ago, about intel graphic cards and how to enhance the experience (it sure was not about microcode ... ah, now i remember: you had to edit xorg.conf, and i was not in the mood to figure how how to create xorg.conf ... probably easy .... ).

[Head_on_a_Stick]

For my Intel Haswell laptop, the microcode updates are essential.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transacti ... Extensions & https://techreport.com/news/26911/errat ... dwell-cpus

EDIT: I actually use the Arch microcode package and load that for my Debian systems using a kernel parameter.

[T.J.]

As a very general (and perhaps somewhat obvious) statement, microcode packages are software patches applied to the processor and other parts of the chipset to fix glitches after release. I'd say if you have one, you absolutely want to use it.