#TECHNOLOGY NEWS JANUARY 9, 2018 / 6:46 AM / UPDATED 34 MINUTES AGO

Microsoft halts some AMD chip Spectre patches after PCs freeze

Eric Auchard
3 MIN READ

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) said on Tuesday it had suspended patches to guard against Meltdown and Spectre security threats for some computers running AMD (AMD.O) chipsets after complaints by AMD customers that the software updates froze their machines.

Microsoft said a in customer support blog post it had received complaints from AMD customers that their machines stopped loading the Start menu or taskbar after installing Windows operating system security updates.

The issues affect older generations of its chips, AMD said in a statement.

Some complaints on customer support blogs described computers freezing when users attempted to install Microsoft patches on decade-old Athlon X2 chips, for example. A spokesman declined to detail the range of AMD processors affected.

“AMD is aware of an issue with some older generational processors following installation of a Microsoft security update that was published over the weekend,” the AMD statement said.

-snip-

It gets worse: Microsoft’s Spectre-fixer wrecks some AMD PCs

KB4056892 is not your friend if you run an Athlon

By Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor 8 Jan 2018 at 06:30

Microsoft’s fix for the Meltdown and Spectre bugs may be crocking AMD-powered PCs.

A lengthy thread on answers.microsoft.com records numerous instances in which Security Update for Windows KB4056892, Redmond’s Meltdown/Spectre patch, leaves some AMD-powered PCs with the Windows 7 or 10 startup logo and not much more.

Users report Athlon-powered machines in perfect working order before the patch just don’t work after it. The patch doesn’t create a recovery point, so rollback is little use and the machines emerge from a patch in a state from which rollback is sometimes not accessible. Some say that even re-installing Windows 10 doesn’t help matters. Others have been able to do so, only to have their machines quickly download and install the problematic patch all over again …

Those who have suffered from the putrid patch will therefore need to disable Windows Update as just about the first thing they do. Keeping the machine off networks seems a helpful precaution.

-snip-