Dear Maintainer,

I don't know whether this is a problem with the intel-microcode package,
the kernel, or the microcode itself.

I installed intel-microcode and rebooted.

The machine failed to boot - when using recovery mode, it stopped after
"Freeing SMP alternatives memory: 24K"

If I booted with "dis_ucode_ldr" on the kernel command line, it
booted successfully.

System is an HP T5740 Thin Client.

/proc/cpuinfo:
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 28
model name      : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N280   @ 1.66GHz
stepping        : 2
microcode       : 0x20a
cpu MHz         : 1000.000
cache size      : 512 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 1
apicid          : 0
initial apicid  : 0
fdiv_bug        : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca
cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx constant_tsc
arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3
xtpr pdcm movbe lahf_lm dtherm
bugs            :
bogomips        : 3325.21
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:

processor       : 1
vendor_id       : GenuineIntel
cpu family      : 6
model           : 28
model name      : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N280   @ 1.66GHz
stepping        : 2
microcode       : 0x20a
cpu MHz         : 1000.000
cache size      : 512 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 1
apicid          : 1
initial apicid  : 1
fdiv_bug        : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 10
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca
cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx constant_tsc
arch_perfmon pebs bts aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3
xtpr pdcm movbe lahf_lm dtherm
bugs            :
bogomips        : 3325.21
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:

Hi,

 I'm not intel-microcode package maintainer,

 How about install newer package?
 Today 3.20190514.1~deb9u1 have came to stretch-security, update
 your system and try it again.

On Fri, 17 May 2019 09:14:51 +0900 Hideki Yamane <henrich@iijmio-mail.jp> wrote:

I'm afraid I didn't get round to that at the time - the machine is
generally run headless, on a fairly inaccessible shelf, so booting it
with a screen and keyboard is a pain.

However, I did later upgrade it to buster, and today tried again, with
intel-microcode 3.20210608.2~deb10u1.

The problem persists.

I'm not sure how long I'll keep the machine though; it's pretty long in
the tooth.

Richard

Hmm, so we can probably assume it won't be fixed by Intel :-(  It
would need a newer BIOS (with updated ucode and maybe other platform
setup modules), and most vendors never deliver on that...

We understand, I personally have several machines that are in that
situation as well.

That said, thank you for the information and for testing the newer
microcode update.  I really appreciate it: user feedback is basically
the only way we (Debian) can know about something related to
intel-microcode.