Sorry for the long wait - I was quite busy.
If it's so, then the HT patch is not to blame... But we'll see after
your tests.
I hope I never claimed / implied that! If anything reducing the amount
of threads (either through the patch or the nosmt kernel parameter) did
improve stability when running Debian.
Onto the tests - I'm rather confused on how to interpret the results.
As stated before, I would test multiple setups with blobs (ifd, me, gbe)
based on the Lenovo BIOS v2.81. I have omitted the vgabios test.
1. fully blob'ed with the me intact (CBFS size 0x70)
2. fully blob'ed with the me shrinked (CBFS size 0xBE5000)
I tested on two different Linux distributions.
(I build and flashed coreboot using a Raspberry Pi at a older master
than the master used for testing)
*Debian Buster 10.2, Kernel 4.19.0, "old master"*
> I couldn't build the crossgcc-i386 with multiple threads or watch YT
videos using Firefox. I eventually was fed up and decided to install
Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon to make sure I didn't mess up something on my
Debian install.
*Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon, Kernel 5.3.0, master @
1ab6f0c176c1aa6947bf0d3fbe0a213f316e9c67*
> I could build the crossgcc-i386 with multiple threads without issues.
I could also watch Youtube videos using Firefox but at some point the
system would become more or less randomly unstable or Cinnamon would
crash / freeze. Namely when I watched videos in full screen mode. CPU
temps seemed fine though. To rule out Cinnamon as an issue, I installed
Linux Mint 19.3 XFCE.
*Linux Mint 19.3 XFCE, Kernel 5.0.0, master @
1ab6f0c176c1aa6947bf0d3fbe0a213f316e9c67*
> The first build of the crossgcc-i386 with multiple threads did
produce some issues / the build could not be continued due to an error.
After a crossgcc-clean the build completed just fine. I also got freezes
when watching YT videos on Firefox namely in full screen mode.
I have attached my .config and a script + systemd unit which I use to
reduce power draw of my T430 (all settings were suggested by powertop,
aside from deactivating turbo boost).
---
I'm wondering if this is really an issue with coreboot / my Linux distro
or rather hardware related ... I'm considering to throw memtest86+ [1]
at the RAM and see if the RAM is working properly.
Regards
lhochstetter
[1] https://mail.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2018-November/087713.html
#
# Automatically generated file; DO NOT EDIT.
# coreboot configuration
#
#
# General setup
#
CONFIG_COREBOOT_BUILD=y
CONFIG_LOCALVERSION=""
CONFIG_CBFS_PREFIX="fallback"
CONFIG_COMPILER_GCC=y
# CONFIG_COMPILER_LLVM_CLANG is not set
# CONFIG_ANY_TOOLCHAIN is not set
CONFIG_CCACHE=y
# CONFIG_FMD_GENPARSER is not set
# CONFIG_UTIL_GENPARSER is not set
CONFIG_USE_OPTION_TABLE=y
# CONFIG_STATIC_OPTION_TABLE is not set
CONFIG_COMPRESS_RAMSTAGE=y
CONFIG_INCLUDE_CONFIG_FILE=y
CONFIG_COLLECT_TIMESTAMPS=y
# CONFIG_TIMESTAMPS_ON_CONSOLE is not set
CONFIG_USE_BLOBS=y
# CONFIG_USE_AMD_BLOBS is not set
# CONFIG_COVERAGE is not set
# CONFIG_UBSAN is not set
CONFIG_RELOCATABLE_RAMSTAGE=y
# CONFIG_NO_STAGE_CACHE is not set
CONFIG_TSEG_STAGE_CACHE=y
# CONFIG_UPDATE_IMAGE is not set
# CONFIG_BOOTSPLASH_IMAGE is not set
#
# Mainboard
#
#
# Important: Run 'make distclean' before switching boards
#
# CONFIG_VENDOR_ADLINK is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_AMD is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_AOPEN is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_APPLE is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_ASROCK is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_ASUS is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_BAP is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_BIOSTAR is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_CAVIUM is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_COMPULAB is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_ELMEX is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_EMULATION is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_FACEBOOK is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_FOXCONN is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_GETAC is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_GIGABYTE is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_GIZMOSPHERE is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_GOOGLE is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_HP is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_IBASE is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_INTEL is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_JETWAY is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_KONTRON is not set
CONFIG_VENDOR_LENOVO=y
# CONFIG_VENDOR_LIPPERT is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_MSI is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_OPENCELLULAR is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_PACKARDBELL is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_PCENGINES is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_PORTWELL is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_PURISM is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_RAZER is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_RODA is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_SAMSUNG is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_SAPPHIRE is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_SCALEWAY is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_SIEMENS is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_SIFIVE is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_SUPERMICRO is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_TI is not set
# CONFIG_VENDOR_UP is not set
CONFIG_MAINBOARD_VENDOR="LENOVO"
CONFIG_BOARD_SPECIFIC_OPTIONS=y
CONFIG_MAINBOARD_DIR="lenovo/t430"
CONFIG_MAINBOARD_PART_NUMBER="ThinkPad T430"
CONFIG_MAX_CPUS=8
CONFIG_ONBOARD_VGA_IS_PRIMARY=y
CONFIG_DIMM_SPD_SIZE=256
# CONFIG_VGA_BIOS is not set
CONFIG_VGA_BIOS_ID="8086,0166"
