AMDGPU Linux Driver No Longer Lets You Have Unlimited Control To Lower Your Power Limit

[stormcrow]

Guys, just ask your distro kernel maintainers to revert that and I think most of distros that care about users voices can "fix" this.

If they have an ounce of brains they'll refuse. Ultimately no one else can stop an individual from shooting themselves in the foot (or head in this case - given my explanation post above) because of personal stupidity, but that doesn't mean others have to be complicit in handing people a loaded gun. While it may superficially seem like this only affects individuals, AMD and their OEM partners that make the cards do incur costs in support from people trying to pass off malfunctioning or damaged devices from abuse as manufacturing problems. Even if they're recognized for what really happened and an RMA is refused there's still support time sunk. This increases costs for their other customers who play by the rules imposed by basic science.

[ssokolow]

AMD disabled something that was never supposed to be possible and could damage hardware?

Yeh, screw AMD cause it's not like themselves or hardware partners would be responsible for warranty replacements or fire hazard caused by this, oh wait.

Shame on you AMD for doing the legal and responsible thing.

Honestly, while it's not as bad as the old "driving an analog VGA monitor out of spec can destroy it" warnings on XFree86 configuration generators, I think this is a hardware flaw.

Why is it the driver's responsibility to reject out-of-spec configurations instead of the vBIOS or something else that runs as part of the card?

[andyprough]

And he did.

Wrong. Ralphie broke his glasses, his eye was intact. You're just spreading FUD now.

[s_j_newbury]

If they have an ounce of brains they'll refuse. Ultimately no one else can stop an individual from shooting themselves in the foot (or head in this case - given my explanation post above) because of personal stupidity, but that doesn't mean others have to be complicit in handing people a loaded gun. While it may superficially seem like this only affects individuals, AMD and their OEM partners that make the cards do incur costs in support from people trying to pass off malfunctioning or damaged devices from abuse as manufacturing problems. Even if they're recognized for what really happened and an RMA is refused there's still support time sunk. This increases costs for their other customers who play by the rules imposed by basic science.

You got your science wrong though. Decreasing power doesn't increase current. It actually limits the current, since at any performance state the voltage is fixed. For transistors, the voltage has to be high enough to switch the gate a the rated frequency, that's how minimum voltage is determined for a given process. The current is a result of the voltage applied to resistance and impedence of the circuit.

[piotrj3]

AMDs argumentation is nonsensical given that identical chips that are used in notebooks can run at much lower power without entering self-destruct mode.

it is something that should be fixable with firmware update. What for some reason isn't proposed as solution.

[intelfx]

...some commenters apparently fell asleep in high school science classes...

Basic high school electricity. Under voltage beyond tolerance will kill electronics nearly as fast as an over voltage (where you get arcing). Under voltage increases your amperage to meet the basic power levels required by the electronics. Electronics are rated to a certain voltage, but more importantly, to a certain amperage. When that amperage is exceeded Bad Things happen. Ever wondered why high amperage extension cords are much larger and more expensive than low amperage for the same voltage? (Look it up.) Additionally left to your education, find out why weak(ening) PSUs often scorch power traces on connected boards. (Hint: Power (Watts) = V (voltage) x I (current or amperage) )

Don't expect this to ever be reverted. It was an oversight/bug to begin with.

Tf are you on about?

This was never about undervolting to begin with, this was about limiting power (which simply means that the power management logic will not go beyond a certain point on the V-F curve). And even if it was, undervolting does not mean "increasing amperage". It never means that. There is no "basic power level required by the electronics" and there was never such a thing. The entire point of undervolting is to reduce the power draw!

TL;DR: I suggest you take a refresher course yourself

[stormcrow]

Wrong. Ralphie broke his glasses, his eye was intact. You're just spreading FUD now.

Go back and watch the movie. Ralphy has a wound just under his eye where the BB ricochet and hit him. It startled him so badly that he lost his glasses and stepped on them. That's not FUD. He did shoot himself in the eye, he's just lucky that he missed his eyeball by a quarter of an inch. If he'd hit his glasses, the glass shattering would have destroyed his eye anyway in the 1950s. That's the entire point of that scene. His parents were right in that he wasn't ready for that responsibility. To prove it to him one way or the other, his father gave him the BB gun anyway. Like I said earlier, this whole argument is about wilful stupidity and self-righteous, misplaced moral outrage. The driver had a bug people should have never depended on to begin with. It's fixed. Get over it.

[stormcrow]

Tf are you on about?

This was never about undervolting to begin with, this was about limiting power (which simply means that the power management logic will not go beyond a certain point on the V-F curve). And even if it was, undervolting does not mean "increasing amperage". It never means that. There is no "basic power level required by the electronics" and there was never such a thing. The entire point of undervolting is to reduce the power draw!

TL;DR: I suggest you take a refresher course yourself

... ... *head shakes at the pseudo logic*

[andyprough]

Go back and watch the movie. Ralphy has a wound just under his eye where the BB ricochet and hit him. It startled him so badly that he lost his glasses and stepped on them. That's not FUD. He did shoot himself in the eye, he's just lucky that he missed his eyeball by a quarter of an inch. If he'd hit his glasses, the glass shattering would have destroyed his eye anyway in the 1950s. That's the entire point of that scene. His parents were right in that he wasn't ready for that responsibility. To prove it to him one way or the other, his father gave him the BB gun anyway.

Me: "You'll shoot your eye out kid"
You: "He did"
Me: "No he didn't"
You: "I know that he didn't but I'm still right."

Classic BB gun FUD.

[skeevy420]

Go back and watch the movie. Ralphy has a wound just under his eye where the BB ricochet and hit him. It startled him so badly that he lost his glasses and stepped on them. That's not FUD. He did shoot himself in the eye, he's just lucky that he missed his eyeball by a quarter of an inch. If he'd hit his glasses, the glass shattering would have destroyed his eye anyway in the 1950s. That's the entire point of that scene. His parents were right in that he wasn't ready for that responsibility. To prove it to him one way or the other, his father gave him the BB gun anyway. Like I said earlier, this whole argument is about wilful stupidity and self-righteous, misplaced moral outrage. The driver had a bug people should have never depended on to begin with. It's fixed. Get over it.

Exactly. That's one of the major points of the movie. The BB ricochets, hits him in the cheek below his right eye socket, and then he pretends an icicle fell on him to keep from getting in trouble and being told "we told you so" from his parents. You can see the BB mark on his face.

It's as close as you can get to shooting your eye out without actually doing it. He literally shoots the bone around the eye socket.