From PC World: AMD processors aren’t affected by the devastating Meltdown CPU flaw, but the emergency fix for Meltdown and Spectre brought certain AMD CPUs to their knees. Microsoft has now resumed issuing patches for those systems as of January 18.
Microsoft's new patch, KB4073290, solves the problem, Microsoft says. It will either deploy via Windows Update or can be manually downloaded.
While the discovery of the original Spectre and Meltdown bugs prompted six months or so of covert, behind-the-scenes work to develop mitigations, the patches themselves have had issues, too. The original issues with AMD systems surfaced on or about January 9.
“After investigating, Microsoft has determined that some AMD chipsets do not conform to the documentation previously provided to Microsoft to develop the Windows operating system mitigations to protect against the chipset vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown,” Microsoft’s security advisory said at the time. “To prevent AMD customers from getting into an unbootable state, Microsoft will temporarily pause sending the following Windows operating system updates to devices with impacted AMD processors at this time.”
Microsoft didn’t specify which AMD CPUs are vulnerable to the error. CSO reported that forum complaints largely revolved around older Athlon and Sempron chips, with the largest thread bearing over 160 replies and more than 800 “I have the same question” votes.
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