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Comment by JonRB | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't this affect all of their CPUs going a long way back? And how do you recall embedded or laptop CPUs, which are often soldered in-place?

A recall would be great, but there's no way they'd be able to do it. Vehicle recalls are a bit different because they impact physical safety. Digital safety doesn't get the same priority.

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I don't think they would be able to produce all necessary CPUs. Replacing all current stock would create a huge problem. Replacing all sold cpus from the last two years would be a huge problem, even if (and I don't know how complicated or not it is) it would be quite simple to redesign all these chips, how long would it take to do that?

Then imagine all chips from 1995 to 2015, having to make them again, they don't have the machines anymore.

Also vehicle recalls are usually done by fixing stuff next time the vehicle comes in for regularly scheduled service. How often does your computer get those?

Depends on the recall, the GM ignition recall was done on an independent appt basis.

(besides you should not be taking your car to the dealer if you value your wallet)

You need a new dealer...most have greatly improved customer service experiences these days, and many independents are no panaceas...

Dealers make almost zero margin on car sales(aside from used and trade-in shenanigans). The majority of their margin comes from services so they'll happily gouge you on them.

How about they go into bankruptcy with most of the world’s computer users as their creditors? Maybe not, but it’s terrifying that you can avoid responsibility by fucking up on a larger scale than most.

I'm sure Intel has a liability insurance policy that covers this type of thing.

Maybe, but that assumes they get the payout, that they did everything on their end of that deal, etc. Insurers don’t like to pay.

Someone on Twitter had the last safe cpu that Intel made it was date stamped 92'-93' he was asking a Bitcoin for it!

even if it affects all speculative CPUs, if this happened in the car world, all the cars would be recalled. Not saying that is practical in computer world...just continuing with the analogy.

Spectre/Meltdown is a wakeup call for many things, one of them probably being for computer manufacturers to not solder the CPU to the Motherboard and for the x86 world to stick with a standard socket, to facilitate replacing parts.

That's why using non-OEM parts in your car voids the warranty.

No it doesn't. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 forces them to honor the warranty unless they can prove that the non-OEM part caused the fault.

> "Spectre/Meltdown is a wakeup call for many things, one of them probably being for computer manufacturers to not solder the CPU to the Motherboard"

Good luck with that. A large portion of affected CPUs/SoCs are in mobile devices and ultrabooks. Socketed chips simply won't fly in those kinds of devices.

Then the whole device should be replaced, that's the price they pay for their design decisions. Being "too hard" doesn't absolve you of your responsibility to consumers.

Alternatively, even if the boards + CPU are tightly integrated, if used a particular standard like EOMA-68, then they could be easily replaced with rest of desktop/laptop/phone not being affected.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop

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