FinalWire Ltd. has updated the final build of its popular diagnostic and testing utility AIDA64, which has received the number 5.95.

The new version received a small number of updates, including improved support for motherboards on new chipsets, clarification of information about new video cards, and support for Windows 10 Fall Creators.

The full list of changes includes:

• Added support for Microsoft Windows 10.
• Added support for ASUS ROG RGB LED keyboard and mouse.
• Improved support for AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs.
• Added support for Corsair Commander Pro and EVGA iCX sensors.
• Improved support for motherboards based on AMD X399, Intel X299 and Intel Z370 chipsets.
• Added support for OpenGL 4.6 and WDDM 2.3.
• Added numbering support for Intel NVMe RAID arrays.
• Information about the AMD Radeon Vega series of video cards is detailed.
• Information about video cards NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, GeForce MX110, GeForce MX130 is detailed.
• Added preliminary support for NVIDIA Tesla V100 series.

AIDA64 v5.95 is available in three editions: Extreme and Business, as well as Extreme Engineer for engineers with permission to use on an unlimited number of PCs, which can be purchased in the AIDA64 online store.

AMD Ryzen will not fully support Windows 7

One of the most exciting rumors about the upcoming Ryzen CPUs was full support for Windows 7. After Intel abandoned support for this aging but incredibly popular OS, many users pinned their hopes on AMD. Expectations rose even more after motherboard manufacturers for socket AM4 promised to release drivers for Windows 7. But, as it turned out, expectations were too high.

According to PCWorld, whose journalists contacted AMD, the company has certified new CPUs for both Windows 7 and Windows 10. However, only the latter will receive drivers and support. This means that even if Ryzen works with Windows 7, there may well be some incompatibilities and bugs that won't be fixed.

More importantly, some new Ryzen features like SMT or load balancing will require updates or they won't work. In general, how bad the situation will be is not yet clear. Motherboard manufacturers will, of course, prepare drivers for Windows 7.

Finalwire has updated AIDA64 to version 4.70

FinalWire Ltd. announced a new version number 4.70 of the popular diagnostic and testing utility AIDA64.

The new version of the set of utilities now includes support for a host of LCD and VFD devices, new processors and video acceleration standards, and the hardware database has been expanded, but the main change is support for the Windows 10 operating system.

The full list of changes is given below:

• Support for new LCD and VFD devices: Acer Idea 500, Adafruit, Aquaero, AX206, BWCT, CH424, Crystalfontz, ct-Mausekino, Cwlinux, Dangerous Prototypes HD44780, Futaba DM-140GINK, Futaba MDM166A, GLCD2USB, IkaLogic, LCDInfo USB13700, LCDInfo USBD480 , LPT, Matrix Orbital LK RS232, Matrix Orbital GLK RS232, Odroid-Show, Phidget, picoLCD, POS, Pyramid, Roccat Valo, Samsung SPF, SoundGraph iMon LCD, SpikenzieLabs MPTH, Sure Electronics, Trefon, USB2LCD+, Wallbraun LUI, Yoctopuce.
• Support for Microsoft Windows 10 Technical Preview and Windows Server 2015 Technical Preview.
• Improved Razer SwitchBlade UI LCD support.
• Supports LGA2011-v3 motherboards.

• Supports CUDA 6.5, OpenGL 4.5.
• Added SSD AData SP610, AData SP910, Corsair Force LX, Corsair Neutron, Corsair Neutron GTX, OCZ Arc 100, Seagate 600, SanDisk Extreme Pro, SanDisk X300.
• Parts for AMD Radeon R9 285 have appeared.
• Parts for the GeForce 900 Series have appeared.

AIDA64 v4.60, available in three editions: Extreme and Business, as well as Extreme Engineer for engineers with permission to use on an unlimited number of PCs,

Many people are probably wondering: is the existing hardware enough to upgrade to Windows 10?

Basics

So, what do you need to run Windows 10? Well, luckily for us, Microsoft has already published the system requirements for Windows 10.

The first thing you should pay your attention to:

"Basically, if your computer can run Windows 8.1, you're good. If you're not sure, don't worry - Windows will test your system to make sure it can run preview."

So, what if you don't have Windows 8/8.1? How can you tell if your hardware is compatible with Windows 10? This is where hardware specifications come in handy.

Here's what Microsoft says you should run Windows 10:

• : 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 1 GB (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
• Free hard disk space: 16 GB
• : Microsoft DirectX 9 with WDDM driver
• Microsoft account and access to

In addition to the main

Now, if you are a knowledgeable person, you will probably notice that these specifications are the same as for Windows 7. But there is one BUT that you should be aware of, and this only becomes obvious when you look at the technical specifications of Windows 8/8.1 and the processor characteristics:

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher supporting PAE, NX and SSE2

Therefore, in order to run Windows 10 (or Windows 8/8.1), you need a processor that supports PAE, NX and SSE2. Without this, Windows 10 will not work.

Microsoft Upgrade Assistant Windows 8/8.1, what is it.

PAE allows 32-bit processors to handle more than 4 GB of physical memory on eligible versions of Windows and is a prerequisite for NX technology.

NX technology helps protect your computer from malware attacks.

SSE2 is a standard processor instruction set that is increasingly used by third-party applications and drivers.

Testing

So how can you determine does yours support Is it all the processor? There are several ways:

NX can be a problem because while the processor may support this technology, it may be disabled in the system BIOS, hence the need to dig around and enable it.

To install Windows 8.1 64-bit (not Windows 8) on a 64-bit computer, the processor must also support CMPXCHG16b (requires motherboard support), PrefetchW, and LAHF/SAHF.

Some Cautions

The Windows 10 specification has this line: "Some processors and processor-based builds are not supported by Technical Preview, including a small number of older 64-bit processors, some 32GB, and all 16GB devices running a stripped-down operating system."

This is a Technical Preview limitation that should go away once Windows 10 is ready for worldwide release. However, this may puzzle some people trying to check out the Technical Preview, which includes devices like the HP Stream 7 that run a stripped-down version of Windows 8.

However, the new patch has caused dissatisfaction for a certain group of users. When devices with AMD chips began to receive this update to fix errors, their operating system began to freeze at the boot stage.

Meltdown and Specter

Serious vulnerabilities named Meltdown and Specter were first discovered in early 2018 in Intel, AMD and ARM64 chips. With their help, third parties have the opportunity to gain access to user information. The released patch is intended for equipment only based on Intel processors, as reported in the description of the update itself on the official Microsoft support website. There is a possibility that owners of personal devices with AMD processors also received the update, which caused their machines to malfunction.

By the way, a patch with the same name was re-released a month later (in August). There are no additions to its description, so whether this update contains any changes is unclear. It is still difficult to estimate the number of devices that mistakenly received an update they did not need; Microsoft has not yet provided an official comment on this issue.

Previous updates to fix Specter and Meltdown have already caused inconvenience for users. Not long ago, owners of fourth and fifth generation Intel Core processor chips discovered that their devices began to reboot spontaneously. However, Intel representatives still continued to recommend installing patches, although with the caveat that the updates would still be reworked.

Not a day without mistakes

At the same time, problems began for the Windows 10 operating system. Installing the KB4056892 update caused the OS to stop working, which completely stopped starting. At that time, Microsoft officially acknowledged the problem, although it clarified that AMD initially provided incorrect documentation for its processors. Further distribution of the patch for Windows 10 was temporarily suspended, but was soon resumed.

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• Can you save money with SD-WAN solutions?

How the Internet of Things and BYOD have changed network access control?

• The number of IoT devices will reach 55 billion by 2025.
• In 53% of companies, the number of infected endpoints has increased over the past year
• 63% of companies cannot control mobile devices outside the corporate network
• The number of BYOD workers has reached 1.76 billion

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Windows 10 update kills computers with AMD processors

08/27/2018, Mon, 13:03, Moscow time , Text: Dmitry Stepanov

AMD computers erroneously receive Intel updates

Microsoft Windows 10 update KB4100347, released in July 2018 to address the Specter Variant 2 vulnerability, may do more harm than good. Information has appeared on the Internet that in some cases, installing this patch leads to a loss of system functionality after it is rebooted.

The update is intended exclusively for machines running Intel processors - this follows from the description of the patch published on the official Microsoft support website. However, some AMD chip owners appear to have received the update as well. As a result of its installation, the operating system began to freeze at the boot stage, accompanied by the display of the Windows logo.

It is also worth noting that for an unknown reason, an update with the same index was re-released at the end of August 2018. The description of the patch remained the same, so it is unclear whether it contains any changes.

Computers based on AMD processors stopped booting after installing the Windows update against the Specter vulnerability

It is currently difficult to estimate the number of devices on which the update was installed incorrectly, and Microsoft has not yet commented on the situation.

About a similar problem six months ago

This is not the first time that patches against Specter and Meltdown have caused serious inconvenience to users. So, in January 2018, owners of fourth and fifth generation Intel Core processors based on Haswell and Broadwell architectures began to reboot their computers without permission. Despite this, Intel strongly recommended that users continue to install the appropriate updates, although they allowed the possibility of reworking the patches in the future.

Around the same time, it became known about problems with the next update KB4056892 for Windows 10, the installation of which caused the operating system to stop starting. Thousands of users became victims, whose computers temporarily turned into useless “bricks”. Microsoft then acknowledged the problem, but accused AMD of providing erroneous documentation for the processors. Distribution of the update has been temporarily suspended until the issue is resolved. On January 25, 2018, delivery of the update to Windows 10 users' computers was resumed.

About the dangers of Meltdown and Specter

At the beginning of January 2018, Intel, AMD and ARM64 processors had two serious vulnerabilities, called Meltdown and Specter.

The vulnerabilities exploit errors in the mechanism for speculative execution of instructions. To achieve higher operating speeds, processors try to “predict” which instructions they will be required to execute in the near future and execute them ahead of schedule at appropriate times when they are not under heavy load. If the processor's prediction turns out to be correct, the intermediate calculation results are used in the future. Otherwise, they are ignored, but may remain in the device cache, from where they can be retrieved by a remote attacker.

Researchers then noted that Specter is much more difficult to exploit than Meltdown, but it is also much more difficult to eliminate. Due to the sheer number of devices that were ultimately affected, the discovery of Meltdown and Specter was dubbed a "chipocalypse" in the press.