Asus Zenbook UX533FD don't boot with intel-ucode 20190312

[jledun]

Hello,

I'm an ArchLinux user on Asus Zenbook laptop and my laptop can't boot with the latest intel-ucode update 20190312.
I have to downgrade to 20180807.a to make it run again.

With the latest update of intel-ucode, after power on my laptop, the Asus splash screen appears then nothing else happen. I wait a few minutes then I push the power on button for 20 seconds to hard reset the laptop. After a reboot on live session, journalctl shows no entries even with the debug option in kernel command line.

It really looks like the chipset can't find any CPU.

Here are the system packages :

$ pacman -Q | grep -e linux-lts -e systemd -e intel-ucode -e iucode
intel-ucode 20180807.a-1
iucode-tool 2.3.1-2
linux-lts 4.19.37-1
linux-lts-headers 4.19.37-1
systemd 242.16-1
systemd-libs 242.16-1
systemd-sysvcompat 242.16-1

The laptop boots with systemd EFI boot :

$ cat /boot/loader/entries/arch-lts.conf 
title	Arch Linux lts
linux	/vmlinuz-linux-lts
initrd	/intel-ucode.img
initrd	/initramfs-linux-lts.img
options	root=UUID=522a7ae9-8ad6-441e-85e2-baf1074be7f2  rw debug

journalctl

$ journalctl -b
-- Logs begin at Sun 2019-01-13 21:29:21 CET, end at Mon 2019-04-29 10:54:51 CEST. --
-- No entries --

CPU details (8 identical CPUs)

$ head -n26 /proc/cpuinfo 
processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 142
model name	: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz
stepping	: 11
microcode	: 0x98
cpu MHz		: 800.029
cache size	: 8192 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 8
core id		: 0
cpu cores	: 4
apicid		: 0
initial apicid	: 0
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 22
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault epb invpcid_single ssbd ibrs ibpb stibp tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid mpx rdseed adx smap clflushopt intel_pt xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves dtherm ida arat pln pts hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp flush_l1d arch_capabilities
bugs		: spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass
bogomips	: 3984.00
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 39 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

lspci

$ lspci 
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Device 3e34 (rev 0b)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 620 (Whiskey Lake)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Thermal Subsystem (rev 0b)
00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/v6 / E3-1500 v5 / 6th/7th Gen Core Processor Gaussian Mixture Model
00:12.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP Thermal Controller (rev 30)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP USB 3.1 xHCI Controller (rev 30)
00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP Shared SRAM (rev 30)
00:14.3 Network controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP CNVi [Wireless-AC] (rev 30)
00:14.5 SD Host controller: Intel Corporation Device 9df5 (rev 30)
00:15.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #0 (rev 30)
00:15.1 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP Serial IO I2C Controller #1 (rev 30)
00:15.3 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device 9deb (rev 30)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP MEI Controller #1 (rev 30)
00:19.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device 9dc5 (rev 30)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #1 (rev f0)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev f0)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #13 (rev f0)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP LPC Controller (rev 30)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP High Definition Audio Controller (rev 30)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP SMBus Controller (rev 30)
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Cannon Point-LP SPI Controller (rev 30)
02:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile] (rev ff)
03:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller: Sandisk Corp WD Black 2018/PC SN520 NVMe SSD (rev 01)

[Heidistein]

Confirmed. I tossed the microcode out of the initrd, the system works as expected.
Reloading it in the os (echo 1 > /sys/devices/something/something/reload) hangs the system immediately.

[mcu-administrator]

Confirmed. I tossed the microcode out of the initrd, the system works as expected.
Reloading it in the os (echo 1 > /sys/devices/something/something/reload) hangs the system immediately.

Does this also reproduce with the 20190514 release? Or only with the 20190312 release?

[jledun]

@mcu-administrator yes, I've got the same problem with 20190514 release.

[Heidistein]

Indeed, this problem is actual on the 20190514 release.

Edit: I see now that you run Arch, I experience the same thing on Fedora30.
Kernel version seems not to matter, seen on 5.0.{3,6,16}-300.fc30

[victor-ditay]

I came to this issue after tried many combinations and many times installing Linux distros (Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, 19.04, Xubuntu 18.04) all had same issue after few restarts freeze at me moment of boot and it's same laptop Asus UX533FD.

Any hope of having Linux on my new laptop?

[mcu-administrator]

@jledun , @Heidistein , @victormmtorres Thanks for reporting this issue. We've opened an investigation based on your reports.

[breznak]

I confirm this on Ubuntu and any of 4.15, 4.18, 5.0 kernels.

Any hope of having Linux on my new laptop?

@victormmtorres as a workaround, you can add dis_ucode_ldr to your kernel command line (even from GRUB), you'll be able to boot normally then.

[jerbob92]

Can confirm, same CPU, same bug. Tried kernel 4.15, 4.18 and 5.1. Have 20190514 release installed (3.20190514.0ubuntu0.18.04.2). dis_ucode_ldr does fix boot.
If I can do anything to help/debug, let me know.

[victor-ditay]

Surely there is a guide to install dis_ucode_ldr could anybody give me a reference about how to do it?

cc @jerbob92 @breznak

[jerbob92]

@victormmtorres
You can add the dis_ucode_ldr to the startup line when going to Advanced Startup Options and press e on the option you want to use. Then add dis_ucode_ldr to the linux line.

You can also edit /etc/default/grub and add it to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, then run sudo update-grub for a more permanent fix.

I'm currently on a downgraded version of the microcode, which is the best fix IMHO:
sudo apt install intel-microcode=3.20180312.0~ubuntu18.04.1

[mcu-administrator]

@jledun Can you contact me through this email address? mcu_administrator@intel.com I have some additional questions and data we would like to collect to help us debug this.

@jerbob92 Can you do the same?

[tyhicks]

@mcu-administrator I recognize that it can help to take debugging offline but could you please provide periodic updates in this bug report? It will help redistributors of microcode to make decisions on whether or not rolling back this particular microcode is necessary in the short term.

[jerbob92]

@tyhicks, I'm not sure anything is happening at all... I emailed but never got a reply.

[tyhicks]

@tyhicks, I'm not sure anything is happening at all... I emailed but never got a reply.

I've spoken to their engineers about it and they are working on it.

[mcu-administrator]

@jerbob92 Sorry for the delay. We've been working on a list of what data we would like to help debug the issue. In the meantime, we have also been working to reproduce the issue and are also in contact with the system vendor. We'll get a response to you by the end of the week.