A bug causes AMD EPYC Rome cores to be deactivated after more than 1,042 days in operation

AMD has detailed a bug that can appear in some AMD EPYC 7002 processors with the code name “Rome” that causes, after 1,044 days of operation, a processor core to be blocked after entering the CC6 state and not being able to exit it by itself .

Some users on Reddit have commented that the time after which the block occurs is shorter and can be displayed two days earlier at 1042 and a half days, a negligible difference over such a long period of time. The reason for this bug, according to some users, is that there is an overflow in a 54-bit counter that increments every 10 nanoseconds, which would give exactly a duration to overflow of 1042.4999 days.

The solution to this problem is to reboot the system so that the kernel is unlocked, or schedule a restart before 1,004 days of continuous use is reached. Therefore, it is an issue that would only affect systems with EPYC processors that run continuously for almost three years without any shutdowns or reboots for maintenance or security patching, so few systems should be affected.

Another solution offered by AMD is that of disable CC6 state so that the processor does not get to enter it. At the moment, AMD has not announced that it is going to release a patch to correct this curious bug.

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