HP Disables VT On Some Intel Laptops

snoukka writes "I just bought a new HP nx9420 laptop in order to use it with Linux, XEN, and windows on XEN. I was very disappointed when I noticed that the processor had this feature but VT is disabled in BIOS by HP and cannot be enabled! Disabled!? It's like buying a car with turbo and finding out after buying it that this turbo 'feature' was disabled." The forum thread goes back to last August and is still live. The latest post from an HP rep indicates that new firmware for the nx9420 should be available later this week in which the ability to switch on VT is enabled. It's not clear whether other HP products, in which VT was also disabled, will also get new firmware.

But will they charge $4.99?

[tepples]

But will HP have to charge $4.99 for the VT compatible firmware in order to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act [slashdot.org]?

Re:

[BSAtHome]

No, no, just read the last posts in the thread... They will charge $499,- for it because they are waiting for Vista. Maybe they need to bundle it with the Bios?

It'll be fixed...

[hobo sapiens]

...just in time for you to play Duke Nukem Forever!

Re:

[deathy_epl+ccs]

That's because the Duke Nukem you were playing on the N64 was a [bad] port of an already 5 year old (or was it older?) game. DNF is [supposed to be] a very different game.

Apparently, Xavier's joke flew completely over your head. You might want to reread his post and look more closely for it.

VT?

[M0b1u5]

What is VT? That'd be nice to know.

Re:

[posterlogo]

Agreed. Virtual Terminal? Viral Technology? Vindictive Tomato? Cuz if it was the tomato, I'm not sure I'd want that re-enabled.

Vaginal Trauma

[Anonymous Coward]

I gave VT to my wife... ;)

Re:

[adam.dorsey]

<GENERIC COMMENT ABOUT SLASHDOTTERS NOT GETTING LAID>

Wouldn't you have to move out of Mom's basement to have a wife?

</GENERIC COMMENT ABOUT SLASHDOTTERS NOT GETTING LAID>

You men are so insecure (& size does not matte

[megaditto]

In the spirit of slashdotterie I will let you in on a secret:

It doesn't really hurt -- just a little prick.

Re:VT?

[LunaticTippy]

Virtualization Technology

Re:

[Ironica]

What is VT? That'd be nice to know.

Yes, it would be nice for them to put it right in the /. post, since if you RTFA, you have to get all the way to the *fourth* post in the forum before it's spelled out for you!

(BTW, Virtualization Technology, for those whose browsers are incapable of leaving the slashdot domain.)

Re:

[Darth Android]

There's domains beside slashdot's?!?

Re:

[x2A]

I figured it out as soon as I saw mention of the CPU and Xen, but yeah it could have been a lot clearer.

Oh and well done on getting modded troll... WTF's with that?! Any mod wanna cancel that out, it's a perfectly reasonable comment.

Re:

[1u3hr]

Yes, it would be nice for them to put it right in the /. post, since if you RTFA, you have to get all the way to the *fourth* post in the forum before it's spelled out for you!

That post uses the words, but does not "spell it out" as a definition, only the relative rarity of words beginning with V might lead one to guess that. You obviously already knew that and were looking for it, but the uninitiated wouldn't.

(BTW, Virtualization Technology, for those whose browsers are incapable of leaving the slashd

Re:

[Ironica]

You obviously already knew that and were looking for it, but the uninitiated wouldn't.

Actually, no, I've never heard of Virtualization Technology before this article was posted, and was as curious as the next person. But it didn't take me long to figure it out from context. No longer than it took to scan the posts for words beginning with the letter v, followed by words beginning with the letter t.

*shrug* maybe my pattern-matching skills are better than the average bear, but honestly, I hadn't the foggies

Re:

[1u3hr]

But it didn't take me long to figure it out from context.

You did say it was "spelled out". Not something one had to deduce.

Re:

[astrosmash]

Very Terse.

Re:VT?

[Shatrat]

Victoria Telpiscorei [aaanime.net]

Re:

[Megane]

What is VT? That'd be nice to know.

It's the V-Twin [wikipedia.org] engine used in Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Sale of Goods Act?

[M0b1u5]

Thanks to those of you who replied. I wasn't that interested in what VT is (I guessed in fact, correctly) - I was just trying to point out that OP is an idiot for using a UA.

However, the simple answer is to take the laptop back to the store and demand your money back. Simple.

If laws in the USA are similar to New Zealand, then inside the "Trades Description Act" or the "Sale of Goods Act" (or equivalent) there will be a paragraph which states "The goods must be of such a nature as to permit their intended us

Re:VT?

[Yvan256]

Because, of course, it's better to send 5000 users to Wikipedia for a two-letter acronym search than for the author who already know the meaning to include it between parenthesis.

You're missing the point

[caitsith01]

Which is not that the OP couldn't find the meaning of 'VT', but that it's a basic writing skill to define any acronyms or abbreviations the first time you use them.

I'm sure they know what Wikipedia is, they were merely pointing out an obvious problem with the story.

Re:

[solevita]

I'm sorry, but I disagree. Look at the article title, it mentions HP with no prior definition. Let's take your argument to its logical conclusion and ask who, or what, is HP?

Of course, we wouldn't ask that question because everyone knows what HP is already. Why's that? Because this is a tech orientated site, of course. It's the same reason why we can talk of DDR RAM [slashdot.org] without spelling all 6 words out.

Acronyms are a way in which like minded people can quickly and efficiently communicate; countless businesses

Overuse of abbreviations makes things harder

[name_already_taken]

Acronyms are a way in which like minded people can quickly and efficiently communicate; countless businesses, academic institutions and social groups freely use acronyms as part of an established and understood vocabulary.

Except that in this case "VT" is not part of an established and understood vocabulary.

Of course, we wouldn't ask that question because everyone knows what HP is already. Why's that? Because this is a tech orientated site, of course.

This isn't really a good comparison. Even people without a technology background know what "HP" stands for.

I've been involved with and around computers and electronics since the late 1970s, and today is the first day in a long time that I've encountered the abbreviation "VT". It means "Video Terminal", right? Or is it "Video Tape"?

It's AEP (accepted editorial practice, but you knew that already, right?) to put the meaning of an abbreviation in parentheses next to its first use in a journalism piece, so you're sure the reader understands what you're talking about - unless you're writing an abbreviation knowledge test.

Re:VT?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

In this particular case, the Wiki page you linked to is a list of 29 possible meanings, 13 just in the tech section, where the appropriate meaning is 7th of the 13. I'd personally say that a wiki seart on VT would just add more confusion.

I know it's fun to say RTFM when you're frustrated at poeople who chose not to read, but in this case a @two letter acronym would really be helped by a definition or a link.

Re:

[solevita]

In this particular case, the Wiki page you linked to is a list of 29 possible meanings, 13 just in the tech section, where the appropriate meaning is 7th of the 13. I'd personally say that a wiki seart on VT would just add more confusion.

But only 1 (one) of the possible meanings included the word "Intel". As the article headline includes the same word, I thought it would be a big hint.

Have a look at a reply I just posted above - my intention here was not to say a big RTFM, it was to highlight the possible

Re:

[wile_e_wonka]

I browse through sites like /. on a daily basis and I always come across these half-assed posts.

Well, if it's bothering you to such a high degree, I should tell you--you don't have to browse Slashdot everyday. You could go to a similar site with stricter content requirements. Or, you could supply Slashdot with higher quality content yourself. Or, make a couple bucks starting your own Slashdot competitor, but advertise it as being "Better than Slashdot, because we have English majors on staff who throw o

Re:

[rtphokie]

Yes, Go Hokies.

Re:

[david.emery]

OK, so what's a "Hokie", really (and is it something one would really want as a school mascot?)

      dave

Re:

[JiveDonut]

http://www.vt.edu/about/hokie.php [vt.edu]

Here is the answer to that oft-posed question, "What's a Hokie?" and an explanation of other Tech traditions. What is a Hokie? The origin of the word "Hokie" has nothing to do with a turkey. It was coined by O. M. Stull (class of 1896), who used it in a spirit yell he wrote for a competition.

So does Lenovo...

[mrchaotica]

...on some of their newer Thinkpads [thinkwiki.org]. You'd think that when you're spending $2000 on a "business-class" laptop, you'd get it without any artificial limitations...

Re:

[cp.tar]

Great.

Until now, I only had to find a laptop without Windows preinstalled.

Now I have to check I'm not buying crippleware, too.

Oh, joy.

Re:So does Lenovo...

[mrchaotica]

After having taken a closer look at the page I linked (because it's been changed since I read it last), I've discovered that my particular model (X60t) at least has a new BIOS out that fixes the problem. : )

This leads me to believe that, at least for Lenovo, it's just that they were presumably in a hurry to get the model released, not that it was intentional crippleware.

Re:

[X0563511]

That's not how it works. The BIOS manufacturer (likely Phoenix) sends the reference code to the MB/Chipset people - who then tweak it to their liking.

Either Phoenix (or whoever) disables VT by default (unlikely - more features sells) or the MB/Chipset people disable it.

<troll>
Most likely some overzealous marketing freak decided "hey! we can sell this!" and the MB/Chipset people disabled it as ordered by PHBs. Later, after someone figured out the aforementioned marketing freak is a douche-bag, the orde

Re: Nothing new...

[Speed Pour]

A little over a year ago I bought an HP laptop (I've forgotten the model) as a gift for my mother. First thing I did after getting it out of the box was wipe it clean of the pre-installed xp home edition and tons of advertising. With a new OS installed, I discovered that the processor, optical drive, and something else (I forget the 3rd item) were scaled down to barely functional speeds. After investigation, I discovered that those bits would not operate without specialized drivers that were not availab

Re:

[cortana]

You already had to do that with IBM/Lenovo laptops. That's the company that creates a BIOS that refused to boot if an "unauthorised" card was in the minipci slot.

Re:

[cp.tar]

I don't know. I buy AMD.

And I build my own, which I cannot do with laptops.

Re:So does Lenovo...

[Utopia]

I brought a Lenovo T60p recently. VT was off by default but can be turned on in the BIOS.

Re:So does Lenovo...

[mrchaotica]

According to the page, it's the Z and X series that are affected, not the T series.

Re:

[Mad Merlin]

Thankfully my T60 appears to be unaffected. It shipped with VT off, but I toggled it on in the BIOS without issue.

Re:So does Lenovo...

[jrockway]

You can't blame Lenovo for this. Intel had major problems with making VT work early on, and there are a lot of steppings where it's just plain broken. These companies decided to turn it off for everyone because they don't want to handle all the users complaining that Lenovo sucks because VT is broken. Blame Intel for this one.

MOD PARENT INFORMATIVE

[mrchaotica]

If that's true, it would certainly go a long way towards explaining why so many computers have it disabled (the article was about HP, I mentioned Lenovo, and somebody else in this thread claimed Sony was disabling it too).

Not surprised...

[innosent]

Enabling VT is a huge security risk with no benefit for most of HP's customers. You probably should be able to turn it on, but having it on leaves open the possibility that a rootkit could be installed as the hypervisor/VMM/whatever, making it undetectable to the OS. Even having the option seems dangerous, as many "power users" will probably enable everything in the BIOS they can, regardless of risk/reward. On second thought, there are probably only a few hundred people that would run Xen on their laptop, so why have the "bug" available on the other few hundred thousand laptops? I suspect there may be many legal reasons why it is disabled by default, whether or not disabling the option to turn it on was intentional or not.

Re:

[Ironica]

I suspect there may be many legal reasons why it is disabled by default, whether or not disabling the option to turn it on was intentional or not.

I get the impression, though, from the forum posts, that it is only on Intel-based laptops that VT cannot be enabled. It appears you do have the option on AMD laptops.

[Insert obligatory Intel/Microsoft conspiracy theory here]

Re:

[Constantine XVI]

There's a very good reason. Only Intel uses VT. AMD uses a different, but similar tech called Pacifica. I'm not entirely sure of what software uses it.

Re:

[spotter]

serious risk? you are probably referring to the "Blue Pill", the Blue is way overblown, wikipedia has a short summary, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Pill_(malware) [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[CodeBuster]

If there is, as you say, a significant security risk when this feature is enabled then it is probably best for HP to continue shipping the disabled BIOS as standard equipment while providing the firmware updates to those who want them and are savvy enough to download, install, and configure them. This should satisfy the few hundred HP laptop Xen users out there while at the same time limiting exposure for other 99% of HP laptop owners who have no idea what VT is and wouldn't use it anyway.

Re:

[kosmosik]

> Enabling VT is a huge security risk with no benefit
> for most of HP's customers.

But please be strict and state that this is risk for running certain operating systems.

(...)

> You probably should be able to turn it on,

If you buy a car with AC (FIY not all cars are equiped with AC in Eurtope - just FYI) do you expect that you can turn it on? :)

(...)

> there are probably only a few hundred people that would run Xen on their
> laptop, so why have the "bug" available on the other few hundred thousa

Re:

[maxwell demon]

If you buy a car with AC (FIY not all cars are equiped with AC in Eurtope - just FYI) do you expect that you can turn it on? :)

Why would I buy a car with Anonymous Coward? :-)

Re:

[kosmosik]

To knock out the monkeys - simple. ;)

Re:

[westlake]

There are at least a hundred people in our university in Ireland alone who would run Xen on their laptops. You're massively underestimating the popularity of Linux and Xen worldwide, especially outside the Corporate Reich of Americosoft.

and the total number of laptops on campus would be----?

VT provides no perf advantage.

[Utopia]

I tried to compare the perf difference with VT enabled & disabled using Virtual PC 2007 RC2 & Vmware Latest Beta.
I was pretty disappointed to find that there is no perf. difference with VT enabled or disabled.

Re:VT provides no perf advantage.

[innosent]

This is not a performance issue. The only "performance" difference here is that with VT, you can run Windows under Xen. Without VT, you cannot, but can still run kernels (Linux/BSD/etc.) which are built to run on the Xen hypervisor. The OP wanted to use it to run Windows and Linux/BSD/etc. under Xen. As Virtual PC and VMWare both do full virtualization, VT will not make a difference, but with Xen's (faster) paravirtualization (which requires cooperation between the VMM and the guest OS), it means that VT can keep Windows in its own domain, so that interrupts and syscalls don't interfere with the hypervisor and other guest OS(s).

Re:

[Qzukk]

I am not sure if you are implying Windows on Xen is faster

He's implying that without VT, windows does not perform on Xen.

Re:

[Mad Merlin]

He's implying that without VT, windows does not perform on Xen.

Windows does not work at all in Xen without VT or Pacifica.

Re:

[LunaticTippy]

It might be like P4 hyperthreading, where if it is disabled when the OS is installed it is disabled until you reinstall the OS. Enabling it in BIOS looks nice, but the OS support isn't there until you reinstall.

I came across some people that didn't know this and deduced that hyperthreading was ineffective. Reinstalling the OS can double certain CPU-intensive tasks.

Re:VT provides no perf advantage.

[myowntrueself]

1. I'm not sure that VMWare other than the higher end versions (ie not the free 'server' edition) would be capable of using VT at all; it isn't exactly a hypervisor...

2. From the Xen mailing list re why disk IO (for one thing) *will* be slower in a HVM domain than in a paravirtualised domain:

The reason the emulated IDE controller is quite slow is a consequence of
the emulation. The way it works is that the driver in the HVM domain
writes to the same IO ports that the real device would use. These writes
are intercepted by the hardware support in the processor and a VMEXIT is
issued to "exit the virtual machine" back into the hypervisor. The HV
looks at the "exit reason", and sees that it's an IO WRITE operation.
This operation is then encoded into a small packet and sent to QEMU.
QEMU processes this packet and responds back to HV to say "OK, done
that, you may continue". HV then does a VMRUN (or VMRESUME in the Intel
case) to continue the guest execution, which is probably another IO
instruction to write to the IDE controller. There's a total of 5-6 bytes
written to the IDE controller per transaction, and whilst it's possible
to combine some of these writes into a single write, it's not always
done that way. Once all writes for one transaction are completed, the
QEMU ide emulation code will perform the requested operation (such as
reading or writing a sector). When that is complete, a virtual interrupt
is issued to the guest, and the guest will see this as a "disk done"
interrupt, just like real hardware.

All these steps of IO intercepts takes several thousand cycles, which is
a bit longer than a regular IO write operation would take on the real
hardware, and the system will still need to issue the real IO operations
to perform the REAL hardware read/write corresponding to the virtual
disk (such as reading a file, LVM or physical partition) at some point,
so this is IN ADDITION to the time used by the hypervisor.

Unfortunately, the only possible improvement on this scenario is the
type "virtual-aware" driver that is described below.

[Using a slightly more efficient model than IDE may also help, but
that's going to be marginal compared to the benefits of using a
virtual-aware driver].


(Credit goes to Mats Petersson).

Better then other companies

[Target Drone]

At least HP responded to the thread, acknowedged the problem and have said that a patch is comming on the 22nd. I guess it did take 6 months to get this fixed but I imagine BIOS updates aren't easy to push through.

At least they didn't just delete the post. *cough* apple [slashdot.org] *cough*

Re:

[TheOrquithVagrant]

No. It is explicitly disabled. You have to write a "not enabled" value to a specific MSR, and then a "LOCK" value to another MSR to put VT in an "un-enableable" state like is the case on the HP BIOS. This is entirely intentional, and "fixing". It's a whopping 4 assembly instructions to "fix" this.

Could another ass'y program set it back?

[Kadin2048]

Since you seem to know something about the subject, would it be possible to enable the feature without waiting for another BIOS upgrade? Would it be possible to write an x86 assembly program that would just bit-twiddle the registers and switch it back on, at least until the system was rebooted and the BIOS set it back to disabled (presumably it does that each time) again?

Seems like once the BIOS has done its job and gotten out of the way at boot, that you ought to be able to go in, provided that you're care

One Simple Solution

[Skewray]

Perhaps not quite ready for prime time, but http://freebios.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] is a nice way to solve this problem. Then if VT doesn't work, you can fix it yourself.

Bad Experiences with HP Laptops

[RAMMS+EIN]

I've had bad experiences with HP laptops before. This was several years ago, so I may not remember everything correctly.

My HP Pavilion laptop had the USB controller on IRQ 11, but, according to 2 out of 3 BIOS tables, it was on IRQ 9. This caused USB not to work under Linux. HP and the BIOS vendor apparently weren't interested in fixing the issue, so, eventually, it was worked around with a patch to Linux. According to what I've heard, the USB controller worked under Windows, but would reset every 5 minutes.

Around the time the warranty expired (I don't recall if it was just before or just after), the cooling fan started to get stuck. This would result in it making an awful lot of noise, followed soon enough by the system shutting down, because of overheating. After several requests to various addresses and phone numbers at HP, they offered that I could send the laptop in for repair, and they'll put in a new fan and send it back to me. Unfortunately, the operation would have cost more money than it was worth to me.

Also, the socket where the power adapter connects to the laptop broke. I eventually figured out how to open the laptop, get everything out of the way to get to the socket, and put everything back together. However, I never really succeeded in fixing the socket. I tried everything from soldering to chewing gum, but it kept breaking again. Just before I decided to fix the adapter plug to the socket (thus hopefully keeping the two connected and in place), the hard disk finally got so many bad sectors that it couldn't be used anymore. I gave the laptop away to a friend who said he'd fix and sell it, but a week later I found it on the sidewalk, thrown out of the window.

All in all, I think I got about a year and a half out of the laptop. After that, I bought an iBook, which I just sold last summer, apparently still working perfectly after two years of heavy use (more than the HP was ever subjected to). Pleased with Apple, but not wanting to make the switch to the Macbook just yet, I got another iBook before they ran out. It will take quite some convincing to get me to buy HP again, and I have a lasting aversion of moving parts in computers.

*Good* Experiences with HP Laptops

[DoofusOfDeath]

You know, it's funny. *I* had a miserable experience with a Toshiba laptop and customer support (and CompUSA). So I vowed two things: never again CompUSA, and never again Toshiba laptops. I picked up an HP laptop (Pavilion dv4100) at Staples, and I've had a much, much better experience with that laptop and that store.

I guess I shouldn't extrapolate too much based on two data points, but for now HP and Staples have my business.

Re:

[bigbadwlf]

Also, the socket where the power adapter connects to the laptop broke. I eventually figured out how to open the laptop, get everything out of the way to get to the socket, and put everything back together. However, I never really succeeded in fixing the socket.

Wild guess: Pavilion ZV5000?
They're known for it.

Re:

[utlemming]

Well to throw my two cents in -- I just sent my HP back for the 5th (yes, 5th time) in the last year. The best part was around time four, I asked for a new computer. Sure they said. But what I got was some-one else's reject. It has worse problems than the one I was trying to replace. Now I own a Sony VAIO, and am very happy...except for the fact that VT is disabled.

Re:

[digitalgoddess]

heh, completely in agreement on the Dell. I'm currently working on a Toshiba, and the only major problems I've dealt with are cooling and the hard drive...er....exploding..for lack of a better word. Like I said, really, no major problems. I've never actually worked with an HP for an extended period of time, but I'd venture to say I won't be buying HP any time soon. I'd go buy a Vaio first, even an Inspiron...well...not an Inspiron. Haven't had good expereinces with "home" pc's overall.

paid upgrades

[cpearson]

If HP released this upgrade in functionality with a firmware update, would the previous article on /. entitled "Apple Charges For 802.11n, Blames Accounting Law" link - http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/16/ 2127204 [slashdot.org] violate the same Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Does anyone else anticipate paying for updates to get features that were originally promised?

http://www.vistahelpforum.com/ [vistahelpforum.com]

WTF is VT?

[Ignorant Aardvark]

This is yet another Slashdot article that assumes too much. I don't think the average reader is going to know what "VT" is. I certainly don't. It shouldn't be necessary to click through a link to understand the gist of what this story is about. VT should be explained in the synopsis.

Re:

[RKBA]

It shouldn't be necessary to click through a link to understand the gist of what this story is about.

Especially when the link is SlashDotted and I get 92,900,000 results in a Google search for "vt."

Re:

[vga_init]

I really don't think it assumes too much. This entire site is geared toward a demographic that has been following VT for some time.

Therefore, instead of complaining, you can...

• Take advantage of this wonderful opportunity to learn something new and do some research. You've already got the Internet, which will tell you everything you want to know.
• Stop reading Slashdot. If the stories aren't hitting home with you, then maybe you'd like to try another site. You've got the Internet for that too.
• Skip it

Re:

[vga_init]

That is pretty much true. My reasoning is that the same could be said for most articles that Slashdot publishes. For example, ones that cite other computer technologies, such as numerous stories about PHP (what is PHP?) and linux (what is linux?). If this article assumes too much, then I guess most of the others do as well.

found it, on the "ascii" man page

[r00t]

VT is the vertical tab.

Octal: 013
Decimal: 11
Hex: 0x0B
C escape: \v

It's the Control-K character.

When sent to the console, it seems to go down a line or two.

I can't see much use for VT.

Re:

[maxwell demon]

I, for one, welcome our illiterate, obscure acronym overusing, hyper intelligent overlords.

That's:
IFOWO illiterate, OAO, HI overlords.

Not just HP, Dell does this as well.

[_KiTA_]

VT is not currently supported by Dell, either. There is no way to turn it on in any Dell system's BIOS, nor is there an ETA on a firmware update coming out to enable it.

To be honest though, it's one of those features you'd never notice is gone unless you were looking for it.

(Full disclosure for ethics: I work for Dell as a Gold Tech Support Agent. In my 5 months here at Dell, I've had only one call about Intel VT, which was -- in an odd quirk of fate -- just yesterday.)

Re:

[_KiTA_]

Well, the Poweredge Servers are a bit of a different beast. I was speaking more along the lines of the desktops (specifically the Opti and PWS lines), which, uh, apparently I was wrong on. ... Huh.

Well, Color me surprised! Guess it's time to ask a few senior techs for clarification -- I know at this time we're not "supporting" it, but I can find no rhyme nor reason to which ones have it in the BIOS and which ones don't.

Re:

[John Courtland]

Just as an FYI, we just picked up a brand new Precision m65 at work and I was able to toggle the VT on.

Problem solved

[1u3hr]

Just RTFA. Posts at the end:

Andy Fisher
Jan 11, 2007 16:22:40 GMT 8 pts
The BIOS was tied to Vista launch. I think I've got it seperated now and moving again through the process for XP. It should show up under BIOS for XP soon.

Andy Fisher
Jan 12, 2007 14:27:33 GMT 10 pts
I would start looking on the web at the end of next week, around 19th. Because of MLK day on Monday it might be early week of 22nd.

This should be for all VT capable platforms but of course I'm sure you'll all be posting here if yours doesn't

Solution

[xrayspx]

Clearly HP should ship all their machines with a "Turbo" button, that should solve everything.

Nothing to see here.

[Khyber]

I work as an HP repair tech (currently.) We've had HUNDREDS of laptops sent in for repair for this reason.

It's really sad how HP features things, but disables them. I had to repair a DV9000 with the webcam built-in, because the webcam wasn't seen.

The spot for the webcam to hook up wasn't even tere. HP had installed a de-featured board instead of a fully-featured board.

This is everyday at HP. Nothing to see here, move along.

what most of you don t get about VT security issue

[Anonymous Coward]

As a long time Xen user and one of the very first non Xen developer to run hardware virtualized OS under Xen on Intel hardware, I can say something that most here are missing: if you install Xen as the hypervisor and then launch an unmodified OS, like Windows, using hardware virtualization (you ain't launching an unmodified OS under Xen without hardware virtualization anyway), the unmodified OS will *not* see a VT-capable system. Which means that if you install Xen in the first place, as a knowledgeable Xen/Linux user, it's gonna be *very* hard for a Windows virus to be able to attack Xen/Linux. You can run Xen under Xen (that's an indisputable fact, I've done it) but you fscking can NOT run an hardware virtualized system under another hardware virtualized system (that is another undisputable fact). Now conceptually there may be an workable exploit one day, but being able to attack the hypervisor from an OS seeing a non-VT system would be one heck of a hack (a bit like being able to crash a computer configured as a completely passive sniffer behind a one-way ethernet cable or a shomiti tap). In other words, it is very unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Moreover saying that an hypotetical "hypervisor exploit" would be undetectable is complete rubbish bullshit: it's not any more difficult to detect than to detect a root exploit. Anyone who consider that scanning a machine from itself is a safe way of detecting malware is a fool anyway. You take the system offline, hook it's hard disk to a known good system (or boot it using a live CD) and voila... Gameover rootkit, game over hypervisor "undetectable" malware.
(and if you want to play the "my servers can't be taken down" I'll fire back with a "what punk, you're telling me you've got a SPOF?").

What Xen buys you if you want, though, is free (from Linux) scanning / SHA1-summing / etc. of Windows systems without the Windows systems even *knowing* it is happening. Game over Windows "rootkits". Plain and simple.

I hope that by now you realize that if you run Xen/Linux then Windows under Xen using VT, it is *impossible* for a virus to act as the hypervisor and then to present you with a 'fake' Xen/Linux hypervisor that would allow you to run Windows. That's how VT in this day and Intel age works. It may change, but as of now: move along, nothing to see here.

(OK, OK, a *really* incredible virus could make you think you're running Windows using HVM though Windows would actually be running under QEMU... But that would be one heck of a hack and you'd notice QEMU's extreme slowness in emulation mode... No accelerated QEMU under Xen).

Hypervisor rootkits can't counter timing-attacks based detection either.

Windows running under Xen is way more secure than running on the bare metal. Dot.

So please, stop all the uninformed "oh my god VT is teh insecure tech!".

To me running Windows under Xen is the most secure thing that happened to Windows in ages (and, no, I wasn't that much of a VMWare fan).

     

What is VT?

[obiwan2u]

The website pointed to by the article was down. I know of a lot of acronyms, but I only know of VT in terms of Dec VT terminals. Probably not what this is about.

Toshiba as well

[Thomas Charron]

Toshiba P105-9722 also has this issue, and I've come to believe that all Toshiba laptops have this issue as well.

I'm moving then

[RealBeanDip]

To NH... I've had enough of people putting down VT.

A solution exists

[tyler_larson]

I've been running bios version f.22 (12/11/2006) on my intel HP dv2000, and it allows you to enable VT in bios. I had to reboot a few times, but it works correctly now. The download link for this bios ver is listed in TFA near the bottom. It's not an "offical" release from HP, probably an internal testing release, and it's not linked from HP's site.

It's nice to know that they're working on it, though, and they do have a preliminary solution for those of us who REALLY need it.

better analogy

[binarybum]

"It's like buying a car with turbo and finding out after buying it that this turbo 'feature' was disabled."

    isn't it more like buying a computer with turbo [everything2.com] and finding out that the turbo 'feature' was disabled?

AHCI

[paul248]

I noticed something similar with this Dell Inspiron E1405 laptop. It's got an Intel ICH7M chipset, and according to the following page, it's supposed to be possible to switch the SATA controller to AHCI mode, rather than legacy mode:

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imst/sb/cs-0 12304.htm [intel.com]

However, there is no option to make this change in the BIOS, like people have reported with similar systems. So in Linux, I'm stuck with the PIIX driver instead of the AHCI driver. I'm not completely sure if there wo

Re:

[mandelbr0t]

Disabled!? It's like buying a car with turbo and finding out after buying it that this turbo 'feature' was disabled.

What's not clear about that? It's accurate, too, since VT is listed as a feature of the chip they were buying and was specifically disabled by HP. If you read the linked forum thread, you will see that the people who got screwed over by this did their research and knew what they wanted. Calling these complaints "whining" really trivializes HP's screw-up.

mandelbr0t

I know just how you feel

[MillionthMonkey]

I was born with two perfectly good nipples, each of which is perfectly capable of producing milk, but the feature was disabled with a few androgens.

If you ever have spare time and a strong stomach

[LunaticTippy]

Try searching around for "male lactation"

It's actually not uncommon. If you feel cheated, there are drugs you can take to enable this feature. Some models autoenable this feature for no reason.

Re:

[mrsev]

...well there are certain hormones that you can take to enable this feature and thus have a full feature set!

Re:I know just how you feel

[Cousin Scuzzy]

I was born with two perfectly good nipples, each of which is perfectly capable of producing milk, but the feature was disabled with a few androgens.

Ah, I get it now. VT = Vestigial Teat, right?

Re:

[Achromatic1978]

What, like shipping a preN wireless chipset that will only connect to B/G networks, you mean?

Re:

[MS-06FZ]

"Victoria Terpsichore"

There, I'll take the big stack of money now...

Re:

[Dunbal]

I get bery nerbous about your claim that the B is not used bery much. I don't know what the aberage number of uses is, but it's surely abobe the lebel of relebance, and it's absolutely obious that if we would not habe it any more, the effects would be not only obserbable, but eben sebere, if not debastating.

There, your statement has been corrected for the new "V"-less world, and it is quite readable in fact. Oh look, not a single "V" in these sentences, unless I quote it directly!

Re:More of a problem to our Microsoft overlords

[cps42]

Just think of the impact to the Redmond marketing group if they had to re-rename the current OS release back to 'Longhorn Professional'. Blood everywhere!

Re:

[maxwell demon]

But couldn't a virtualized anti virus program catch a virus which tries to virtualize itself?
I could even imagine a virtualized AV program to be more effective because it is independent from the host OS and therefore cannot be disabled by a virus from within the OS.

Re:

[dhasenan]

AV with virtualization doesn't have much benefit, I think. You find rootkits more easily, perhaps, but other than that, I see no benefit -- and having antivirus in the bootloader could do that. It's probably possible, maybe easy, for the AV to detect whether it's a guest or not, in which case it would be effective against this; but again, that can be done briefly at boot time.

Viruses with virtualization are much better than those without -- even with AVVT, there's some chance that the virus ends up being th

Re:

[RAMMS+EIN]

``VT actually brings nothing of value to the 99% of users, but it allows for the worst breed of viruses to virtualize themselves.''

So how come this isn't a problem on other architectures, which have presumably supported this kind of virtualization for ages?

Re:

[DamnStupidElf]

I've heard last week on a Microsoft conference here in Europe about the issues here and I can say its all bad news from the security standpoint.

Microsoft is actually admitting how bad their security model is?

Re:

[v1]

You've obviously never had to pay on a subscription-based software service before.

Like it or not, you bought it for X and Y, and if it just happens to have Z but not the way you like it, and you didn't even KNOW that Z was there until this morning, you can't complain about having to pay for Z to work right. What's the difference between having to buy hardware or pay for an unlock? If they never even told you the feature was there would you care? Could you care? would it make a difference? Them not tell