Manual method

How to verify if there's a new microcode update for your processor (Intel)

Go to the Intel drivers download center. Download the most recent microcode and then unpack the file, giving you a microcode.dat file.

1. make sure you have the package iucode-tool:

   
   
   

   sudo apt-get install iucode-tool
   
   




2. Create temp folder:

   
   
   

   mkdir /tmp/micro
   
   




3. "Unpack" this microcode.dat file to a temporary location:

   
   
   

   iucode_tool -K/tmp/micro microcode.dat
   
   




4. You can now check if there's a more recent microcode file using:

   
   
   

   modprobe cpuid && iucode_tool -tb -lS /tmp/micro
   
   

   
   
   

   (or wherever you unpacked the microcodes to).

   
   
   

   On my old Core 2 Duo the output is like this:

   
   
   

   iucode_tool: system has processor(s) with signature 0x0001067a
   
   selected microcodes:
   
   001: sig 0x0001067a, pf mask 0xa0, 2010-09-28, rev 0x0a0b, size 8192
   
   002: sig 0x0001067a, pf mask 0x11, 2010-09-28, rev 0x0a0b, size 8192
   
   003: sig 0x0001067a, pf mask 0x44, 2010-09-28, rev 0x0a0b, size 8192
   
   




5. Compare this to the output of:

   
   
   

   dmesg | grep "updated"
   
   

   
   
   

   Sample output:

   
   
   

   [    1.056012] microcode: CPU0 updated to revision 0xa0b, date = 2010-09-28
   
   [    1.112010] microcode: CPU1 updated to revision 0xa0b, date = 2010-09-28
   
   

   
   
   

   This shows that my system already uses the most recent microcode.

Method using a repository

Follow the instructions in this tutorial (note that you do not need to install synaptic)

1. Install the following packages:

   
   
   

   sudo apt-get install microcode.ctl intel-microcode
   
   




2. Reboot your computer.




3. Now check whether the microcode has been loaded properly, with the following terminal command:

   
   
   

   dmesg | grep microcode
   
   

   
   
   

   If all is well you should see several reports about the applied microcode.