Microsoft's Meltdown and Spectre security updates have been bricking AMD machines

A Microsoft Support knowledge base article has revealed some unfortunate and rather serious side effects to the Redmond company's recent security updates. The Windows OS system security updates in response to chipset vulnerabilities Spectre and Meltdown appears to have been rendering some unlucky users with computers in "an unbootable state" — also known as "bricked".

The KB article states that after investigation, Microsoft is laying the problem squarely at the feet of AMD. According to the article, "Microsoft has determined that some AMD chipsets do not conform to the documentation previously provided". Given the severity of the issue and that Microsoft has stated they are working with AMD to resolve the issue, it sounds like AMD was indeed at fault. In the event they can't work out a fix, AMD may end up having to replace the bricked machines.

The updates being blocked at the moment include the following:

January 3, 2018—KB4056897 (Security-only update)
January 9, 2018—KB4056894 (Monthly Rollup)
January 3, 2018—KB4056888 (OS Build 10586.1356)
January 3, 2018—KB4056892 (OS Build 16299.192)
January 3, 2018—KB4056891 (OS Build 15063.850)
January 3, 2018—KB4056890 (OS Build 14393.2007)
January 3, 2018—KB4056898 (Security-only update)
January 3, 2018—KB4056893 (OS Build 10240.17735)
January 9, 2018—KB4056895 (Monthly Rollup)

Source(s)