Another Quick update....
Following feedback from the FreeBSD maintainer, I tested late/runtime microcode loading again, including after downgrading to the older cpu-microcode-intel-20260512 package.
After rebooting, the CPU was back at 0x432. The runtime update then successfully applied 0x43b:
/usr/local/share/cpucontrol/06-9a-04.80: updating cpu /dev/cpuctl0 from rev 0x432 to rev 0x43b... done.
This confirms that runtime loading works even with the older package. The remaining issue appears to be specific to the FreeBSD early loader path rather than the microcode package itself.
The FreeBSD bug report has been updated accordingly.
Following feedback from the FreeBSD maintainer, I tested late/runtime microcode loading again, including after downgrading to the older cpu-microcode-intel-20260512 package.
After rebooting, the CPU was back at 0x432. The runtime update then successfully applied 0x43b:
/usr/local/share/cpucontrol/06-9a-04.80: updating cpu /dev/cpuctl0 from rev 0x432 to rev 0x43b... done.
This confirms that runtime loading works even with the older package. The remaining issue appears to be specific to the FreeBSD early loader path rather than the microcode package itself.
The FreeBSD bug report has been updated accordingly.
"