Intel cpu microcode causing USB problems?

I am seeming to narrow down that Intel cpu microcode update code is causing occasional problems with my USB ethernet dongle.

If I enable the microcode load on boot, I get UE_BULK_FAIL sometimes on my USB ethernet dongle, and when I don't enable microcode, it doesn't seem to happen. UE_BULK_FAIL breaks internet connectivity entirely, and I can only get the device back by resetting it via usbconfig -d ugenN.N reset.

Something else is unusual. When I just enable the microcode, it shows up in one place when the kernel starts booting, and then suddenly on another boot shows up at another, much earlier place when the kernel starts booting - without me changing anything around. This does not seem normal.
 
Something else is unusual. When I just enable the microcode, it shows up in one place when the kernel starts booting, and then suddenly on another boot shows up at another, much earlier place when the kernel starts booting - without me changing anything around. This does not seem normal.
Have you accidentally got it loading from more than one place? I think I have it in loader.conf, but there are probably other places it can be loaded from, rc.conf maybe? It's worth checking.
 
Newp, only had it load once from /boot/loader.conf
It's closed source, isn't it? We just load a giant binary into the CPU internals? Or what's up?
 
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