There are a couple of research papers showing that disabling precise timers does not help, because there are simple ways to detect the timing differences without explicit use of a timer.

Sorry, you're just wrong. Where do you think refresh policy is implemented? It's in the memory controller, which is on the Intel or AMD SoC. Do you really think that laptop manufacturers have the ability to modify this behavior in the memory controller?

I didn't say it had nothing to do with refresh. I said it has nothing to do with laptops and power management. All DDR4 DRAM requires every row to be refreshed every 64 ms (at normal temps), and all DDR5 DRAM requires every row to be refreshed every 32 ms. The DRAM on laptops (whether SO-DIMMS or LPDDR) still has to meet those same refresh requirements.

Try using blacksmith to flip bits. https://github.com/comsec-grou... You can easily cause single flip bits on servers/desktops with blacksmith. Nothing to do with laptops and power management.

The summary posting says that "Microsoft plans to nearly double its budget for employee salaries", which would be huge if that is what was happening. Instead, Microsoft is doubling the budget for salary increases. So if they gave 1% raises last year, this year it would be 2%. Very different than doubling employee salaries. Why can't journalists bother to get the details right?