Primary debug scenario

Symptom: Video workload effective bandwidth drops from 42 GB/s to 21 GB/s after firmware update.

Triage steps

1. Compare firmware memory controller settings before/after.

2. Check if low-power refresh mode was enabled.

3. Profile row-hit rate — did access pattern change?

4. Measure refresh stall percentage.

5. Check read/write turnaround if workload mix changed.

Common pitfalls

• Quoting peak bandwidth without workload context.

• Ignoring bank locality in access pattern analysis.

• Missing firmware QoS configuration change.