Why is 'lspci -xxx' dangerous?

Question

Running lspci --help I see this line:

-xxx        Show hex-dump of the whole config space (dangerous; root only)

Why is this dangerous?

Answer 1

From the manpage:

-xxx

Show hexadecimal dump of the whole PCI configuration space. It is available only to root as several PCI devices crash when you try to read some parts of the config space (this behavior probably doesn't violate the PCI standard, but it's at least very stupid). However, such devices are rare, so you needn't worry much.

So basically it's dangerous because it can crash certain PCI devices, which will usually mean you need to reboot your system (and could cause you to lose data).