Shortly after Intel said it had isolated the issues causing CPU instability on 13th and 14th Gen CPUs, the company has offered more details, including explaining that any damage related to the voltage control issue is permanent.
Intel chatted with The Verge about the issue, reiterating a patch is coming next month to deal with the “root cause” of the CPU instability issue.
This seems like good news, and partially is, but citing unnamed sources, Tom’s Hardware reports that the nefarious bug causes “irreversible degradation of the impacted processors.” Further, the microcode patch arriving in August will not address processors already experiencing crashes. The patch is to prevent issues for unaffected machines.
It’s not a good situation, and it’s unclear whether the patch will completely address all instability issues.
“And, Intel confirms, too-high voltages aren’t the only reason some of these chips are failing. Intel spokesperson Thomas Hannaford confirms it’s a primary cause, but the company is still investigating,” writes The Verge.
Intel has also determined that some instability reports are due to oxidation manufacturing issues, which were allegedly fixed sometime last year.
The Verge asked Intel if the company planned to recall affected chips, extend existing warranties, or pause sales until the situation was entirely resolved.
No dice. Intel hasn’t stopped sales, taken back any inventory, and has no intention of doing any recall. Intel hasn’t said anything concerning warranties and won’t disclose how many chips it believes are irreversibly damaged by the voltage bug.
“Intel’s not yet telling us how warranty replacements will work beyond trying customer support again if you’ve previously been rejected. It did not explain how it will contact customers with these chips to warn them about the issue,” The Verge explains.
However, Intel is “confident” that users shouldn’t be worried about any degradation that has not caused crashes. Basically, if a user hasn’t already had issues, Intel thinks the patch will be sufficient to prevent future problems.
There are still many unanswered questions, and users are understandably concerned about their 13th and 14th-generation Intel chips. The company thinks the issue is restricted to CPUs that use 65 watts of power or more, which is many chips. Intel says users perform the test outlined in the video above, created by Robeytech.
Image credits: Featured image created using an asset licensed via Depositphotos.