On Monday, Intel finally confirmed instability issues with its 13th-gen and 14th-gen desktop CPUs.
Thomas Hannaford, Intel’s communications manager, blamed it on an error in the microcode that requests incorrect voltage numbers, leading to instability in the processor.
He added that the company is releasing a microcode patch that “addresses the root cause of exposure to elevated voltages.” That update should arrive in mid-August.
In the meantime, Intel asked users who are experiencing instability issues to reach out to its support team for assistance.
The microcode error was discovered after Intel reviewed processors which were returned due to stability issues.
Until now, Intel’s guidance has been a list of dense BIOS settings that could reduce performance by upwards of 9 per cent on CPUs like the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K, reported Digital Trends.
An investigation from Level1Techs revealed that even 13th-gen and 14th-gen CPUs running in servers experienced instability, despite much more conservative power settings.
Recently, Alderon Games said that it will swap its Intel 13th and 14th Gen-based servers for AMD, and has urged its peers to do the same.
Alderon founder Matthew Cassells said in a blog earlier this month that the developer has had “significant” instability issues that none of the fixes so far have reversed. Cassells noted that Alderon has recorded “thousands of crashes” on gamers’ CPUs using its crash reporting tools and says the processors can also corrupt SSDs and memory. He added that in his team’s experience, 100 per cent of the affected CPUs “deteriorate over time, eventually failing.”
The problem might be even more widespread and possibly affecting laptop processors too. Cassells reported that Intel’s 13th- and 14th-gen Raptor Lake laptop CPUs were also prone to instability and crashes.
Intel admitting instability issues in the processor comes a little more than a week before AMD is set to launch its Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs. Whether the microcode patch will be effective enough to rectify the issue and prevent customers from migrating from Intel to AMD will be determined over the next few weeks.
