Last week, Intel put out an advisory note stating that it found the cause of crashing issues hitting its 13th and 14th-generation chips since February. A fix is arriving by mid-August via a microcode update, the company says.
That sounds like a happy end for customers frustrated by crashes for half a year, but it may not be as simple as that.
Our sister site, Tom’s Hardware, has heard from sources that the problem — which relates to the CPU requesting elevated voltages and causing the processor to operate outside of safe boundaries — causes irreversible degradation.
In other words, the upcoming patch will prevent the CPUs from receiving the higher voltage going forward, but that damage may already be done to your expensive processor. This is obviously alarming, as this degradation may be symptomless, meaning owners can’t know if they’re impacted.
The Verge sought confirmation from Intel about how it intended to support affected customers going forward, with the responses printed verbatim on-site.
The site notes that while Intel didn’t confirm that degradation was permanent, the spokesperson “did not deny that when we asked.” Despite this, no recall is planned and the company hasn’t halted sales.
When asked whether the fix will help chips that are affected but not showing symptoms or whether such CPUs are “living on borrowed time”, the spokesperson highlighted the company’s confidence that it will be an “effective preventative solution” but avoided the question about invisible degradation.
“It is possible the patch will provide some instability improvements to currently impacted processors; however customers experiencing instability on their 13th or 14th Generation desktop processor-based systems should contact Intel customer support for further assistance,” the spokesperson said.
Elsewhere, the spokesperson confirmed that any 13th or 14th Gen desktop CPU which consumes 65W power or more “could be affected”. But “this does not mean that all processors listed are (or will be) impacted by the elevated voltage issue.” That opens the door to Core i5 CPUs being vulnerable, such as the Core i5-14600.
Crucially, two questions were unanswered at the time of writing — though the site was promised that responses would come soon, so it’s possible that policy has yet to be settled upon. The first relates to whether warranty would be extended on the 13th and 14th-generation parts, and the second is how lenient Intel will be any RMA requests, given the hard-to-pin-down nature of the problem.
If you’re unsure as to whether you’re experiencing issues with your processor, Intel suggests consulting the video below for advice on how to check, The Verge adds.
While the above statement suggested that the patch could “provide some instability improvements”, we’d recommend approaching Intel support for a replacement if you’ve witnessed instability. As for the possibility of background degradation without symptoms, it seems that all you can do is hope.
