On Monday, Intel finally confirmed instability issues with its 13th and 14th generation desktop processors.
Intel communications manager Thomas Hannaford blamed the problem on an error in microcode that requests incorrect voltage values, causing the processor to become unstable.
He added that the company is releasing a microcode patch that “addresses the root cause of high voltage exposure.” That update is expected to arrive in mid-August.
In the meantime, Intel has asked users experiencing instability issues to contact its support team for assistance.
The microcode error was discovered after Intel examined processors that were returned due to stability issues.
So far, Intel’s guidance has boiled down to a list of dense BIOS settings that could reduce performance by more than 9% on processors like the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K, according to a report. Digital trends.
An investigation by Level1Techs found that even 13th and 14th generation processors running in servers exhibited instability, despite much more conservative power settings.
Recently, Alderon Games announced that it would be swapping its 13th and 14th generation Intel servers for AMD servers, and urged its peers to do the same.
Alderon founder Matthew Cassells said in a blog post earlier this month that the developer has encountered “significant” instability issues that none of the patches have so far addressed. Cassells noted that Alderon has recorded “thousands of crashes” on players’ CPUs using its crash reporting tools, and said that CPUs can also corrupt SSDs and memory. He added that in his team’s experience, 100% of affected CPUs “degrade over time, eventually failing.”
The issue could be even more widespread and affect laptop processors as well. Cassells reported that Intel’s 13th and 14th generation Raptor Lake laptop processors were also prone to instability and crashes.
Intel has admitted to instability issues in its processor just over a week before AMD launches its Ryzen 9000 desktop processors. It will be determined in the coming weeks whether the microcode fix will be effective enough to fix the problem and prevent customers from migrating from Intel to AMD.