Intel breaks silence on 13th and 14th-gen Raptor Lake desktop CPU instability issues (2024)

TEUser2K1 said:

For those who are keen on RMA !!!
"Intel has denied two of my 14900K RMAs (instability) and stated they will confiscate or destroy them if I proceed with the warranty process."
https://archive.is/dU3Fr

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****ing hell, if this is the RMA experience on a 14900k, that too in the States, I have no hope of them doing the right thing here.

n1r0 said:

I'd say don't apply the patch, wait for your CPU to shows signs of instability and RMA it.

Intel is deliberately withholding the batch numbers of the affected CPUs in hopes that applying the patch might hide partial degradation and make it last just beyond than the total 5 year warranty. Every defective CPU they don't replace is extra profit for them

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But bhai, I think this info will eventually be out. Some whistle blower will leak this info for sure. We just need to wait, it is a matter of time before this gets out.

n1r0 said:

Edit: IIRC simply activating XMP voids CPU warranty.

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No it doesn't, cpu warranty is technically only void if it runs at a core frequency more than what it comes with to run as per official specs. As for ram warranty the whole point of buying "gaming ram/pro ram" etc is that they come with XMP profile which is basically "manufacturer certified overclocking profile" so running XMP is the officially approved version of ram overclocking. It is when ppl do manual ram overclocking by tweaking settings that technically voids the ram warranty as that is no longer XMP overclocking.

TEUser2K1 said:

Ah, my idea was microcode (or it's version number) does not exist physically on cpu, but in BIOS or OS.
It's loaded during boot time, CPU forgets the whole thing once system is shut down.

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That would imply you will have to reapply any microcode updates if you change the board. I am not sure if it is volatile or not. I suppose they will never make it fully known as that would open up a Pandora's box i.e. hackers can reverse engineer it and use it to their advantage.

TEUser2K1 said:

Ah, my idea was microcode (or it's version number) does not exist physically on cpu, but in BIOS or OS.
It's loaded during boot time, CPU forgets the whole thing once system is shut down.

For those who are keen on RMA !!!
"Intel has denied two of my 14900K RMAs (instability) and stated they will confiscate or destroy them if I proceed with the warranty process."

https://archive.is/dU3Fr

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This is such a sad story to read through, and extremely scummy on that rep's part.

I hope he reaches out to GN with this bit. If GN does pick this up, Steve will rip Intel a new one, that's for sure.

ibose said:

That would imply you will have to reapply any microcode updates if you change the board. I am not sure if it is volatile or not.

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Yes, microcode is either loaded from BIOS or from OS, so both of those needs to be on latest patch level.
This is my hardwired understanding (knew about loading from BIOS by reading and checking intel website after your comment)... may be am wrong too.
@PunkX 75
In news, they are firing ~20K employees, so they may not care much about goodwill at this juncture. Which makes this look like a planned disruption. USA being USA, may be a class action suit and settlement for pennies is on the anvil.

TEUser2K1 said:

In news, they are firing ~20K employees, so they may not care much about goodwill at this juncture. Which makes this look like a planned disruption. USA being USA, may be a class action suit and settlement for pennies is on the anvil.

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The old news was 10000 employees over a period of time to save close to 10 Billion dollars. But now they will reduce the work-force by 15% and these is the latest News -

Intel shares slid as much as 20% in extended trading on Thursday after the chipmaker said it would lay off over 15% of its employees as part of a $10 billion cost-reduction plan and reported lighter results than analysts had envisioned.

The company also said that it will not pay its dividend in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2024 and that it will lower full-year capital expenditures by over 20%.

Lay

TEUser2K1 said:

@Fenix
After Covid19 hectic season, firing employees was a trick used by many CEOs to hype up share prices, to show that they shed their excess baggage and company is lean and mean.
Those who can sense when Intel's shares hit the lowest price can mint money. Because for markets there, it's inevitable that Intel's share prices should re-bounce.

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True, over hiring and now firing. My company had 40000 employees, past six months, we have been trimmed down to 23000.

Intel in deep trouble?

guest_999 said:

No it doesn't, cpu warranty is technically only void if it runs at a core frequency more than what it comes with to run as per official specs. As for ram warranty...

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We're talking CPU warranty here. Please go through the terms carefully.

n1r0 said:

We're talking CPU warranty here. Please go through the terms carefully.

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guest_999 said:

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While this is true, there is no way (at least yet) for Intel to tell whether one was using RAM at XMP, overclocked or stock speeds. As long as the person trying to file a warranty claim doesn't mention it, it should be fine.

What's the confusion? Refer this:

Usage of overclocking and Intel® XMP and warranty Info
Altering clock frequency or voltage may void any product warranties and reduce stability, security, performance, and life of the processor and other components. Check with system and component manufacturers for details

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• The memory controller is in the CPU
• To run it faster, you need to increase voltage
• XMP or not, increasing voltage or controller speed above 3200 for DDR4 is overclocking, which will void the CPU warranty, see first point

If there's no damage, Intel can't tell if you've been OCing or not. Unless you admit it.

Another source

chetansha said:

Intel in deep trouble? View attachment 203487

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And the funniest thing (for me) is that the earnings call didn't even mention these ongoing issues with 13th and 14th gen chips. Which means that in the grand scheme of things, these problems are probably way down on the list of things Intel management is currently worried about. Their huge cash reserves have also been fast depleting for the last 5 years or so and without a solid product soon, they might actually be in deep trouble - this is assuming that the US government doesn't just bail them out since they recently got subsidies anyway (despite which they laid off at least 19000 people).

On a related note, as a fresher seeking full-time employment (for almost half a year now) in the current US job market - which is already messed up beyond belief - it is not great to know that there are now at least 19k more people, with far greater qualifications than me, also vying for jobs in the same market

Summary of the saga:

If in US then -

I dream of a day where we are able to do the same here.

Puget Systems POV:

n1r0 said:

To run it faster, you need to increase voltage

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XMP profile loaded by ram manufacturer is designed to run at default ram voltage of 1.5v else it wouldn't be covered under the ram warranty (aka manually tweaking parameters to overclock ram instead of using pre-loaded xmp profile values). If ram manufacturers themselves are guaranteeing the XMP profiles then I doubt using those XMP profile can possibly have any negative effect on processor health (assuming XMP values only with zero manual tweaking of parameters) or can even be detected if they were ever used with a processor.