Stability issues Intel 13th and 14th gen chips

At the time of writing this article, more and more news is coming out about stability problems associated with certain versions of the last two generations of Intel CPUs. The two so-called Raptor Lake CPU generations are the 13^e and the 14^e generations of Intel’s Core series of processors.

In this article, I provide a brief description of the problem based on Intel’s press releases. In addition, I explain how this problem may also affect your organization and what you can do at this time.

Intel’s leadership position in jeopardy

Intel is one of the largest chip designers in the world. For decades now, Intel has dominated the market for the chip variety called CPU, which are used in virtually all PCs and laptops. Figures from benchmarking software firm PassMark show that as of 2006, Intel held between 60 and 80% of the CPU market.

AMD is Intel’s only significant competitor in the CPU market. The battle between the two competitors is also described as Team Blue (Intel) versus Team Red (AMD). Over the past few years, Intel has been in danger of falling behind AMD in terms of peak performance. To keep up, the power consumption of Intel chips has been increasing over the past few generations. It seems that the higher power consumption has now affected system stability.

Unstable

News reports surrounding stability problems indicate that affected computers exhibit crashes. The crashes can cause work the user was working on at the time of the crash to be lost. It also takes time to restart the crashed programs/computers.

Initially, it was unclear what caused these crashes and Intel denied that the problem was caused by their chips. Late Intel stated in a press release that increased voltages (voltages) are indeed causing stability problems the 13^e and 14^e gen CPUs. According to Intel, the 65W and higher variants of the 13^e and 14^e generation chips may be experiencing the problem.

Microcode update and RMA

In the press release, Intel announced that they were preparing a microcode update for August 15, 2024 that should fix the problem for the future. The microcode update in question was launched slightly earlier and is called 0x129. The update should now be available via a motherboard BIOS update. The advice is to update as soon as possible. Whether the microcode update solves the stability problem is not yet known, for that the update has not been in use long enough.

In case of existing problems RMA

Intel indicates that the problems of chips already having crashes are unlikely to be fixed by the update. The update is also expected to slightly reduce the maximum speed of the chips due to the reduction in voltage.

Intel is asking customers experiencing crashes to submit the chips to them or the vendor of the chips to go through the RMA processes. Intel has also extended the warranty for 2 years for some of the products.

No recall action

Interestingly, Intel has not yet indicated that it will initiate a recall. As a result, customers who are experiencing instability but do not know that the instability is related to Intel’s CPU are not being helped at this time. Also, the processors showing the problems are still being sold. They are not cheap products, for example, the Intel Core i9-14900K currently costs about € 620.

The total extent of the problem is still unknown. Intel has not yet made any statements about that. However, there are indications from the market that a not insignificant number of processors are affected.

Professional users suffer more

Intel’s message shows that mainly the more expensive variants of the chips seem to be suffering from the problems. The more expensive chips already operate at higher voltages than the cheaper chips by default. The annoying thing for Intel is that the more expensive (Core i7 and i9) variants are mostly used in commercial, professional environments. For example, one can think of companies where one develops software or games, or one produces digital film media.

In those sectors, the processor is usually under extra heavy load. Computer crashes are especially detrimental in those industries because work is lost as a result. In such companies, a faster processor adds to increased employee productivity in a fairly direct way. The opposite is thus also true, if Intel lowers the performance of processors with the update, that will also reduce productivity.

Dealers and PC builders are also affected

Intel’s problems will also have significant implications for resellers, processor dealers and PC builders. These are now left with an inventory of products that has taken a dent in terms of market confidence.

It is also likely that they will end up having to sell a product with lower specifications than those advertised when they made their purchases. Both are expected to result in merchants being forced to lower prices and sell products at a lower profit or even a loss. Furthermore, several law firms in the US are already currently investigating a “class action lawsuit,” called a class action in Dutch.

Inventory your exposure, gather evidence!

Are you also experiencing the crashes within your company, or do you deal in Intel processors on a business basis?  If so, don’t forget to keep meticulous records of your losses and collect evidence of the damage.

It is still early days at this point, but it looks very much like the damage at some companies is so great that liability for the relevant parties for the affected companies will be inevitable. Is your company greatly affected by the chip problems? If so, do not hesitate to contact us! One of our lawyers expert in liability law will be happy to assist you.

Get advice

Do you have any questions? Then contact one of our lawyers by mail, telephone or fill in the contact form for a free initial consultation. We will be happy to think along with you.