Intel CPU Crashing Bug Affects Many More Chips Than We Thought

Things were looking up for Intel last week as it discovered the cause of widespread crashes on Core i9 Raptor Lake computers. The company said an update would soon alleviate those CPU woes, but it’s not going to be that simple. Intel has now admitted the microcode bug affects a wider swath of the Raptor Lake lineup, and the upcoming patch won’t actually fix any glitching chips. What a difference a week makes.

Owners of Intel’s 13th and 14th Generation CPUs have been complaining for the last year that their machines regularly crash during games and other high-power scenarios. The company now says the issue is caused by elevated operating voltage, which is caused by a flawed microcode algorithm. Intel plans to release a fix in mid-August, allowing motherboard manufacturers to issue patches that will prevent high voltage from crashing and damaging CPUs.

So, problem solved? Unfortunately, no. There’s much more to this mess than Intel suggested last week. In an interview with The Verge, Intel communications manager Thomas Hannaford explained that the bug affects many more chips than previously known. The flaw is present in all Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh chips with TDPs of 65W or higher. This includes the enthusiast K/KF/KS CPUs with unlocked multipliers, as well as the non-K variants for mainstream use. So, Core i5, i7, and i9 CPUs are all in the mix now.

Despite the huge number of affected CPUs, Intel says it will not be issuing a recall, nor has it pulled any existing inventory from retailers. Hannaford also expanded on what the “fix” actually does. If a system has begun exhibiting poor stability as a result of the voltage bug, the patch won’t fix anything—those CPUs are permanently damaged and will need to be replaced. The patch will, however, prevent the issue from occurring on systems that have yet to run into the voltage problem.

Credit: PCMag

Intel is not officially extending warranties on the affected parts, but it asks anyone experiencing the problem to contact support. Hannaford says that Intel is committed to ensuring that all the bugged CPUs are swapped, but it seems to prefer handling it on a case-by-case basis. At the same time, Intel refuses to estimate how many Raptor Lake chips are impacted.

While we wait on the microcode patch, Intel recommends Raptor Lake owners use the Intel Default Settings for their processors and make sure the motherboard BIOS is up to date. If you’ve got an unlocked CPU, you probably want to avoid overclocking it for now. Intel noted that there will be more details later as the investigation is still ongoing.