5 ms·
Intel confirms no recall for Raptor Lake CPUs,microcode won't fix affected units
- Havoc 2y agoGiven that some reports put failure rates as high as 50% for some models/conditions this may as well be a recall.
- Arrath 2y agoWould almost think a recall would be easier to handle that hundreds of thousands/millions of individual RMA/warranty claims.
- mystified5016 2y agoThey're hoping a large fraction of people won't bother with the RMA process and will just shut up and go away. Unfortunately for Intel, "away" here means "to buy an AMD processor"
- jimbob45 2y agoThat's a legitimate strategy for some Amazon trinkets but CPUs are a major purchase for most people such that they won't likely let them sit in a closet beyond the warranty period.
- asksomeoneelse 2y agoI would guess Intel is counting on the fact that most people are not knowledgeable enough to pinpoint a defective CPU being the issue when the computer starts crashing. Heck, even as a SWE building my own computers for almost 20 years, I still have no idea how to properly diagnose a hardware issue when it arises. Beyond checking for explicit errors in journals/logs, and the usual memtest/BIOS update/reinstall the OS from scratch, I resort to replacing each component one by one until the issue disappears. But it's time consuming, and sometimes quite costly. I suspect most people simply replace the entire thing if it's not a prebuilt PC still under warranty.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoI was similarly peeved with AMD a few years ago. There was a window of time where an AMD chip would not work with many deployed motherboards. AMD would ship you a loaner, outdated chip so you could boot the motherboard and apply the latest compatible BIOS. Knowing this, I felt confident to purchase a certain configuration. Parts arrive and I reached out to AMD support for my loaner chip. They gave me the third degree. Insisted I provided documentation of previous attempts to reach out to the motherboard manufacturer before they would lift a finger. So, reach out to the manufacturer and say I am an idiot who cannot read the compatibility warning slathered all over their product material? I was furious at what was an obvious roadblock to not deliver on their support promise. So, capitalism is the worst and nobody is good.
- cyanydeez 2y agoRecall likely affects shareholders so, you know, waste more time and money to ensure your corporate profits
- qingcharles 2y agoHow would a recall work, given that half of these chips are soldered onto mobos, not socketed?
- abracadaniel 2y agoThe headline isn't clear, but the claim so far is that the microcode update will fix any CPUs that haven't begun exhibiting instability. Nothing can fix the ones that are already broken. For those that are somewhere in between, hope it fails within the warranty period I guess.
- mrtksn 2y agoThe way I understand it, they had a bug that will run the CPU on higher voltage than the hardware can tolerate. Those who pushed the limits physically damaged their CPU and these are now cooked. The microcode update will limit the voltage, which will result in degraded performance but will prevent damage under load.
- hypercube33 2y agoGN was saying people saw the bugs on chips not pushed at all on workstation boards though.
- xethos 2y agoLevel One Techs' Wendell was saying the same thing after asking companies running server farms independently. Both got some sketchily-high numbers, in the 25-50% range. This is only looking worse for Intel as days go by.
- mananaysiempre 2y agoGN was quoting L1T and had an interview with Wendell about it, so it’s all the same source effectively.
- xethos 2y agoGN has multiple sources, not all based on L1T. They're reviewed here [0], starting around 9:11 [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTeubeCIwRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTeubeCIwRw
- Waterluvian 2y agoI’m out of the loop. If I bought a 13700KF last week, is there anything I need to know or do? BIOS update when one is available soon?
- LegitShady 2y agoreturn it and buy amd
- TillE 2y agoA decent motherboard isn't cheap.
- sosodev 2y agoThe microcode update will probably be automatic but it might also be distributed as a bios update. Realistically there’s no way to tell if you have an affected unit or not (Intel hasn't provided any information that would help). Nor is there any guarantee that the microcode update will prevent future issues. It appears that there is both microcode and manufacturing issues at play here.
- xyst 2y agoMaybe just return it. Microcode “fix” is more of a band aid
- ytch 2y agoand the microcode fix could means another performance impact.
- xyst 2y agolike heart bleed?
- ToniCipriani 2y agoYou mean Spectre? Heartbleed was the SSL bug.
- neilv 2y ago> Will Intel share specific manufacturing dates and serial number ranges for the oxidized processors so mission-critical businesses can selectively rip and replace? > Intel will continue working with its customers on Via Oxidation-related reports and ensure that they are fully supported in the exchange process. Intel is refusing to disclose serial number ranges of the fundamentally defective processors? Followup question: How do owners of that series of CPU, who suspect theirs is one of the defective units, exchange it for a non-defective CPU before it fails?
- CoastalCoder 2y agoMan, this really does seem like a replay of their FDIV mess (IIRC). I was really hoping that Pat Gelsinger would restore some of Intel's respectability. This gives me doubt.
- code_biologist 2y agoI had high hopes for Pat Gelsinger too. I suspect most management expects the consequences of short-sighted corporate culture to manifest in products as maybe a 1% failure rate within 90 days of sale, not a 25%+ failure rate slowly manifesting over more than a year. The former is the cost of doing business, the latter is an existential problem. I suspect Gelsinger didn't know about it and lower management buried it thinking it was a <1% problem, and he's only found out about it as it's become clear what a massive problem it is. All just speculation though.
- isthatafact 2y agoWhen Gelsinger promised (in 2021) zettaflop systems by 2027, although there is still time, it seemed so absurdly optimistic that it is hard to trust anything he says. However, I think people really want to give him a chance on his long term plans to make Intel competitive again.
- reisse 2y ago> Intel is refusing to disclose serial number ranges of the fundamentally defective processors? I bet they all are bad. Intel just hopes failure rate is low enough to RMA instead of recall. > How do owners of that series of CPU, who suspect theirs is one of the defective units, exchange it for a non-defective CPU before it fails? Another bet: class action suits.
- beart 2y agoI feel like the language is intentionally vague and intended to link the voltage issue with the oxidization issue. However, I would not feel comfortable knowing my chip may randomly become unstable way before the expected end of life.
- xyst 2y agoPrediction: Intel is stalling the recall until after the earnings report to avoid tanking the stock. Glad I switched to using AMD. Although some RUMINT indicating quality assurance troubles in 9000 series though. They were supposed to push out new product by end of July. But delayed to mid August.
- harshreality 2y agoIs there any RUMINT about specifically why it's delayed? The delay itself is not RUMINT, and it's obviously some QA issue, but beyond that? The only rumors I've seen are generic guesses: something AMD wasn't screening for, maybe coincidence, or maybe detected after the Intel mess sent AMD's QA teams scurrying to make sure they don't have any similar issues. It could even be a combined issue with 3rd-party motherboards with AMD's new chipsets, the combination of which they wouldn't have been able to thoroughly test much earlier. Isn't RUMINT on the Intel problem that, even though it's nominally a chip problem, it may occur primarily due to motherboards not following guidance? For instance, if a spec says the chip and mobo should lower max voltage by 100mV under certain conditions, but the chip still sometimes requests the full original voltage under those conditions, and the mobo provides it, whose fault is that? Maybe not exclusively Intel's, depending on how the specs are documented (a classic should vs must issue). It seems likely that small process sizes and pushing the limits of performance are going to cause more problems like this Intel one. Notice Intel didn't have this problem before they had to push their chips to compete against the high-end Ryzens.
- Numerlor 2y agoThere hasn't been anything official but there were rumors about some reviewers got unexpectedly bad performance that AMD narrowed down to bad packaging for the SOC die. If it is the SOC it doesn't have anything to do with pushing nodes as it's on a larger node and the soc itself should be a mature architecture because it's reused from zen 4
- yread 2y agoIt's obviously some bullshit as 1 month doesn't give enough time to change anything meaningful
- elashri 2y agoMaybe off topic but I am old enough that I remember when AMD were inferior and should be avoided. It is one point in the famous "Is your son a computer hacker [1] > If your son has requested a new "processor" from a company called "AMD", this is genuine cause for alarm. AMD is a third-world based company who make inferior, "knock-off" copies of American processor chips [1] https://gwern.net/doc/cs/security/2001-12-02-treginaldgibbons-isyoursonacomputerhacker.html https://gwern.net/doc/cs/security/2001-12-02-treginaldgibbon...
- rfl890 2y agoCiting an obvious satirical piece?
- wmf 2y agoThe context of what came before you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41058791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41058791 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41039708 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41039708
- cametosay 2y agoI just wanna say that the AMD / Intel battle is cyclical and there will always be downfall of AMD or Intel. What people ought do is just undervolt the chip by .05 at least and reduce the clock speed.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago> What people ought do is just undervolt the chip by .05 at least and reduce the clock speed. What people ought to do is get the processor they paid for.
- AmVess 2y agoWhat a mess. Intel should be out in front of this, but they are going to kick the can down the road and hope some of the problem goes away. No system integrator has the infrastructure to handle replacing vast numbers of CPU's and entire systems where the CPU is soldered to the mainboard and cannot be replaced. Also, there's no way this problem suddenly snuck up on them without warning. They had customers returning massive numbers of them, but Intel kept selling defective units instead of stopping production. They absolutely knew about this as soon as problems started popping up. A microcode patch may make it stable, but if you have a dud, you have a dud. There's no way to patch around defects in manufacturing of this nature. Microcode can reduce frequencies, but a defective part is still defective. How PG still has a job is beyond me.
- washadjeffmad 2y agoRapid oxidation is another way of saying "burn". Unless they have specific evidence to delineate heat damage from excessive voltages and "oxidation" from a manufacturing process, then they're just playing coy at admitting their chips are burning out.
- wmf 2y agoOxidation can also mean rust. Intel is saying that the oxidation problem and the degradation problem are separate.
- harshreality 2y agoOther than the chips that are significantly damaged prior to the updated microcode, why should this be treated differently from the meltdown saga? Fixes for that required significant slowdowns, except in niche applications with trustworthy code or air-gapped systems such that the vulnerability could be ignored. No Recall. Class actions ongoing, but everyone's mostly forgotten about them. More conservative voltages will only lead to small (low single-digit) performance decreases, right? Isn't that less significant a performance hit than meltdown countermeasures? The only way I can imagine performance really tanking would be if Intel has to severely down-rate supported memory speeds as well, if the ring bus can't handle higher memory speeds at slightly reduced voltages.
- MaximilianEmel 2y agoI've only ever bought Intel, mostly because I perceived them to be more stable and reliable. I think next time, I will give AMD a try.
- mereo 2y agoI've been building my systems since 1999 and I've been pragmatic. Buying what was best at the time. I never had stability problems with both AMD and Intel.
- jpatters 2y agoInteresting. I bought a 13900 (non-k) in mid April this year for a new server build. It ran fine for a couple of weeks and then started randomly crashing. Having never had a cpu go bad on me before and not having another one laying around to test with, it took me a long time to figure out what the issue was. Finally, by the end of May, I had ruled everything else out and RMA’d it. The system has been running fine ever since. I assumed I had just got a bad unit. Now I’m wondering if this might have been the cause.
- flemhans 2y agoWill multi CPU systems be resistant or fail if one CPU dies?
- wmf 2y agoRaptor Lake doesn't support SMP, but generally a bad CPU will cause the entire system to panic/bluescreen.
- navjack27 2y agoI'm starting to want the FTC to get involved with this
- Dunedan 2y agoThis article is just quoting the original source of this information, which would be a much better link: https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/26/24206529/intel-13th-14th-gen-crashing-instability-cpu-voltage-q-a https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/26/24206529/intel-13th-14th-...
- mrjin 2y agoIf this does not justify a recall, what would then?
- devwastaken 2y agoBlacklisting Intel. We don't need them anyways, AMD already has plenty powerful chips that don't come broken. Intel lost their engineering abilities years ago. Got eaten by sharks.
- nubinetwork 2y agoTell that to my 2950x, the thing is a heap of garbage... 80% of the time it won't boot at xmp memory speeds... If it does, it trashes the pcie bus during boot... Either way, I also had to turn off ASPM, because my nvme drives will crash during boot, or shortly afterwards... Then there's all the random amdgpu errors it also throws, it's better with everything turned off, but the machine is basically on life support until I can build a new PC.
- adrian_b 2y agoZen began to be really better than the competition only with Zen 2 (Ryzen 3000), when the production of its CPU chips was transferred to TSMC. For Zen 1 or Zen 1+, only the Epyc CPUs seem to have been free of problems. I have a 24-core Zen 1 Epyc that has always worked flawlessly, but when I have preordered the very first Ryzen, the 1750X, I had to dump it as useless garbage after only a couple of weeks, because I was using it in Linux, where any intensive multi-threaded task was crashed by a nasty bug that was not seen on the Ryzens used just for playing games in Windows. AMD has never given any explanation about their bug, and they did not recall their CPUs, which were completely unusable for professional purposes. However, like Intel today, they at least honored the RMA requests. However I did not bother with an RMA, especially because the procedure would have been complicated, as I do not live in the USA and I would have had to ship internationally the bad CPU. I have just dumped both the Ryzen 1750X and the expensive motherboard, keeping only the DIMMs, and then I have bought a Kaby Lake instead. Nevertheless, I did not hold a grudge against AMD, despite losing more than EUR 800, and later I have bought an Epyc and then a Zen 2 Ryzen and then a Zen 3 Ryzen, all of which have worked perfectly.
- ahartmetz 2y agoI got a buggy 1800X, shipped for RMA to a logistics center in IIRC the Netherlands from Germany. RMA took about 2 weeks altogether and it was worth it. Since then, I've upgraded to the new top of the Ryzen line everytime there was a significant (>40%) increase in compilation performance. The 5950X was a notable dud in that regard. Recently, setting power limits to get 90-95% of the performance at 60% of the TDP became a thing.
- numpad0 2y agoI've seen multiple rumor-style explanations to this issue, including: - it may have to do with oxidation of metallic copper deposited inside through-sillicon via(TSV) - it may have to do with improper connection between die and substrate(that hard green plate) causing higher resistance and temperature somewhere, which is by the way the true limiting factor for socket Tjmax - it could have to do with VCORE values used to meet the performance target being too high for the on-die ring bus logic including L1 - it is possibly related to big-little heterogeneous configuration and how voltages for big-core and little-core/uncore/IO are generated - I've heard they had an HVAC outage in one of US fabs and it ruined some dies - Yeah they just flew too close to the Sun, frankly - ... I have absolutely no skin in this game, and my question is: are there any more plausible technobabbly stories around? It all sounds intriguing to me. Some of it could be correct or relevant.
- joshstrange 2y agoThe only thing keeping me on Intel (for my homelab) is QuickSync. If Plex supported AMD’s equivalent I’d drop Intel in a heartbeat.
- PufPufPuf 2y agoYou could consider Jellyfin, it claims to support it: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/administration/hardware-acceleration/ https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/administration/hardware-ac...