Intel’s crashing 13th and 14th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs: all the news and updates

Intel may have one less worry on its very full plate: it believes it has now fully addressed its desktop CPU instability woes with 13th and 14th Gen “Raptor Lake” chips.

While the company says there’s still no fix for processors that are already damaged, it confirms to me that the “Vmin Shift Instability” is the root cause of the unusual instability and crashes that these desktop CPUs have been demonstrating for many months.

Get ready for another wave of urgent motherboard updates for your desktop PC. Intel has just announced a new microcode update for its 13th and 14th Gen Raptor Lake processors — the ones that could possibly get permanently damaged and begin to crash your PC.

While there’s still no fix for chips that are already crashing, the company is now releasing microcode update 0x12B to motherboard manufacturers to help prevent one of the root causes of damage. In this case, it prevents the Intel CPU from asking for too much power when it’s just sitting idle or performing light tasks. (Too much voltage can prematurely age a chip.)

It’s been a burning question for months — are Intel’s laptop chips susceptible to the same permanent damage that can potentially lay 24 different flagship desktop chips low?

Today, Intel has finally confirmed: its 13th and 14th Gen laptop chips do not seem to have an instability issue. And the company claims they are definitely not affected by the too-high voltage issue, which it’s now calling “Vmin Shift Instability.”

Intel has a big update on its crashing 13th and 14th Gen desktop CPUs — including a hint that maybe, just maybe, it might be able to do something about chips that are already failing instead of requiring you to return them.

You can read its statement below in full, but here are the parts I find interesting:

Asus and MSI have both released beta BIOS updates today to address Intel’s crashing 13th and 14th Gen Raptor Lake desktop processors. While the BIOS updates won’t fix CPUs that are already damaged, they include Intel’s new microcode update that should help further address the instability issues.

If it works well, this could be a very big deal for Intel, which lost some of its reputation after its flagship chips were found to crash earlier this year and, after a long investigation, discovered there would be no true fix, requiring customers to replace any damaged chips. Intel also isn’t having a great year, period, recently announcing layoffs of at least 15,000 workers and stopping “non-essential work.”

There is no fix for Intel’s crashing 13th and 14th Gen Raptor Lake desktop processors. If your chip isn’t yet damaged, please apply motherboard BIOS updates early and often to prevent issues. If it’s already damaged, your only option is to exchange it.

But what if you didn’t buy a chip — but, rather, an entire PC? Will PC makers have your back? Will they pass along the extra two years of warranty that Intel just theoretically granted them, or will they perhaps try to save money at your expense?

Although there’s no fix for Intel’s crashing 13th and 14th Gen Intel Core processors, the company is trying to make things somewhat better for customers who are stuck with potentially damaged chips by extending their warranty for two additional years.

“Intel is committed to making sure all customers who have or are currently experiencing instability symptoms on their 13th and / or 14th Gen desktop processors are supported in the exchange process,” reads a statement from Intel’s Thomas Hannaford to The Verge. “We stand behind our products, and in the coming days we will be sharing more details on two-year extended warranty support for our boxed Intel Core 13th and 14th Gen desktop processors.”

On Monday, it initially seemed like the beginning of the end for Intel’s desktop CPU instability woes — the company confirmed a patch is coming in mid-August that should address the “root cause” of exposure to elevated voltage. But if your 13th or 14th Gen Intel Core processor is already crashing, that patch apparently won’t fix it.

Citing unnamed sources, Tom’s Hardware reports that any degradation of the processor is irreversible, and an Intel spokesperson did not deny that when we asked. Intel is “confident” the patch will keep it from happening in the first place. (As another preventative measure, you should update your motherboard BIOS ASAP.) But if your defective CPU has been damaged, your best option is to replace it instead of tweaking BIOS settings to try and alleviate the problems.

Intel says it has found the source of the widespread instability issues affecting its Core 13th and 14th Gen processors. In an update on Monday, Intel confirmed that CPUs are experiencing “elevated operating voltage” and that a patch is on the way.

“We have determined that elevated operating voltage is causing instability issues in some 13th/14th Gen desktop processors,” Intel employee Thomas Hannaford writes on the company’s forum. “Our analysis of returned processors confirms that the elevated operating voltage is stemming from a microcode algorithm resulting in incorrect voltage requests to the processor.”

Alderon Games, the maker of dinosaur MMO Path of Titans, says it's swapping out its Intel 13th and 14th Gen-based servers for AMD and urges others hosting the game’s servers to do the same. The developer has had “significant” instability issues that none of the fixes so far have reversed, wrote Alderon founder Matthew Cassells in a blog post last week.

Cassells wrote that Alderon has recorded “thousands of crashes” on gamers’ CPUs using its crash reporting tools and says the processors can also corrupt SSDs and memory. He added that in his team’s experience, 100 percent of the affected CPUs “deteriorate over time, eventually failing.” On the contrary, Unreal Engine decompression tool maker RAD Game Tools, which Cassells cites in the blog, says that “only a small fraction” of the processors are affected.

For months, Intel’s highest-end desktop gaming processors have had a strange tendency to occasionally make games crash — and despite what you might have seen earlier today, Intel says it doesn’t have a final fix for its 13th and 14th Gen Intel Core i9 “Raptor Lake” and “Raptor Lake S” chips just yet.

“Contrary to recent media reports, Intel has not confirmed root cause and is continuing, with its partners, to investigate user reports regarding instability issues on unlocked Intel Core 13th and 14th generation (K/KF/KS) desktop processors,” reads a statement via Intel spokesperson Thomas Hannaford.

Recently, motherboard makers have issued BIOS updates to improve the stability of Intel 13th and 14th Gen i9 chips in crashing games. But Intel, which announced last month that it was investigating these issues, is now asking gamers not to implement those settings.

The companies now seem to be at odds on how to adjust your CPU. Motherboard makers like Asus are recommending an “Intel Baseline Profile” with “basic functionality” and “lower power limits,” while Intel says you should go with a higher power profile depending on your motherboard and chip.