Intel Confirms 13th Gen and 14 Gen Core Voltage Issues Fixed with 0x12B Microcode

[btarunr]

Intel 13th Gen and 14th Gen Core processor models based on the 8P+16E "Raptor Lake" silicon are prone to an infamous bug that caused their performance and stability to irreversibly degrade over time due to excessive voltage. This was isolated to a faulty microcode. Intel responded to this by extending the warranty of affected processor models, and releasing a slew of CPU microcode updates encapsulated into motherboard UEFI firmware updates, through PC OEMs and motherboard vendors, with the latest such microcode update being 0x12B. There's good news—Intel extensively tested affected processor models and confirmed that the 0x12B microcode fixes this issue. It is crucial that you update your motherboard BIOS (UEFI firmware) to the latest version, which contains this microcode.

The Verge recently interviewed Intel spokesperson Thomas Hannaford on this topic, who stated that the company had identified four scenarios causing processors to irreversibly degrade, and had recommended mitigations to stable processors before the degradation set in, with the latest microcode update fixing all outstanding scenarios. If a processor is unstable (i.e. degradation has set in), the firmware update is of no use, and you should just get the processor replaced under warranty. Intel extended the warranty to cover even the very first purchases of affected processor models. "Yes, we're confirming this is the cause and that it is fixed," Intel spokesperson Thomas Hannaford tells The Verge.



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[TumbleGeorge]

Too late. Reputation damages released.

 

[Guwapo77]

I'm sorry, but I don't believe Intel at all.

 

[N/A]

I'm sorry, but I don't believe Intel at all.

Intel doesn't believe in electromigration or is high on unrealistic expectations. Vmin shifts at 1.55V perfectly fine. only slower.

 

[HBSound]

Nothing is perfect: an excellent way to respond!

 

[Klemc]

Well but anyway, they have a good arg to push everybody to upgrade to next gen ASAP, bc CPUY/GPU do AI now (next).

 

[Dave65]

I don't understand most youtubers and customers seem to let Intel off the hook. Had this been AMD war would have been declared.

 

[Dirt Chip]

How can I tall if my CPU was degraded?
CB23 at first day vs now?

 

[Daven]

How can I tall if my CPU was degraded?
CB23 at first day vs now?

I think all you can do is get away from 13 and 14 gen Intel CPUs as fast as possible.

 

[AusWolf]

I thought it's already been fixed.

 

[Ayhamb99]

Too late. Reputation damages released.

This. They had the perfect opportunity to turn it around with a proper recall/return program, but with how slow they were and how they tried to deflect blame and refused to issue a recall was just pure Scumbag Behaviour. Going to take a while to regain trust and now unfortunately Arrow Lake is going to have to have a near perfect launch with no major launch bugs to show proper reliability.

I don't understand most youtubers and customers seem to let Intel off the hook. Had this been AMD war would have been declared.

False, there was literally an uproar everywhere from what I remember when the story broke with most tech youtubers stating and shouting out loud to avoid Intel at all costs for their scummy behaviour.

 

[_roman_]

People will still buy intel products. I love the phrase "irreversibly degrade over time due to excessive voltage".

So who wins the race for the crappiest mainboard with crappiest central processing unit. People should go more public with issues with their mainboards, cpu, psu and gpus.

 

[Dirt Chip]

I think all you can do is get away from 13 and 14 gen Intel CPUs as fast as possible.

I have one 13900k as my spec show, just wondering how you can identify depredation as long as everything works fine.

 

[Zazigalka]

Yes, we're confirming this is the cause and that it is fixed

 

[evernessince]

"Fixed" in quotes. We shouldn't see any more rapid degradation but as to long term degradation and existing degradation already caused, the former is up in the air and the later is guaranteed not fixed.

Level1Tech does a great video on the post-patch world (including a tidbit about how ASUS unsurprising was partly responsible for borking some CPUs with their voltages as well):

 

[Ayhamb99]

I have one 13900k as my spec show, just wondering how you can identify depredation as long as everything works fine.

Have you tried putting your CPU under a long stress test for an hour like through OCCT or Intel's own Burn Test? If you haven't, i would suggest do that and signs of degradation would be random crashes, blue screens or erratic temperature behaviour, so like sudden temp spikes.

Make sure to turn off XMP as well, the goal here is to see if the CPU itself is stable and turning off XMP removes the chances of crashes happening due to an unstable RAM Clockspeed.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

Better than 50 ageesa updates i guess, but yeah maybe the damage to rep is already done. It all hinges on arrow lake i guess, so we'll see if it's the bomb or a damp squib(not squid)

 

[arestavo]

And those 13th and 14th gen laptops that had degradation similar to the desktop parts?

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Intel doesn't believe in electromigration or is high on unrealistic expectations. Vmin shifts at 1.55V perfectly fine. only slower.

Ah yes some of the best engineers in the world of VLSI don't believe in electromigration, even though that is one of the main signoff tasks in any chip design. You couldn't avoid accounting for it if you wanted too as EDA tools take it into account throughout the flow.

Also in all of this is pretty clear on forums how little people seem to understand how disconnected firmware engineers can be from the hardware teams. A lot of details can fall through the cracks, and that seems to be what happened with 13th and 14th gen chips. Or Firmware teams do things against the wishes of the hardware teams for various reasons. Happens all the time. More so than any potential issue in the fabrication processes.

 

[Hecate91]

Intel claims its fixed for the third time now? I don't trust them at all, and even if this fixes the short term degradation who knows if this a long term fix for 13th/14th gen already potentially affected with no way of knowing until the chips start to become unstable.

 

[RogueSix]

I have one 13900k as my spec show, just wondering how you can identify depredation as long as everything works fine.

You can't. CPUs do not have a health meter like e.g. storage devices. That does not change the fact that any damage done by excessive voltages is irreversible. The big question for ALL of us 13th and 14th gen owners is: How much damage was done? You can count yourself "lucky" if your CPU has never shown any symptoms.

Personally, my 13900K is from late 2022. I started having issues with nVidia driver installations in early 2024. It came totally out of the blue. I always do a manual slim install of the nVidia drivers, i.e. I extract the *.exe via 7zip and then clean up (delete) the install folders manually before running the setup.exe.

I originally suspected a new internal folder structure or some change on nVidia's side when I first encountered the nondescript "nVidia installer failed" error message. It was a weird error as it happened at totally random points during the setup. Sometimes on the initial compatibility check and sometimes when removing the old driver (I always clean install) or when installing the new driver.
It also had a slightly sporadic nature. I remember at least one driver package since early 2024 that I was able to install with zero errors.
Being persistent and trying the setup over and over again allowed to me install the driver in the end. When the "nVidia installer failed" error message occurred, it usually took several tries (sometimes up to a dozen or so) until the setup finally went through.

That was the only issue I've had with my system. I had no instabilities with the games I played and I'm sure I played a lot of Steam Next Fest UE5 demos at least but never had a problem.
It was only when the news of 13th/14th gen CPU issues popped up that I started being suspicious about a possible correlation but how and why would a CPU fault have any effect on the gfx drivers? Weird, right?

As it turns out, I am now nearly 100% sure that there is a causal relation between the issues. Ever since the microcode fix in August, I have been able to install all three new nVidia driver packages (560.94/561.09/565.90) since then with zero errors.

However, this is another oddity, right? If the damage done by the excessive voltages is irreversible then why does a microcode fix help with my issue? The only plausible explanation I have is that it somehow (Intel "magic" ) helps in working around the degradation damage. However that may be possible... my feeble mind does not understand that.

BTW, I have also had intermittent stability issues with a single game in the meantime and that was Skull & Bones which crashed every few hours but that might as well have been the game. I don't know. It is hard/impossible to track down as the game has received a patch, new nVidia drivers and Intel microcode updates... which one fixed the crashes for me, I do not know.

That is generally the "mean" and annoying part here. You never know if any issue or instability may be caused by your degraded CPU or if the root cause is of another "normal" nature.

As an additional level of complexity, my CPU is old enough to be potentially affected by the separate oxidation issue which supposedly happened only to some early batches of the 13th gen CPUs. I bought my CPU in December 2022 from a German online retailer. It might very well be from an early production run. Who knows? Intel has unfortunately never released any batch numbers or else those of us with early 13th gen CPUs could check our boxes for the batch numbers.

So... the whole situation is definitely kind of... unsatisfying, to say the least. What to do? My 13900K is now working normally again because the microcode updates fixed the driver installation issue for me for some mysterious reason only Intel would know. It probably has suffered from massive degradation, however. Will/would Intel deny a RMA? Do they really test the CPUs they receive back or do they just send people a new one (I would assume only minimal functional testing as everything else would be way too time consuming and thus costly)?

I do not really want to buy a new Intel system, but thanks to the crappy X870E platform, AMD has left me no choice. I will buy an Arrow Lake setup before too long and then decide what to do about the 13900K. I'm torn between eBaying it "as is" with the original receipt and disclaimers or try to RMA it myself and then eBay the replacement CPU or... trash it and forget about it(?). We'll see...

 

[PassportBro]

Do you believe them (Intel)? I don't.

 

[rv8000]

Is it though?

All of this was horribly handled by Intel, the damage is done.

 

[kawice]

Too late. Reputation damages released.

Looks like intel is making PR move, just before 16th gen release in next two weeks.

12th gen - broken ethernet in chipset
13th gen - cpu voltage degradation
14th gen - cpu voltage degradation

15th gen - canceled - too slow, and possible hw bugs?
16th gen - all good, intel promises, you should all buy it.

 

[Ayhamb99]

Will/would Intel deny a RMA? Do they really test the CPUs they receive back or do they just send people a new one (I would assume only minimal functional testing as everything else would be way too time consuming and thus costly)?.

If your CPU has obvious signs of degradation, Intel is obliged to honour the RMA if you send it, better to try it sooner than later instead of delaying tbh.

The question is if they try to B.S their way out, are you willing to take the time to fight them to get them to honour it, but honestly reading your post it is most likely that your CPU degraded and I havne't heard a story of someone getting their RMA denied related to degradation, so why not try to RMA?