I already posted yesterday in a news item and briefly commented on what Intel officially published on the night of 22 July 2024 via Reddit as a kind of interim report. However, according to the unanimous opinion of all colleagues and readers, the whole thing is unsatisfactorily short and contains nothing substantial apart from the announcement of another microcode update for mid-August 2024 and also leaves more questions unanswered than it answers. Somewhat later, however, internal communication seems to have got underway, so I would now like to add excerpts from an internal statement for our readers, which Intel, for whatever reason, has not (yet) written publicly.
There is nothing extremely secret or reprehensible in it, but the content also shows a certain perplexity and Intel’s continuing efforts to find a final clarification. And because I want to avoid misinterpreting content and ignoring headlines this time, I have made a little more effort and commented out the relevant passages so as not to create room for too many interpretations, some of them contrary.
This has been written publicly so far…
As a reminder, I will quote the official post on Reddit once again in full. I have deliberately not translated all passages in the German article, including the Reddit post, so that the nuances of the original are not lost. I have highlighted the elements that are important to me in bold, but this highlighting is not part of the original texts, but merely serves to improve understanding.
Intel is delivering a microcode patch which addresses the root cause of exposure to elevated voltages. We are continuing validation to ensure that scenarios of instability reported to Intel regarding its Core 13th/14th Gen desktop processors are addressed.Intel is currently targeting mid-August for patch release to partners following full validation.
Intel is committed to making this right with our customers, and we continue asking any customers currently experiencing instability issues on their Intel Core 13th/14th Gen desktop processors reach out to Intel Customer Support for further assistance.
The rumour about possible oxidation was also subsequently picked up on Reddit and ruled out as the cause:
For the Instability issue, we are delivering a microcode patch which addresses exposure to elevated voltages which is a key element of the Instability issue. We are currently validating the microcode patch to ensure the instability issues for 13th/14th Gen are addressed.
LexHoyos42 (Reddit via community.intel)
… and this unfortunately not
Now let’s move on to what we unfortunately haven’t been able to read yet. The so-called “Problem Statement” briefly summarizes the situation, according to which it mainly refers to feedback from end users on board hardware and the Core i7 and i9 processors of Raptor Lake S and the refresh, but excludes the server area, embedded and mobile systems such as notebooks. This is also nothing new at first, but we are no longer talking explicitly only about K models, as was the case with the eTVB bug, but the entire lineup above the Core i5. There is nothing about these in the internal report, although the Core i5 (apart from the K model) are still based on the Alder Lake S (C0), which is not affected anyway.
– Reports to date have come primarily from end user enthusiast/gaming systems with commercial ODM motherboards, and OEM workstations.
––Intel—
This is all still relatively unexciting until the so-called “debug status”. Intel is said to have analyzed processors sent in from RMA cases and measured a significant increase in Vmin, i.e. the lower limit of the operating voltages. Intel also writes interesting details about the cumulative and accumulating effects that ultimately lead to a much too high Vmin. However, this briefly described analysis by Intel also shows that the maximum voltage requested by the processor must definitely be reduced in order to reduce or eliminate the cumulative exposure to voltages that can lead to an increase in Vmin.
So that’s confirmed so far, but they will continue the investigation to fully understand the root cause (again, Intel refers to this as a kind of “root cause”, but not THE root cause) and also address other potential aspects of this problem. Again, I can’t really find anything that couldn’t have been shared with the public on Reddit. Except for the fact that they have found symptoms but are still looking for root causes. Of course, the full description would have been better, but in view of the Ryzen launch next week, the short version that has now been brought forward is at least somewhat comprehensible.
– This increase is similar in outcome to parts subjected to elevated voltage and temperature conditions for reliability testing.
– Factors contributing to this Vmin increase include elevated voltage, high frequency, and elevated temperature.
– Even under idle conditions at relatively cool temperatures, sporadic elevated voltages are observed when the processor is resumed from low power states in order to service background operations before entering a low power state again.
– At a sufficiently high voltage, these short-duration events can accumulate over time, contributing to the increase in Vmin.
– Intel analysis indicates a need to reduce the maximum voltage requested by the processor in order to reduce or eliminate accumulated exposure to voltages which may result in an increase to Vmin.
– While Intel has confirmed elevated voltages impact the increase in Vmin, investigation continues in order to fully understand root cause and address other potential aspects of this issue.
––Intel—
However, solutions should also be found, even if it is only a preventive measure or a kind of workaround. Or a complete replacement. The conclusions are also quite remarkable, because the microcode to be provided in August for the official (NDA) board partners (which is then to be distributed via the respective UEFI of the mainboard manufacturers) only addresses the problem with the minimum operating voltage Vmin. This also includes a VID limit of 1.55 volts as a possible solution, which must not be overridden by any automatic mechanism.
In addition, a small number of benchmarks are said to have measured minimal performance losses and the timing of the responsible microcode to the time after the Ryzen launch also has a slight aftertaste here. Or it is simply due to the time that still needs to be taken. But it is again emphasized that further investigations are necessary to ensure that all possible circumstances have been covered. Intel also explains that this microcode update may not fix all systems that show the known symptoms. In this case, the SKU should be replaced via an RMA process.
– Early testing by Intel on a small number of benchmarks indicates minimal performance impact due to this microcode change.
– While this microcode update addresses the elevated voltage aspect of this issue, further analysis is required to understand if this proposed mitigation addresses all scenarios.
– This microcode update, once validated and released, may not address existing systems in the field with instability symptoms.
– Systems which continue to exhibit symptoms associated with this issue should have the processor returned to Intel for RMA.
––Intel—
Once again: There is actually nothing in it that could not have been written, except perhaps the fact that they are still not sure where the cause lies, but they are certain of it.
Source: own (Intel)
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