alt Hacker NewsAlso worth reading this thread on the subject: https://mas.to/@gabrielesvelto/116630047156991279
Regarding the Raptor Lake bug I received a couple of messages from confused users that had read articles on Tomshardware and Neowin. They asked about erratas and microcode updates which puzzled me, because that was part of my early investigation into the bug and we know that the failure is not caused by a known errata and microcode updates cannot fix broken CPUs. So why did they ask? As it turns out it was slop. Both articles are 100% slop full of confusing and inaccurate claims.
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Sorry it's still not clear what he means? When a CPU is "broken", is it already failing or is it "broken" in the sense it will fail?
For example:
Does he mean all existing 13th/14th gen CPUs (prior to Intel's discovery of the vmin issue) are broken in the sense that they are susceptible to damage and can only be replaced.
OR
Does he mean that the microcode updates, applied by Intel to existing CPUs that are susceptible to damage, will only slow degradation and the CPUs will eventually fail and can only be replaced.
OR
Is he saying the 13th/14th gen CPUs which have already sustained damage, cannot be fixed by microcode updates.
Because it's a known problem. It's called Vmin Shift Instability issues. The affected CPUs are broken. One needs to RMA the CPUs. Intel also extended CPU warranty for 2 more years.
Because there still are many broken CPUs out in the wild. Firefox works around the crash so the broken CPUs won't flood the channel with crash reports.