Intel denies reports that it identified a root cause for Core i9 crashing issues — investigation continues

Intel
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Intel has confirmed to Tom's Hardware that reports it has solved the root cause of the Core i9 crashing issues are false. Intel's statement is counter to German publication Igor's Lab, which reported earlier today that Intel had discovered the root of the problems affecting the stability of 13th Raptor Lake and 14th Generation Raptor Lake Refresh Core i9 processors, spawning a wave of reporting that claimed a fix would arrive via a firmware patch.

"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," Intel said in a statement sent to Tom's Hardware. "The microcode patch referenced in press reports fixes an eTVB bug discovered by Intel while investigating the instability reports. While this issue is potentially contributing to instability, it is not the root cause.”

Igor's Lab claimed to have obtained an internal document, reportedly under NDA, highlighting the instability's underlying cause was "an incorrect value in microcode algorithm associated with the eTVB feature." If you're unfamiliar with eTVB (enhanced Thermal Velocity Boost), it's a feature that resourcefully overclocks the processor's cores above the maximum turbo frequency when certain conditions are met. eTVB only kicks in when there is enough thermal and power headroom.

eTVB technology is an exclusive feature for Intel's Raptor Lake chips, specifically the Core i9 SKUs. eTVB is a great asset for Core i9 processors since it gives them a burst of performance in games and applications that prize high clock speeds.

According to the purported failure analysis report cited by Igor, Intel detected a displacement in the minimum operating voltage on the Core i9 parts due to exposure to elevated core voltages.

It appears that Intel can remedy this specific issue with a firmware update. However, the root cause of the instability issues has still not been identified.

Intel had previously noted that motherboard vendors needed to enable the required safety features instead of tuning their firmware for maximum performance and making processors run outside their specifications. This action forced manufacturers to release updated firmware with Intel Baseline Profiles that ensure all of the chips' safety mechanisms are enabled. 

Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • helper800
    Whatever the issue is, I hope they find it soon, and I hope the solution does not lower performance.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Given how Intel updated the guidance to be pretty adament about not exceeding 400A it still seems likely to me to be something with the voltage curves. It does make sense that TVB would not be the issue (or at least sole) as people were reporting similar issues with the 14700K and to a lesser extent 13700K.
    Reply
  • Fleshharrower
    After 6 months of this crashing, I had hoped the BIOS updates from the motherboard manufactures would fix this but it didn't as I was still crashing on my 13900K and RTX 4090. Even if I set my ram spd to 5600 instead of the XMP value of 6000, it would crash. Then I limited the max clock to 5.2 GHz and it would still crash. Since I primarily game on my PC this was a big issue, it would crash when playing games but not when doing anything else.

    The good news is that I finally solved the problem - I'm now running an AMD 7800X3D CPU (still using my RTX 4090) which may upset some people, certainly upset me since I've been team blue forever. However - I now have a rock solid system that runs my games and everything else I need without an issue. Frankly, Intel would have to go pretty far to convince me to ever come back after this debacle.
    Reply
  • Medievaldragon
    The ASUS BIOS update with the Intel Base Settings still crashes. Firefox, Chrome, and video games crash often randomly.

    NVIDIA drivers have failed to install for months. Sometimes updating via device manager worked, but not always.

    Windows 11 Windows Update failed to install very often, and usually would self-install successfully 3-weeks later, while I was sleeping.

    After 2-days of troubleshooting within the BIOS, and lots of save and reboot, only one thing has worked: I turned off the Intel Max Boost Technology 3.0.

    I lost some Ghz, but the crashes ended. The first time I am 2 weeks straight without crashes.

    NVIDIA drivers have updated successfully twice so far.

    Windows 11's Windows Update started to work correctly since.
    Reply
  • TheHerald
    thestryker said:
    Given how Intel updated the guidance to be pretty adament about not exceeding 400A it still seems likely to me to be something with the voltage curves. It does make sense that TVB would not be the issue (or at least sole) as people were reporting similar issues with the 14700K and to a lesser extent 13700K.
    400A is an extremely high amount and I don't think anyone can ever actually hit that number. My 12900k running CBR23 is at 156A / 1.15v.

    People have been crashing on every CPU possible for a myriad of reasons, doesn't mean it's connected to the issue at hand.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Intel had previously noted that motherboard vendors needed to enable the required safety features instead of tuning their firmware for maximum performance and making processors run outside their specifications. This action forced manufacturers to release updated firmware with Intel Baseline Profiles that ensure all of the chips' safety mechanisms are enabled.
    I'm still hoping we get some benchmarks of this Baseline Profile, Toms.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Medievaldragon said:
    only one thing has worked: I turned off the Intel Max Boost Technology 3.0.
    Seems like a pity to lose that, but it's obviously better than a machine which crashes all the time.
    "Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 is an enhanced version of 2.0 that boosts the speed of a CPU’s fastest cores individually, while also directing critical workloads to those boosted cores. It can increase single-threaded performance up to 15%"

    https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gaming/resources/turbo-boost.html
    Reply
  • bit_user
    TheHerald said:
    400A is an extremely high amount and I don't think anyone can ever actually hit that number. My 12900k running CBR23 is at 156A / 1.15v.
    I'm sure it's for PL4, which are just like transient spikes you probably wouldn't see unless you sampled at least around a couple hundred Hz (and assuming no smoothing is happening in between).
    Reply
  • TheHerald
    bit_user said:
    I'm sure it's for PL4, which are just like transient spikes you probably wouldn't see unless you sampled at least around a couple hundred Hz (and assuming no smoothing is happening in between).
    Maybe, still seems excessive even for spikes, considering the mobo VRMs should handle those. Nowadays even el cheapo z boards have overkill VRMs.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    TheHerald said:
    400A is an extremely high amount and I don't think anyone can ever actually hit that number. My 12900k running CBR23 is at 156A / 1.15v.
    180W TDP limit is not how people that have crashing issues are running their CPUs.
    400A with 0.85V would be 340W which is why we have crashings, volts just go too low.
    Reply