Intel's Biggest Failure in Years: Confirmed Oxidation & Excessive Voltage

Intel has finally published a statement about the instability of its Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs in the 13th & 14th Gen families of CPUs. The Intel 14900K, 13900K, and their alternative CPUs in the same generations now have a confirmed set of issues. Intel has formally acknowledged in a reddit post that its 13 Series CPUs had oxidation issues during at least one point of manufacturing history. It did not adequately define a date range. Intel also confirmed that it has excessive voltage issues on 13th & 14th Gen CPUs alike. The company has failed to adequately reinforce its support "commitments" for customers and has failed to give date ranges or serial numbers to help consumers identify if they are affected. Intel hasn't stated to what extent different CPUs are affected. To our understanding, K-SKUs are hit the hardest.

Intel is putting together a microcode patch to allegedly resolve the excess voltage issue. We are not yet sure if it will impact performance. The patch will be out in August, at which point we will re-evaluate the CPUs. The oxidation issue was, according to Intel, resolved at some undefined time period within the 365-day span that is 2023.



TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Intel Admits Oxidation & Voltage Issues
03:52 - Intel's Statement
06:38 - What Intel Needs to Do
09:56 - Oxidation Also a Problem
13:35 - Public Pressure from Partners
19:44 - What YOU Should Do & FAQ

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Steve Burke: Host, Writing
Vitalii Makhnovets: Video Editing

[Nolman]

Intel trying to avoid the most expensive CPU recall since CPU’s were invented

[BReal-EC]

Let me get this straight. They discovered a FAB level problem that caused VIA oxidation and just sold all the CPUs like they were normal and also refused RMAs when the CPUs later had issues? That should be a smoking gun for SERIOUS liability.

[prerecordedresponse]

Oof. 50% failure rate?

Imagine if literally anything else you bought had a 50/50 chance of self destructing out of the box.

[Nick--_]

The cuts to "Thanks Steve" still crack me up.

[jimster]

"winning the silicon lottery" has taken on a whole new meaning

[DaXss]

Intel is doing incredible marketing for the 9800X3D

[green_cafe]

I can fully see them denying RMA's in the future because the user failed to update the microcode and the CPU became degraded.

[supertrix]

Unreal Engine supervisor at ModelFarm blasts 50% failure rate with Intel chips — he just went public with this couple days ago as well

[overdosegaming]

When was the oxidisation issue identified? How long did it take to fix it? What CPUs were shipped with the oxidisation problem? When in 2023 was it fixed? There are 365.25 days in a year, Intel, get a grip and stop taking your customers for fools!! Thanks Steve, great work as usual.

[stuarth]

If Intel knew about the oxidisation problem in 2023, they should have announced it in 2023. There's no excuse and they need to fix their mess.

[Pwnopolis]

Happiness is spending 700+ on a cpu that was sold to me knowing it was defective.

They owe me some money...

[osirisgolad]

Major companies have been getting away with these wishy-washy statements and actions for too long. Thanks to people like you(and your team), we're finally starting to get some pushback on the dystopian doublespeak. Bull shit is bull shit and should be pointed out to be such in no uncertain terms.

[Mightydoggo]

This isn´t silicon lottery anymore, this is the silicon hunger games.

[qoke]

"No stability issues are related to the oxidation, but also, we know that some stability issues are oxidation related"
Also, "please move along citizen", this is a historical issue and we'd like it to stay that way for the sake of our share price and the FTC

[EFlop]

This end of year shirt "Disappointment Tour" is gonna be legendary.

[kylehawkins]

This makes so much sense. I struggled with a PC that just kept crashing while playing just mildly graphically demanding games. All my troubleshooting kept coming back to two things: 1) power issues and 2) unknown GPU issues. Replaced both GPU and PSU. Continued having problems. Countless hours spent troubleshooting and even money taking it to a professional tech repair shop and still no fixes. Finally just rebuilt everything, new mobo, AMD CPU. Haven’t had ANY issues since getting rid of the Intel CPU.

[autumnjeserich]

On a platform that's becoming mostly sponsored content that prints out ad revenue, it makes channels like GN stand out. It's so refreshing to hear someone on the platform actually value integrity over sponsorship dollars. Please don't ever change

[canenver]

INTEL: "AMD is in our rearview mirror."
GN STEVE: "That's because you're going the wrong way!"
INTEL: "Thanks Steve!"

[Falconpeep]

Jail, this deserves jail-time. Everyone on the board including CEO & CFO.

[UniversalCypher]

1980: my parents buy a microwave that lasts 23 years before they finally replaced it, and it still worked when they got rid of it.

2024: as the years go buy products are made worse and worse.