The chip giant is about to face a class action lawsuit for the racking up of instability problems arising due to faulty Intel 13th & 14th Gen CPUs.
It looks like Intel will have a hard time getting away with such a serious problem with its faulty processors that have led to major outrage among its customers. The racking up of instability issues caused by Intel's 13th & 14th Gen CPUs has escalated to the point that is now being dealt with by Abington Cole + Ellery law firm, which specializes in class actions and intellectual property. The post explains the issue in brief also acknowledging the latest development in the story that revolves around the 65W CPUs.
If the lawsuit gets filed against Intel, it may result in the company to pay compensation to the affected customers. A lawyer also posted on Reddit stating that Intel is not granting RMAs to all the customers. Some users have stated that Intel has now started processing RMAs and all it requires is sending a photo of the affected CPU to get a new one as a replacement. If Intel works according to its pledge, it could mean a long and hefty RMA process that affects hundreds of thousands if not millions of such chips.
The problem escalated to such a point due to the company's negligence even though the problem has persisted for over one year. The affected processors have resulted in crashes and freezes in games and programs, forcing even game developers to consider AMD-based systems. Last week we saw Alderon Games implementing an in-game warning window to notify users about the cause of the crashes.
There have been cases of a 100% failure rate with Intel's high-end Raptor Lake and its Refresh chips that have led many users to switch to AMD platforms, especially when Intel did not process the RMA to all the impacted users, but has recently pledged to do so. We have already created a complete timeline that lists all the developments in the story since the first time the issue appeared and looks like the new lawsuit might have a significant impact on it.
[Dec 2022] The first instances of "Out of Video Memory" issues on 13th Gen Core i9 CPUs were reported back in 2022. (Source: Reddit). This is a few months after the release of Intel's 13th Gen CPUs & RTX 40 GPUs.
[Throughout 2023] Several users have started reporting game crashes and issues in high-profile AAA titles such as Callisto Protocol and Hogwarts Legacy (among many others). Both tiles are based on Unreal Engine (released in 2023) and feature a shader compilation process at the start. There are currently thousands of such issues reported on Steam Community Forums and Reddit.
[February 2024] A post by Sebastian Castellanos brings the issue to the limelight, highlighting the "worrying trend" of stability issues affecting 14th and 13th-gen CPUs.
[February 2024] Our editor along with various other tech outlets start reporting the issue and bringing the matter on to the mainstream media. Quickly, it is pointed out that underclocking and undervolting the chips can result in better stability.
[April 2024] NVIDIA Issued a formal statement that the stability issues are not related to its GPUs but rather Intel CPUs.
[April 2024] Intel announces its investigation of the reports of instability issues affecting 13th and 14th Gen CPUs.
[April 2024] Motherboard makers quickly roll out "Baseline" power profiles in new BIOS, which lower power limits on high-end 14th & 13th Gen CPUs but also lead to significant performance drops.
[May 2024] Intel releases a statement, recommending motherboard makers to ship "Intel Default Settings" in BIOS by default rather than customized settings.
[June 2024] Intel discovers a bug within its eTVB microcode while investigating the root cause of 14th and 13th Gen Instability issues. This doesn't fix the instability problems. Board makers quickly roll out BIOS with a new microcode fix.
[July 2024] Intel denies an RMA to HardwareTimes editor who already RMA'd at least two CPUs which produced instability issues.
[July 2024] Wendell from Level1Techs & Steve Burke from GamersNexus are the first big tech media outlets on YouTube to further highlight the instability issues, diving into additional details such as OEM frustration with the matter and a possible recall.
[July 2024] GamersNexus highlights a potential "oxidation" defect being a problem with a certain batch of Intel 14th & 13th Gen CPUs that might lead to instability problems.
[July 2024] Intel says the 14th & 13th Gen Mobile CPUs are not affected by the same instability issues as the desktop CPUs.
[July 2024] Intel issues a statement confirming that they have found the root cause of the instability issues which happen to be elevated operating voltages and will be issuing a new microcode fix to its partners by mid of August
[July 2024] Intel confirmed that oxidation issues existed in a previous batch and that there's no solution for CPUs that are already degraded.
[August 2024] Law firm initiates a possible class action lawsuit against Intel CPUs facing instability issues.
To Be Continued...
Intel has promised to deliver the microcode patch in mid-August to fix the elevated voltage problem but it does not guarantee a fix to the root cause. Still, the company has to try to fix the problem before it's too late because it may impact the sales of next-gen Arrow Lake desktop processors heavily.
News Source: abingtonlaw
