Got a PC with a 13th or 14th gen Intel Core CPU? You need to read this

Modern processors are incredibly complex, and even a tiny flaw during manufacturing can have serious and widespread repercussions. This seems to be the case with 13th and 14th Gen Intel Core desktop processors, where a manufacturing issue has resulted in users experiencing widespread instability.

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The good news is that Intel has prepared a fix that should be ready later this month. The bad news is that processors may have already suffered permanent damage.

The cause of this issue has been traced back to erroneous CPU microcode (this is the firmware that runs on the processor, controlling low-level operations), causing the chip to ask for more power than it needed and pushing the processor outside of its safe operating envelope. This issue only appears to affect desktop processors, with mobile versions of the 13th and 14th Gen Intel Core processors being unaffected.

Intel has created updated microcode that patches the issue and it expects this to be ready by mid-August. This is good news, but it’s also where things get messy.

First off, this updated microcode has to make its way to affected PCs through BIOS updates from motherboard makers or via Windows updates, so it could be a while before this trickles down to affected users.

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But it gets worse. According to a report by Tom’s Hardware, as soon as a PC starts to crash, the processor has suffered “irreversible degradation,” which means it’s been permanently damaged. No microcode update can fix a damaged processor, and the advice from Intel is that “customers experiencing instability on their 13th or 14th Generation desktop processor-based systems should contact Intel customer support for further assistance.”

Intel isn’t making it easy for customers to know if they are affected either. The company has yet to give 13th and 14th Gen Intel Core users a way to tell if their processor is affected beyond pointing them to a YouTube video by Robeytech that shows how to use the Nvidia GeForce driver package to test for this issue — the rub being that this only works for Nvidia GeForce GPU users, so there’s no universal test to highlight affected processors.

Intel has confirmed that Intel Core 13th and 14th Generation desktop processors with 65W or higher – including K/KF/KS and 65W non-K variants — could be affected, but not all are. The company has said that it is “investigating options to easily identify affected processors on end-user systems,” but there’s no more information or timescale on this.

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But what if your PC isn’t crashing, and you want to prevent it from being damaged? The advice from Intel is as follows: “Intel recommends that users adhere to Intel Default Settings on their desktop processors, along with ensuring their BIOS is up to date. Once the microcode patch is released to Intel partners, we advise users to check for the relevant BIOS updates.”

As to whether Intel will issue a recall, the company gave TheVerge a single-word answer: “no.”