Owners of 13th/14th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs - Media Reports of serious stability issues

[FlyingScot]

This information is being offered with the intention of keeping owners of these CPUs informed, i.e. knowledge is power. Perhaps if enough people become aware of this situation (and the information provided is indeed accurate) then maybe Intel will offer affected users alternative remedies other than the usual warranty replacement process.

Owners of 13th/14th gen i9’s are reporting what looks like rapid degradation over a period of months that leads to sudden instability. Users are then forced to increase voltage and/or drop boost frequencies to stabilize their systems. In some cases, this problem resurfaces and requires the same approach to be repeated. Another major cause of concern raised in the video, and in user comments, is the stability of the Integrated Memory Control (IMC) and the relationship to DDR5 frequencies above 4200. Random instability due to IMC issues, and perhaps degradation of the IMC, cannot be ruled out. This is clearly a story that is still developing. Owners of i9 CPUs, and indeed all Raptor Lake CPUs, should stay tuned. Follow up videos on this story are promised by Steve at Gamers Nexus.

What’s most alarming about this situation is the fact that even users who took every preventative safety measure, i.e. not overclocking, low PL1/PL2, good cooling, even undervolting, etc., are still reporting instability after just a few months of usage, presumably from what could be degradation. And, judging from user comments, these issues may not just be limited to the i9's.

I do not own one of these chips, but I have been following this story with great interest.

UPDATE 1: For folks who want a quick way to see where things stand at the moment, I suggest you start reading this thread from here. In the first post by forum member, CiTay, you will find several relevant links of importance. I will endeavour to keep adding to this shortcut list as events develop.

UPDATE 2: By now, many of you will be aware that Intel and the motherboard manufacturers have collaborated to release new BIOS code to address the Raptor Lake instability and degradation issues. Should you choose to update to the latest BIOS (with microcode 0x129) and then experience thermal and/or performance issues, you may find this new guide helpful in addressing those concerns.

UPDATE 3: [Sep 26, 2024] Intel and the motherboard manufacturers have collaborated to release new BIOS code (0x12B) to address the Raptor Lake instability and degradation issues. For more information, jump to the following post in this thread.

ADDITION 1: Don't forget to stop by our very own online Raptor Lake Survey, where you can see how others have configured their Raptor Lake systems to balance performance and stability, and to reduce the risk of degradation. You can check it out here.

UPDATE 4: [May 1, 2025]: Intel releases 0x12F microcode, which includes a fix for voltage management issues for PCs that are left powered on for days on end, with long periods of idle. See more information here.

 

[MigraineFilms]

CB R23 scores: ~36K with HT off, ~41K with HT on.

Wow, thats an amazing score tbh, I have hyperthreading on and get 37k, thats at stock speeds though.

I also realised that in my bios, the AC/DC load line settings were never equal, no matter which mode or intel recommended setting I tried. I manually set them to 80/80 and my pc is about 12 degrees cooler when idle, and 5 degrees when under load.

Still had one core thermally throttle though, but I guess thats normal with so many cores being used

Also, I notice these settings are outside of my comfort zone, I don't really know what AC/DC does (ha) and that makes me uncomfortable. I saw 80/80 in various official MSI documents and intel recommended setting them at the same numbers, so I did.

 

[Arctucas]

Sorry, should have mentioned that is at 5900MHz.

 

[FlyingScot]

What’s very frustrating about this whole affair is that it’s still hard to find a common mix of BIOS settings and BIOS releases that work every time. Some CPUs/configurations appear to do better on the older BIOSes, others do better with the 0x125, and likely upcoming 0x126. Some CPUs/configurations work best with CEP Enabled while others need it Disabled to function correctly. Poor CiTay is busier than “a one legged man at a butt kicking contest” trying to help Raptor Lake owners one at a time. While he’s doing that, I thought I would go looking for anything that could speed up the process. But just when I think I see something, someone presents another edge condition.

I’m currently watching the latest BuildZoid video (2hrs) - so you don’t have to! LOL
I‘ll attempt to summarize his findings. He’s using his trusty oscilloscope to compare voltage behavior between 0x123 and 0x125. Unfortunately, he‘s using a Gigabyte motherboard so I’ll have to keep things generalized.

 

[crimson8814f802d4]

Does anyone know if there is way of setting a voltage max limit in the bios? As in, I’m undervolting with liteload, but could I impose a max voltage of, say, 1.35v ?

 

[FlyingScot]

Does anyone know if there is way of setting a voltage max limit in the bios? As in, I’m undervolting with liteload, but could I impose a max voltage of, say, 1.35v ?

I don’t think there is any easy way to do that, even with a K CPU. Unless what Arctucas does would work for you, which is to use both a fixed voltage and an Offset. That’s still a head scratcher, though.

BTW, I‘m halfway through BuildZoid’s video and he does agree with your earlier post. The new 0x125 microcode does bring some benefits over 0x123. More on his observations/conclusions later.

 

[FlyingScot]

Not sure what to think about that. Probably an unexposed setting.

Like I said, I spent weeks trying most every setting and combination of settings, probably reset the BIOS at least a dozen times, actually had a couple of corrupted Windows installs that I needed to restore with a backup.

CB R23 scores: ~36K with HT off, ~41K with HT on.

I just noticed that you say you have deactivated TVB. I think that TVB works the opposite of what you might think. Someone please correct me if I wrong, but I think that if you disable TVB you still get the boosting behavior - but now regardless of temperature. This would drive up your voltage requirements under certain loads. I'm not sure if TVB does anything if you set manual Max Core Ratios via a manual overclock. I'm not sure if you disabled TVB for stability reasons, but it might be better to try and keep it enabled.

EDIT: Ignore my statement above. It’s likely that the above statement is not relevant in the MSI world. There are also several TVB settings, and it’s likely that I got my wires crossed.

EDIT #2: Nope. I think I was correct in the first place. Specifically, if you have an i9, don't disable TVB Clipping or TVB Optimizations. And it might be a good idea to override those BIOS settings to "Enabled." In the past, until this whole Raptor Lake issue, many BIOSes were coded to disabled them be default, which would imply that in some cases the Auto setting = Disabled.

 

[FlyingScot]

For anyone who is interested, I have completed my Buildzoid video notes. They can be found here:

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?threads/buildzoid-analyzes-0x123-versus-0x125-microcode-using-his-oscilloscope.400232/

 

[FlyingScot]

Well, CiTay.... I'm sorry but no vacation for you, buddy! Intel sold over 50 million CPUs in 2023, and who knows how many this year. That leaves you millions of i9 and i7 users left to help...

Intel Will Not Recall Failing 13th and 14th Gen CPUs

It's official, Intel will not issue a recall for its failing 13th and 14th gen CPUs, despite the problem being much bigger than initially thought. The company was approached by The Verge and the answers to the questions asked, are not looking great. First of all, it appears that at least all 65...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[MigraineFilms]

I have some additional information:

I played Alan Wake 2 for several hours, all temps, voltages and wattages being absolutely fine. I Alt-Tabbed to google something and the CPU just spiked, it pulled 1,42 voltage and P-core 7 and the package/ring thermal throttled for a microsecond.

I dont see this as a real issue, as its just a fraction of a second in several hours of use, but it was during a switch between heavy and low load operations of the CPU. If Intel patches the fact that it would otherwise draw 1,55 volt, and fry the CPU before the cooling could do its job, they may squash the result, a dead CPU, but they will not fix the bug.

HWiNFO still says it thermally throttled but does not show any temp above 86 degrees, 77 even for the core that "throttled". Might be a refresh-thingy

 

[FlyingScot]

I have some additional information:

I played Alan Wake 2 for several hours, all temps, voltages and wattages being absolutely fine. I Alt-Tabbed to google something and the CPU just spiked, it pulled 1,42 voltage and P-core 7 and the package/ring thermal throttled for a microsecond.

I dont see this as a real issue, as its just a fraction of a second in several hours of use, but it was during a switch between heavy and low load operations of the CPU. If Intel patches the fact that it would otherwise draw 1,55 volt, and fry the CPU before the cooling could do its job, they may squash the result, a dead CPU, but they will not fix the bug.

HWiNFO still says it thermally throttled but does not show any temp above 86 degrees, 77 even for the core that "throttled". Might be a refresh-thingy

Many voltage spikes, like when moving the mouse, etc., are perfectly normal for Intel's (and AMD's) CPUs. However, the scale and regularity of these spikes may or maynot be at issue with Raptor Lake. Hopefully, BuildZoid will do another comparison between the 0x125 and the August microcode with his oscilloscope so we can see if the spikes have been improved in either scale or regularity.

 

[MigraineFilms]

Is that small thermal throttle dangerous though? Ive put the max on 95 degrees to be on the safe side, weird that it gets so hot on one p core when alt tabbing, or pressing prnt scrn

 

[FlyingScot]

Is that small thermal throttle dangerous though? Ive put the max on 95 degrees to be on the safe side, weird that it gets so hot on one p core when alt tabbing, or pressing prnt scrn

I agree. It's an open mystery.

 

[MigraineFilms]

These are the settings I ended up with:

LL 11
AC/DC 80/80
PL1 200
PL2 250
AMPS: 308

Undervolt of -0,110

stock speeds, ddr5 6400

Prime95 10 minutes of torture test, never got above 77 degrees, cinebench r23 37000 score.

Only thing that happened during prime95 was that HWiNFO refreshed slowly, but they everytime it did the information was very much equal as before.

 

[FlyingScot]

These are the settings I ended up with:

LL 11
AC/DC 80/80
PL1 200
PL2 250
AMPS: 308

Undervolt of -0,110

stock speeds, ddr5 6400

Prime95 10 minutes of torture test, never got above 77 degrees, cinebench r23 37000 score.

Only thing that happened during prime95 was that HWiNFO refreshed slowly, but they everytime it did the information was very much equal as before.

If you like your new setup, it might be a good time to list your full details in one place (either by editing your above post or by creating a new one). If you don’t mind, include all the most relevant hardware (i.e. CPU, Motherboard, BIOS version, GPU, Memory kit) and the major BIOS settings: Load Line Calibration, Undervolting mode (e.g. Adaptive Offset), CPU Load Line Mode, Power Profile (Water, Box Cooler,,etc.) and anything else you can think of that you changed. Also, confirm that you are using the Windows Balanced Power Plan. Of course, include the details you already listed.

 

[FlyingScot]

Did you notice that having Current Excursion Protection ON or OFF changes the impedance values of the CPU Lite Load modes?
I was experimenting a bit with it and always got a 4-6 C temperature bump once I enabled it, only to check via HwInfo64 the reason for this was there are different values for AC and DC Loadlines set, although I didn't change CPU Lite Load at all in between.

Lite Load Mode 9: CEP Disabled 0.5/0.8 mOhm, Enabled shows 0.8/0.8 mOhm
Lite Load Mode 7: CEP Disabled 0.35/0.8 mOhm, Enabled gets to 0.6/0.6 mOhm

Apart from the voltage, power and heat increase because of this, I also noticed around 3% performance lost in Cinebench R23 when keeping CEP enabled. So for the moment I decided not to.

I also wonder, although I didn't have enough time and curiosity, it seems, how would CEP Enabled vs Disabled behave when the AC/DC Loadlines are dialed in manually, to ensure running with same parameters.

I had overlooked your post. Very interesting observations regarding CEP. It likely suggests that one should only ever consider enabling it if you are undervolting via manual offsets. And, of course, even then it appears to just lull you into thinking that your overly aggressive undervolt is stable when in fact it is not, I.e. because of its clock stretching ability.

 

[khaldi.yas14fa02cd]

I have an i5-13600kf and after hearing about those recent intel processors failure risks I decided to upgrade my bios from version 1.6 to 1.9, sadly after the upgrade I lost my Realtek audio control driver and it appears that's its a common issue, now I downgraded my bios version to 1.6 to get my audio back but I'm still at risk about the intel failure I guess isn't it?

 

[FlyingScot]

I have an i5-13600kf and after hearing about those recent intel processors failure risks I decided to upgrade my bios from version 1.6 to 1.9, sadly after the upgrade I lost my Realtek audio control driver and it appears that's its a common issue, now I downgraded my bios version to 1.6 to get my audio back but I'm still at risk about the intel failure I guess isn't it?

Too many of us have Realtek Audio issues. But then again, getting good and reliable audio out of a PC has been a challenge since PCs were invented. We almost had everything under control and then Windows 7 happened.

 

[citay]

now I downgraded my bios version to 1.6 to get my audio back but I'm still at risk about the intel failure I guess isn't it?

The new Intel microcode which should prevent any further CPU degradation (from the moment its been applied via BIOS update) is projected for mid-August, so basically in 2-3 weeks. No current BIOS update really solves anything yet, the only things they do is try to implement the latest Intel recommendations for certain BIOS settings, and implement the μCode version 0x125 (μ = mikrós / micro, meaning "small" in Greek), that one fixes a bug which may have slightly contributed to the instability issue, but is not the root cause. The root cause seems to be "exposure to elevated voltages", which is tackled in the mid-August microcode update.

Until then, i recommend my new guide: How to set good power limits in the BIOS and reduce the CPU power draw. Because limiting the power draw and reducing the voltages is a smart idea in general, but especially so when elevated voltages seem to be able to deteriorate 13th and 14th gen within a short time span sometimes.

 

[FlyingScot]

And to support what CiTay just said, I submit the following sources of information for anyone who is interested in trying to fully understand the issues surrounding the Raptor Lake CPUs. While some of this information may appear extremely troubling, you should be able to mitigate many of these issues by pursuing a course of action that reduces voltages, power usage and temperature. In doing so, your Raptor Lake CPU might just outlast your needs. Stay tuned for further updates.

MSI Closely Monitoring Intel 14th/13th Gen Stability Issues, To Release Firmware Updates in August

Regarding the recent Intel Core 13th/14th Gen Core desktop processor instability, MSI has worked closely with Intel to understand the situation and is closely monitoring the progress. We will provide the updated BIOS to our customers and users as soon as possible after the new microcode is...

www.techpowerup.com

User comment at above link. “Seems like the problem is due to the single rail intel uses. The P-cores and E-cores are fine at higher voltages but these higher voltages degrade the cache. This seems to align with some testing I posted a couple of weeks ago on 12th gen, anything at or above 1.4v immediately degrades the Ring/cache. Whoever is experiencing issues with 13/14th gen, try downclocking the Ring to 4 ghz and see if it fixes the issues.”

While still in the rumor and speculation phase, it’s worth taking seriously all the reports by people who believe that the elevated voltages (especially above 1.4V) are causing a degradation of the Ring/Cache in Raptor Lake CPUs. Some additional background reading can be found here.

 

[crimson8814f802d4]

@citay, question if I may: why are only some of these CPUs degrading rapidly?

Watching YT videos on this news story (and indeed reading Reddit threads) it looks like every 13th and 14th gen CPU is affected and will have a shorter lifespan than CPUs of past generations. I understand there is a complaint bias here - the majority only post when they're having issues - but is there a chance that only a small percentage of these CPUs will ever display symptoms of degredation before they naturally become obsolete? Even 1% would be hugely problematic for Intel, but I can't help feeling that people with issues are in the minority, no matter how significant.

What do you think?