[acrispino]

An Intel employee is posting on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/1e9mf04/intel_core_1...

A recent YouTube video by GamersNexus speculated the cause of instability might be a manufacturing issue. The employee's response follows.

Questions about manufacturing or Via Oxidation as reported by Tech outlets:

Short answer: We can confirm there was a via Oxidation manufacturing issue (addressed back in 2023) but it is not related to the instability issue.

Long answer: We can confirm that the via Oxidation manufacturing issue affected some early Intel Core 13th Gen desktop processors. However, the issue was root caused and addressed with manufacturing improvements and screens in 2023. We have also looked at it from the instability reports on Intel Core 13th Gen desktop processors and the analysis to-date has determined that only a small number of instability reports can be connected to the manufacturing issue.

For the Instability issue, we are delivering a microcode patch which addresses exposure to elevated voltages which is a key element of the Instability issue. We are currently validating the microcode patch to ensure the instability issues for 13th/14th Gen are addressed

[hsbauauvhabzb]

So they were producing defective CPUs, identified & addressed the issue but didn’t issue a recall, defect notice or public statement relating to the issue?

Good to know.

[Dylan16807]

It sounds like their analysis is that the oxidation issue is comfortably below the level of "defective".

No product will ever be perfect. You don't need to do a recall for a sufficiently rare problem.

And in case anyone skims, I will be extra clear, this is based on the claim that the oxidation is separate from the real problem here.

[abracadaniel]

They could recall the defective batch. All of the cpus with that defect will fail from it. The seem to have been content to hope no one noticed.

[Dylan16807]

What makes you think there was a "defective batch"? What makes you think all the CPUs affected by that production issue will fail from it?

That description sounds to me like it affected the entire production line for months. It's only worth a recall if a sufficient percent of those CPUs will fail. (I don't want to argue about what particular percent that should be.)

[hsbauauvhabzb]

My CPU was unstable for months, I spent tens of hours and hundreds on equipment to troubleshoot (I _never_ thought my CPU would be the cause). Had I of known this, I would have scrutinised the cpu a lot faster than what I did.

Intel not making a public statement about potentially defective products could have been done with good PR spin ‘we detected an issue, believe the defect rate will be < 0.25%, here’s a test suite you can run, call if you think you’re one of the .25!’ But they didn’t.

I’m never buying an intel product again. Fuck intel.

[Dylan16807]

This comment chain is talking about the oxidation in particular, and specifically the situation where the oxidation is not the cause of the instability in the title. That's the only way they "identified & addressed the issue but didn’t issue a recall".

Do you have a reason to think the oxidation is the cause of your problems?

Did you not read my first post trying to clarify the two separate issues?

Am I misunderstanding something?

[wslh]

It is the Pentium FDIV drama all over again! [1]. It is even in chapter 4 of the Andrew Grove's book!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug

[thelastparadise]

Dude's gonna be canned so hard.