[cuddlyogre]

I had a 13900K blue screen at random for almost a year. Anything that used more than a certain amount of cores would either crash or blue screen, which was irritating considering I built the machine in part so I could do simulations and renders in Blender. I was also unable to use dual channel RAM. It just wouldn't POST no matter what settings I used.

I went through 3 motherboards hoping it was that, and not the insanely expensive CPU that would be a pain to RMA. But as it turns out, the RMA process was very quick and painless once I provided my troubleshooting history. But due to it being my main computer that I make my money with, I had to buy another processor to fill the 2 week gap between sending the old one and receiving the new one.

I probably spend $1500 or more on this problem, and by the sounds of it, my troubles might not be over.

[rndmize]

Similar story here. 13700KF, no OC, had the machine put together 18 months ago at a respectable shop (Central Computers for those in the bay). I had regular stability issues and blue screens to the point I took it back to the shop after three months - they couldn't find anything wrong. Took it in again at nine months with increasing frustration - nothing. Probably should have taken it again three months ago when I was playing the new Helldivers and that would crash the machine every other time I joined a game, but by that point I was pretty exhausted by the whole thing (and the game had other, unrelated bugs that had me looking elsewhere).

Odds are good I won't be bothering with Intel hardware or recommending it to others for the next decade or more - this has been a flatly terrible experience (and I'll note the irony of finally deciding to spend on a "dream build" and this being the result).

[tfsh]

Exact same story here, spent 4-5k on my build with a 13700k which has blue screened hundreds of times in video games (R6, Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk) over the last year (to the point that I don't even play competitive tournaments now).

I did all sorts, switching from Windows 11 to 10, buying new memory (twice!!), countless days debugging, updating my bios, etc.

I'm relieved to finally have found the cause, but my goodwill for intel is burnt.

Do you know what the general fix is, is it just a BIOS update?

[cuddlyogre]

The only fix is to replace it. There is something wrong with the processor itself that is unfixable by mortal hands.

[scruple]

I have the same chip but have never had issues, but I also noticed it's thermal properties were a bit of a mess when I ran some benchmarks after putting the build together, so I slightly undervolted it in BIOS. Performance wise I never noticed any difference but it stays nice and cool.

Not that this excuses anything, or is even a real fix for the issue , who knows. I wish I'd gotten a thread ripper instead and will be getting an AMD when I build a new system again.

[cuddlyogre]

I began to suspect that it was the processor after I started doing Blender renders and either Blender would crash 100% of the time or I would get a BSoD, which I though was basically impossible on modern computers. The real sign was that dual channel RAM didn't work, but I refused to believe it was the processor. It was so expensive, I didn't want to entertain the idea that I would have to buy another.

A "solution" I had was to lower the amount of cores Blender could use to 12, instead of all of them, which was annoying, and that still only lowered the number of crashes, not stopped them. These crashes were bad too, in that they corrupted project files almost every time.

I basically did everything possible, with little success. All it did was make my computer slow to a crawl and still crash at random.

I don't know what I'm going to do next computer. AMD is seemingly having similar problems, so it's not like I can realistically switch with any confidence. I go close to 10 years between upgrades, so hopefully the landscape will look better then.

[slaymaker1907]

Unless you explicitly set your clock speed/voltage, it's overclocking, I can almost guarantee it. There has been extreme carelessness from MOBO manufacturers on top of Intel's problems.

[addaon]

Whenever I see a post like this, I wonder why the poster didn't just return the non-working part to the vendor they bought it from. This might be my US bias, but very few vendors put it on the customer to prove a certain level of testing and diagnostic activities; if the customer says it didn't work, the customer gets their money back. If you're not sure if it's the motherboard or the CPU or... return it all, and try again. No?

[cuddlyogre]

I may have been able to return it to Newegg, but return shipping is hit or miss as to whether you have to pay for it and I was honestly so frustrated with the whole fiasco that I just wanted to go directly to the source for a replacement that I knew(??) would work. Getting a replacement from Newegg might have just been another from the same lot.

As for having to prove I did ample troubleshooting, the last thing I wanted was to mail it in and have it returned because they couldn't find anything wrong with it, which has happened to me with other things in the past.