Intel issues statement about CPU crashes, blames motherboard makers — BIOSes disable thermal and power protection, causing issues

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Intel points out motherboard profiles with disabled protections while exceeding recommended voltages to gain high overclocks.

Core i9-14900KS
(Image credit: Intel)

Igor's Lab seems to have obtained a message originally destined for motherboard manufacturers concerning a prolonged stability issue on the company's 13th Generation Raptor Lake and 14th Generation Raptor Lake Refresh chips, which rank among the best CPUs. It made sense for the company to clarify the issue where many blamed the motherboard manufacturers in a race to become 'the fastest' performer by having over-aggressive voltages for allowing higher clock speeds.

The company specifically points out the issue with 600/ 700 series motherboard manufacturers that disable thermal and power protection to achieve the highest possible overclocks, even at the cost of instability. The chipmaker said in the message:

Intel has observed that this issue may be related to out of specification operating conditions resulting in sustained high voltage and frequency during periods of elevated heat.

Analysis of affected processors shows some parts experience shifts in minimum operating voltages which may be related to operation outside of Intel® specified operating conditions.

While the root cause has not yet been identified, Intel® has observed the majority of reports of this issue are from users with unlocked/overclock capable motherboards.

Intel has observed 600/700 Series chipset boards often set BIOS defaults to disable thermal and power delivery safeguards designed to limit processor exposure to sustained periods of high voltage and frequency, for example:
– Disabling Current Excursion Protection (CEP)
– Enabling the IccMax Unlimited bit
– Disabling Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) and/or Enhanced Thermal Velocity Boost (eTVB)
– Additional settings which may increase the risk of system instability:
– Disabling C-states
– Using Windows Ultimate Performance mode
– Increasing PL1 and PL2 beyond Intel® recommended limits

Intel requests system and motherboard manufacturers to provide end users with a default BIOS profile that matches Intel recommended settings.

Intel strongly recommends customer’s default BIOS settings should ensure operation within Intel’s recommended settings.

In addition, Intel strongly recommends motherboard manufacturers to implement warnings for end users alerting them to any unlocked or overclocking feature usage.

Intel is continuing to actively investigate this issue to determine the root cause and will provide additional updates as relevant information becomes available.

Intel will be publishing a public statement regarding issue status and Intel recommended BIOS setting recommendations targeted for May 2024.

Asus was the first to address the issue on its side of the fence as it began rolling out new BIOS revisions with an 'Intel Baseline Profile,' which mitigated the problem by lowering its power limit and using Intel's recommended settings. Eventually, two other motherboards addressed this, with MSI providing a tutorial on how to tune its motherboard BIOS to run Intel's power limit and voltage specifications. Gigabyte rolled out beta BIOS revisions like Asus. It's uncertain why MSI didn't roll out similar firmware for some, if not all, of the company's motherboards.

Naturally, these steps will reduce performance, but it's a lot better than having crashes while gaming or during other intense workloads. The problem has mostly been with users of Core i9 SKUs from both generations. The lesson is that overclocking should be a manual and custom attempt, as not all silicon is the same. Enabling extreme settings by default is also not a good idea, especially when increasing the power limit and turning off other specific protection options that are normally enabled out of the box.

Intel introduced 'Extreme Power Delivery' with its 13th Generation CPUs, like the Core i9-13900KS, which peaked at 320 watts via this profile. At the same time, Intel already had recommended steps, and motherboard manufacturers should have played it safe so that end-users who would have a tough time navigating manual settings in the BIOS would not be on the receiving end.

Perhaps Intel should have stricter guidelines for respective motherboard manufacturers to follow, given that such issues can last a few months before they can be narrowed down.

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Roshan Ashraf Shaikh
Roshan Ashraf Shaikh
Contributing Writer

Roshan Ashraf Shaikh has been in the Indian PC hardware community since the early 2000s and has been building PCs, contributing to many Indian tech forums, & blogs. He operated Hardware BBQ for 11 years and wrote news for eTeknix & TweakTown before joining Tom's Hardware team. Besides tech, he is interested in fighting games, movies, anime, and mechanical watches.

153 Comments Comment from the forums
  • endocine
    So all of the settings that intel has been OK with, either tacitly or explicitly encouraging motherboard manufacturers to use. Why sell K SKUs and charge a premium for them if they are already at their maximum with intel baseline defaults, and why sell OC chipsets that allow this? Some of these are absurd:
    "Using windows ultimate performance mode" <--is that a problem even with intel baseline defaults? Really?
    "Disabling C-States" <--is that a problem even with intel baseline defaults? Really?
    If those are a problem, then the CPUs can not be run at their baseline spec, its using too much power and generating too much heat, there are workloads that will max them out all the time.

    PL1 and 2 have been set equal now, with unlimited tau, is that a problem now too?
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    Memory overclock it's another nightmare... my asrock motherboard says can overclock the ddr4 at 5000+ mhz Think what voltage at IMC and What gear mode... on my test from 3200mhz to 3600mhz incrase almost 10w from RAM and IMC voltage :) (blazing heat speeds)
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Perhaps Intel would have stricter guidelines for respective motherboard manufacturers to follow, given that such issues span for a few months before it could be narrowed down.

    So their guidance should have been "When we say our recommended specs we really mean those are our recommended specs and not our "recommended specs", so you should actually follow them?" Do explain Mr. Shaikh how Intel should have been more strict in their guidance.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    endocine said:
    So all of the settings that intel has been OK with, either tacitly or explicitly encouraging motherboard manufacturers to use. Why sell K SKUs and charge a premium for them if they are already at their maximum with intel baseline defaults, and why sell OC chipsets that allow this? Some of these are absurd:
    "Using windows ultimate performance mode" <--is that a problem even with intel baseline defaults? Really?
    "Disabling C-States" <--is that a problem even with intel baseline defaults? Really?
    If those are a problem, then the CPUs can not be run at their baseline spec, its using too much power and generating too much heat, there are workloads that will max them out all the time.

    PL1 and 2 have been set equal now, with unlimited tau, is that a problem now too?
    All the things you list are just additional things, not the cause of the issue but more things you can do to get a cooler system that won't degrade.
    – Additional settings which may increase the risk of system instability:
    – Disabling C-states
    – Using Windows Ultimate Performance mode
    – Increasing PL1 and PL2 beyond Intel® recommended limits
    The big and main issue intel is stating is this here, this causes all the other things listed below it to make the CPU run way above its limits since the limits are now disabled.
    Intel has observed 600/700 Series chipset boards often set BIOS defaults to disable thermal and power delivery safeguards designed to limit processor exposure to sustained periods of high voltage and frequency, for example:
    Reply
  • rluker5
    endocine said:
    So all of the settings that intel has been OK with, either tacitly or explicitly encouraging motherboard manufacturers to use. Why sell K SKUs and charge a premium for them if they are already at their maximum with intel baseline defaults, and why sell OC chipsets that allow this? Some of these are absurd:
    "Using windows ultimate performance mode" <--is that a problem even with intel baseline defaults? Really?
    "Disabling C-States" <--is that a problem even with intel baseline defaults? Really?
    If those are a problem, then the CPUs can not be run at their baseline spec, its using too much power and generating too much heat, there are workloads that will max them out all the time.

    PL1 and 2 have been set equal now, with unlimited tau, is that a problem now too?
    What are Intel's baseline defaults?

    Here's the ones for my chip for example.
    https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/230497/intel-core-i9-13900kf-processor-36m-cache-up-to-5-80-ghz.htmlhttps://www.techpowerup.com/cpu-specs/core-i9-13900kf.c2916
    There are some programs you can run that make holding Intel's maximum difficult for some setups, but the maximum isn't guaranteed for all combinations of CPU, mobo, cooling and application. Just like AMD Intel has "up to". if the motherboard forces these frequencies regardless of power or thermal limitations then there may be oveclocking related instabilities. Overclocking performance isn't guaranteed. Some chips can only do the baseline, most can do more and some luckier ones can do much more.
    Reply
  • D1v1n3D
    I have to say for competitive reasons it is pretty sad and sucks that Intel keeps fumbling the ball so badly. Releasing the 13th and 14th gen in there state alone is just a disaster waiting to happen, with how hot they run could quite literally cause fires in some situations! But, no one cares to talk about that. Feeding a board with over 300w of power just to get that higher clock that still loses to a much lower clocked CPU that's almost a third the power usage is a tell tail sign Intel doesn't have anything new from core to this hybrid core system still Intel one in the same from core 4th Gen just push the chips to their thermal and frequency limits regardless of risks and when shit hits the fan blame everyone Else.
    Reply
  • Digital~Dreams
    Admin said:
    Intel issues a state regarding stability issues concerning 13th and 14th Generation CPUs on 600-and 700-series motherboards made by respective manufacturers.

    Intel issues statement about CPU crashes, blames motherboard makers — BIOSes disable thermal and power protection, causing issues : Read more
    How do these crashes appear on folks systems ?. I've had an intermittent (once every few hours) problem where games will suddenly jump to the desktop (like an ALT-TAB). Nothing helpful ever appears in the windows logs and an app that tracked what changed the window focus showed nothing either !?. I can always then select the game on the taskbar and get right back to where I was but still frustrating.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    D1v1n3D said:
    I have to say for competitive reasons it is pretty sad and sucks that Intel keeps fumbling the ball so badly. Releasing the 13th and 14th gen in there state alone is just a disaster waiting to happen, with how hot they run could quite literally cause fires in some situations! But, no one cares to talk about that. Feeding a board with over 300w of power just to get that higher clock that still loses to a much lower clocked CPU that's almost a third the power usage is a tell tail sign Intel doesn't have anything new from core to this hybrid core system still Intel one in the same from core 4th Gen just push the chips to their thermal and frequency limits regardless of risks and when shit hits the fan blame everyone Else.
    For competition reasons it's ok, AMD CPUs actually DID catch on fire so intel just crashing is still much more competitive and better for the end user.
    kiTngvvD5dI:221View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiTngvvD5dI&t=221s&ab_channel=GamersNexus
    Digital~Dreams said:
    How do these crashes appear on folks systems ?. I've had an intermittent (once every few hours) problem where games will suddenly jump to the desktop (like an ALT-TAB). Nothing helpful ever appears in the windows logs and an app that tracked what changed the window focus showed nothing either !?. I can always then select the game on the taskbar and get right back to where I was but still frustrating.
    Far as I know it only happens while unreal engine games compile shaders before the game starts, at least that's the only thing that was reported from any big outlet.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    This really comes back to Intel giving the motherboard manufacturers too much leeway. Intel doesn't have strict mandates for many of the settings on their CPUs and the ones with min/max are open to pretty broad interpretation. Intel also gives them tools to help determine settings, but that doesn't mean motherboard manufacturers are tuning these with a board they pull off a retail line.

    Buildzoid did a couple of commentary videos based on his experience and the Intel data sheets:
    8yatSqh5hRAView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yatSqh5hRA
    4WNiPQ3PTdEView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WNiPQ3PTdE
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    So their guidance should have been "When we say our recommended specs we really mean those are our recommended specs and not our "recommended specs", so you should actually follow them?" Do explain Mr. Shaikh how Intel should have been more strict in their guidance.
    Intel absolutely has the power here and can force the motherboard manufacturers to use their settings as default. Intel hasn't done this much since motherboard manufacturers first started messing with default settings with IVB. Intel obviously isn't going to control other profiles and/or the ability to modify settings, but the default behavior is something they clearly need to.
    Digital~Dreams said:
    How do these crashes appear on folks systems ?. I've had an intermittent (once every few hours) problem where games will suddenly jump to the desktop (like an ALT-TAB). Nothing helpful ever appears in the windows logs and an app that tracked what changed the window focus showed nothing either !?. I can always then select the game on the taskbar and get right back to where I was but still frustrating.
    This sounds like some sort of software issue. It's definitely not what's happening due to these problems as these are all crash situations where the software or computer are crashing completely.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    endocine said:
    So all of the settings that intel has been OK with, either tacitly or explicitly encouraging motherboard manufacturers to use.
    wrong.

    Intel doesn't accept MB's settings that are out of their defined spec.

    They will deny warranties for it even.

    The "default" is technically overclocked on most MB's.

    That isnt Intels fault.
    endocine said:
    Why sell K SKUs and charge a premium for them if they are already at their maximum with intel baseline defaults, and why sell OC chipsets that allow this?
    as some ppl enjoy OCing and they as a business are in it for profit (so if there is a desire they will have the product) and they specifically don't cover that risk should you do so.

    The issue is entirely on MB makers making non stock settings the default.

    thestryker said:
    Intel hasn't done this much since motherboard manufacturers first started messing with default settings with IVB. Intel obviously isn't going to control other profiles and/or the ability to modify settings, but the default behavior is something they clearly need to.
    which is a good thing.

    Nvidia's control over what people can do w/ their product is a bad thing.

    Intel acting like that would instantly remove MB vendors ways to differentiate themselves.
    Only thing Intel should be firm about is the default settigns being at their stock values not the MB's overclocked values.

    (and intel isnt only one affected as when i built my AMD system I kept having an issue and found out it was due to MB's custom oc on by default and it was causing instability due to trying to run too low of voltage (only undid that it ran fine). Thank god for crash reports being good now-a-days.
    Reply