- A Firefox engineer has flagged up an obvious problem with Intel Raptor Lake
- These CPUs are reportedly crashing extra in the summertime warmth in Europe
- There is a higher prevalence of crashes in locations the place temperatures have spiked resulting from heatwaves, and the 14700K CPU is struggling specifically
Intel’s Raptor Lake (and Raptor Lake Refresh) thirteenth and 14th-gen processors are fighting the heatwave in Europe, which is seemingly inflicting these CPUs to crash extra often with a preferred internet browser.
Tom’s {Hardware} stories that Gabriele Svelto, a senior workers engineer on Mozilla’s Firefox browser, flagged up the difficulty on Mastodon, observing that: “If in case you have an Intel Raptor Lake system and also you’re within the northern hemisphere, likelihood is that your machine is crashing extra typically due to the summer time warmth.”
To make clear, these are browser crashes – versus full system lock-ups – and Svelto provides that he is obtained this data because of Firefox crash stories coming from Raptor Lake PCs, that are tied to particular nations within the EU. There is a higher prevalence of crashes in locations the place temperatures have markedly spiked in the course of the summer time.
The difficulty is so dangerous that we’re instructed that the extent of crashes has turn out to be overwhelming, which means Mozilla needed to take motion to disable the bot submitting these stories.
Svelto notes: “Raptor Lake programs have recognized timing/voltage points that worsen with temperature. Issues are so dangerous right now that we needed to disable a bot that was submitting crash stories mechanically as a result of it was virtually solely discovering crashes from individuals with affected programs.”
One other Mastodon consumer makes the idea that that is associated to the recognized degradation points that hit thirteenth and 14th-gen Intel CPUs, with the warmth exacerbating the issue. Svelto replies to agree that sure, that is true, whereas including a caveat, saying: “Sure, although a few of these bugs are very repeatable and predictable which is puzzling. They is perhaps timing-related and even real constant CPU bugs (we have seen a good bit of these too).”
Because the Mastodon thread progresses, the engineer means that Intel’s most up-to-date microcode replace, codenamed ‘0x12F’ for Raptor Lake (and Raptor Lake Refresh), truly made issues worse, no less than when it comes to what Firefox is seeing right here.
Svelto notes: “Specifically microcode 0x12C had lowered the incidence of a lot of bugs, however they’ve come again in full pressure when Intel launched model 0x12F.”
Based on the engineer, these crashing points with Raptor Lake chips are taking place essentially the most with Intel Core i7-14700K fashions.
Evaluation: Scorching scorching warmth
Clearly, we have to be cautious round pinning the blame right here, although. Seemingly, one thing has gone considerably awry if Mozilla wanted to disable a system as a result of it was turning into overloaded with crash stories.
This definitely suggests Firefox is pointing to a chip-related drawback – even when the trigger may very well be (theoretically) partly all the way down to buggy conduct with the browser, it is nonetheless solely manifesting with sure Intel silicon (to an apparently profound stage, correlating with hotter places in Europe).
Cooling might play a job right here, too, in fact, when it comes to the CPU coolers getting used. The rationale the 14700K could also be exhibiting up much more in these crashes may very well be as a result of it is a extra mainstream speedy chip, presumably coupled with a much less efficient cooling resolution because of this. Whereas these working the even sooner prime canine 14900K (or certainly 13900K) have most likely invested in an costly cooler to go along with the processor, and thus it might be much less vulnerable to overheating points as temperatures climb, so there aren’t as many crashes recorded. There will not be practically as many 14900K chips on the market, both, resulting from their extra dear nature.
What shall be attention-grabbing to see is that if different software program builders are noticing the same sort of sample with their merchandise crashing (browsers, or in any other case) – and now this report has been aired, others might have trigger to analyze crash logs additional, maybe.
In fact, one other issue to look at would be the efficiency of Raptor Lake CPUs if temperatures proceed to rise (over the summer time in Europe, or elsewhere – or certainly extra broadly as the following couple of years roll on).
Even earlier than this, my fear has all the time been what underlying degradation the instability points might have prompted with thirteenth and 14th-gen processors. As we all know, these chips have been working in PCs for a while in a problematic state, with the microcode fixes utilized being preventative in nature – not a remedy, which means they do not reverse any harm that was already performed. So, there may very well be undetectable deterioration below the hood of the chip that solely manifests a lot later in its lifespan – a course of presumably sped up by the processor working too scorching, maybe?
Now, the excellent news – as these affected little doubt recall – is that Intel did up the guarantee protection for these CPUs to 5 years. Nevertheless, as I’ve identified up to now, what if within the sixth yr, your Raptor Lake CPU begins happening the plughole when it comes to recurring instability points? You are out of luck in that case, which does not appear very reasonable – it is not unreasonable to count on a processor, the engine of a PC, to last more than half a decade.
In fact, we won’t go leaping to any destructive conclusions but, however this case is definitely value monitoring.
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