Intel announces two extra years of warranty amid chip crashing and instability issues — longer warranty applies to 13th- and 14th-Gen Core processors
Intel told us today that it will extend the warranty on its boxed Intel Core 13th- and 14th-Gen processors by two additional years. Intel's warranty extension comes as a result of the crashing and instability issues that have plagued its 13th- and 14th-Gen chips for months. Those issues impact all 65W and higher models, meaning the crashes have a widespread impact ranging from the flagship models down to even the pedestrian mid-range chips. Intel's processors typically come with a three-year warranty period, so the extension will bring the warranty for most boxed processors to five years. Intel will issue a microcode update by mid-August to address the crashing issues, which cause PCs to crash/BSOD inexplicably during gaming and other workloads due to what Intel attributes to excessive voltage. The issue can cause permanent damage, and the pending microcode update will not 'fix' processors that already suffer from crashing. As such, users with chips that are already crashing will have to return their processors for replacement. However, Intel says the update should prevent chips that haven't experienced issues from degrading.
For now, it is unclear if CPUs exposed to excessive voltage have suffered from invisible degradation or damage that hasn't resulted in crashes yet but could lead to errors or crashes in the future. Intel's extended warranty is obviously intended to allay those fears. Intel also says it is investigating a way to enable easy identification of impacted processors.
