News Dev reports Intel's laptop CPUs are also suffering from crashing issues — several laptops have suffered similar failures in testing

[Admin]

Raptor Lake instability has reached the laptop segment. A new report has confirmed that Raptor Lake instability on the mobile side is nearly as bad as the desktop side, making this issue even more problematic than it already is.

Dev reports Intel's laptop CPUs are also suffering from crashing issues — several laptops have suffered similar failures in testing : Read more

 

[Hooda Thunkett]

If this turns out to be a process issue then Intel has a huge problem.

 

[bit_user]

If this turns out to be a process issue then Intel has a huge problem.

The article seems to indicate the problem is found in laptops based on the same silicon dies they use in desktop Raptor Lake. So, I guess this doesn't really indicate one way or another.

My initial thought was they were talking about Meteor Lake and the Intel 4 node, but it seems not. Unfortunately, the strongest Meteor Lake has only 6 P-cores, so there's not currently a substitute for Raptor Lake in the high-end laptop segment (and won't be, until Arrow Lake gets there later this year or early next).

 

[Amdlova]

Oh my deer god... this cpu need to be send to gulag.

 

[vanadiel007]

I am thinking, and this is just me, that they pushed the design to hard and it now has become randomly unstable.

It reminds me of the great days of overclocking, when a Prime95 torture test would run for 23 hours straight without any issues, and then all of a sudden stop with an error. Dialing it down just a notch, or increasing the voltage slightly, or a combination of both would make it go without crashes even after 48 hours.
Then rinse and repeat until you ran out of options, use your last stable overclock, and that was it.

 

[thestryker]

At the end of the day Intel being quiet is to blame for the continued random reports and finger pointing. There's basically a zero percent chance they don't know what the issue is at this point. My only question comes down to is the problem so bad they don't want to disclose due to how much money it would cost, or is it just their marketing/execs thinking being quiet is better than early disclosure.

 

[bigdragon]

As the owner of a laptop with an i9-13900H, this news concerns me. Mine hasn't given me any trouble in the past 8 months. I usually keep my system on some sort of balanced profile or power plan instead of opting for the gamer-focused profiles. Wonder if that helps or not.

Intel needs to put out some information pointing in the direction of the issue. Is it something we can manage via software profiles? Is there a hardware defect? The lack of some sort of reasoning makes future Intel CPU purchases seem like a big risk.

 

[LabRat 891]

Suddenly, I'm not feeling so foolish 'settling' on a cheap+used Latitude w/ a 10th gen.

 

[Amdlova]

Suddenly, I'm not feeling so foolish 'settling' on a cheap+used Latitude w/ a 10th gen.

CHEAP IS GOOD!

 

[CmdrShepard]

Basically if you need a laptop for work and not for gaming, the only safe option is Apple.

 

[Notton]

Basically if you need a laptop for work and not for gaming, the only safe option is Apple.

Yeah, because Apple is well known for never having design flaws, small or major, with their laptops, ever...
Screen pitting from the trackpad and keys
Screen ribbon cable dying to dust
Butterfly keyboard dying to dust

Yes, an absolute marvel of engineering with no flaws what-so-ever.

AFAIK, every single one of them macbooks develops problems over time.

 

[Amdlova]

Yeah, because Apple is well known for never having design flaws, small or major, with their laptops, ever...
Screen pitting from the trackpad and keys
Screen ribbon cable dying to dust
Butterfly keyboard dying to dust

Yes, an absolute marvel of engineering with no flaws what-so-ever.

AFAIK, every single one of them macbooks develops problems over time.

You need authorization for blame apple products, Everything you say is about user error.
Apple products is not made for dust ambients and Normally people got apple products for the stickers.
Apple products is made to last one generation only and nothing more.
(Joker mode)

 

[watzupken]

Basically if you need a laptop for work and not for gaming, the only safe option is Apple.

There is no 1 perfect device or anything. The elephant in the room with regards to Apple devices is the price. The first gen MBA was an exception, and since then, the MBA prices have been quite high even for the base specs. And again, it is not perfect, plus, it also depends on individual preferences.

 

[Vanderlindemedia]

Intel has quite the history with degrading chips. NIC's, Nuc's, Atom's and what more. The quality testing is just poor for this to escape out in the public.

 

[CelicaGT]

Having recently taken delivery on a 13900HX powered machine I find this news frustrating. I had just become aware of the issues plaguing the desktop variants after ordering this machine. If this turns out to be a mortal flaw then I'll be expecting full compensation from Intel or Dell. I fully expect both to try and weasel out of any responsibility as this seems to be the norm for corporations these days.

 

[CelicaGT]

You need authorization for blame apple products, Everything you say is about user error.
Apple products is not made for dust ambients and Normally people got apple products for the stickers.
Apple products is made to last one generation only and nothing more.
(Joker mode)

I 100% bought my M3 Air in Midnight black for the stickers...

 

[ingtar33]

the only significant difference from 12th to 13th (14th is just a refresh of 13th) is the redesigned memory/cache interface. and one of the biggest problems with these chips right now is bad IO writes to storage from the cpu. i think intel screwed up something in their cache, maybe it works fine in testing, but there is a flaw in the design which causes it to degrade rapidly. i thought the problem might be in the ring but the server chips and now laptop chips aren't pushing those voltages through the ring that the desktop chips are. so the problem has to be structural in the core of the design of these chips. and the bad IO writes seems to indicate the issue is in the memory subsystems.

 

[KyaraM]

Basically if you need a laptop for work and not for gaming, the only safe option is Apple.

First, there are still many laptops with 12th gen chips available, which are more than capable.
Second, not every laptop chip is based on the 13/14900k.
Third, not every employee needs a high-end laptop CPU for work, or, in fact, runs the type of workloads that seem to cause issues. Most will be fine with 4c/8t chips, or even 2p/8e cores with 12 threads and whatever else is out there in possible combinations.

So, yeah, getting a Windows laptop for work is completely fine, at least for most people.

 

[bit_user]

At the end of the day Intel being quiet is to blame for the continued random reports and finger pointing. There's basically a zero percent chance they don't know what the issue is at this point. My only question comes down to is the problem so bad they don't want to disclose due to how much money it would cost, ...

As this is material to the company's future financial performance, it should be mentioned in their upcoming quarterly report. Expect them to get questions about it, on their earnings call, too.

 

[bit_user]

Yeah, because Apple is well known for never having design flaws, small or major, with their laptops, ever...
Screen pitting from the trackpad and keys
Screen ribbon cable dying to dust
Butterfly keyboard dying to dust

Well, you missed this:

Unpatchable security flaw in Apple Silicon Macs breaks encryption - 9to5Mac

University researchers have found an unpatchable security flaw in Apple Silicon Macs, which would allow an attacker to break encryption...

9to5mac.com

As for premature hardware burnout, what about that issue with their SSDs dying from excessive swapping? Worse, I think some of those might've been soldered down.

 

[bit_user]

the only significant difference from 12th to 13th ... is the redesigned memory/cache interface.

Nope. Here's an entire article on the differences:

Intel Rolls Out 13th Gen Core, Raptor Lake Processors; Cranks Up The Frequency

Intel rolls out 13th Generation Core, "Raptor Lake" client processors; cranks up the frequency.

fuse.wikichip.org

They changed:

• the manufacturing process.
• the cache sizes, parameters, policies, and algorithms.
• optimized critical paths in the P-cores to make tighter timing constraints
• the number of E-core clusters
• the memory controller

Taken together, those add up to a proper generational increase, performance-wise.

"Intel says that compared to 12th Generation Core, formerly codename Alder Lake, you can expect to see up to 15% better single-thread performance. The majority (2/3 or 67%) of the single-thread performance comes from frequency improvement, 14% from memory improvements, and 20% from cache changes."
​

So, even the single-threaded performance increase isn't purely from higher frequencies. According to that, IPC should be about 5% higher, for cache/memory-intensive workloads.

 

[bit_user]

First, there are still many laptops with 12th gen chips available, which are more than capable.

I've used an i5-1250P and i7-12850HX. They run pretty hot, and battery life on both machines is awful - even brand new and with the MS Windows energy saving slider set to the highest efficiency.

Third, not every employee needs a high-end laptop CPU for work, or, in fact, runs the type of workloads that seem to cause issues. Most will be fine with 4c/8t chips, or even 2p/8e cores with 12 threads and whatever else is out there in possible combinations.

My employer puts so much security & other software on my laptop that it's not too unusual for all threads of the i5-1250P (which has 4P + 8E cores) to become fully saturated, especially for a couple minutes after login. Before it, I had an old Kaby Lake 2-core/4-thread laptop and it was virtually unusable. The responsiveness was so bad it felt like it had a hard drive, even though it actually had a NVMe SSD.

 

[JRStern]

Concern for "aging" issues increases as the process nodes get smaller, and may also show up with the new chiplet architectures. We shall see.

 

[bit_user]

Concern for "aging" issues increases as the process nodes get smaller, and may also show up with the new chiplet architectures. We shall see.

Silicon aging is one of those things I used to worry about. Somewhat recently, I've heard that Intel has long had an internal design target of 10 years, for devices made on their manufacturing processes, though TSMC supposedly has no equivalent target.

However, one has to wonder what went wrong for Intel to miss the mark so badly. Maybe merely having such a target isn't the level of assurance I thought it was, if they're not doing all the necessary diligence to make sure they're hitting it.

 

[CmdrShepard]

First, there are still many laptops with 12th gen chips available, which are more than capable.

The thing is -- how many of them are still getting BIOS, microcode, Intel ME, and driver updates?

Those that aren't wouldn't be allowed on any responsible system admin's network.

Third, not every employee needs a high-end laptop CPU for work, or, in fact, runs the type of workloads that seem to cause issues. Most will be fine with 4c/8t chips, or even 2p/8e cores with 12 threads and whatever else is out there in possible combinations.

It's not just about high-end CPU -- employees want light portables and compared to Apple laptops everything else with Intel and AMD CPU is clunky, runs hot, has noisy fans, and has miserable battery life, not to mention horrible screen quality (colors, brightness, viewing angles) and downright atrocious keyboards.

So, yeah, getting a Windows laptop for work is completely fine, at least for most people.

Yeah, for those who don't know better I guess it is.

Also, everything that @bit_user said above is true, especially the bit about endpoint protection turning otherwise decent laptops into unusable crap.