Intel recently announced a fix for a long-standing instability issue with its Raptor Lake processors. Leaked documents now show that Intel itself isn’t sure if the fix addresses the cause, which immediately calls other statements into question.

Intel announced earlier this week that it is preparing a patch for issues with its high-end Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh processors. This patch for the CPU microcode is intended to fix crashes that are particularly common among gamers. The crashes appear to be the result of physical degradation of the chip, which Intel says is due to excessive voltages in the processor in certain scenarios.

The patch was rolled out shortly after Intel confidently announced that other very similar issues on Raptor Lake laptop processors were unrelated. Nevertheless, at least one developer has already reported a trend of similar crashes on Raptor Lake HX chips.

However, I am not sure

Now it seems that Intel is not entirely sure whether the microcode patch effectively fixes the actual cause of the problem. The processor manufacturer is said to be still looking for other causes. The voltages would be only one of the causes of the problem.

So Intel doesn’t seem to be sure yet why some Raptor Lake processors are exhibiting problems. This makes the claim that laptop processors are not affected by the same problem less credible. If Intel doesn’t know the cause of the problem, the company can’t claim that the cause doesn’t apply to other similar problems.

Lack of transparency

So the saga continues. Fortunately, the problem currently affects mainly systems aimed at gamers. There does not seem to be any significant impact on professional devices and servers. More important is the poor communication from Intel, which has not managed to be completely transparent despite the ongoing problems.