The intel overvoltage issue that has been affecting i7, i9; 13th and 14th gen, has had it’s microcode fix published, microcode update 0x129. Check your mobo manufacturer support page, mine published a new bios version with it last night. Just did the update. I’m going to keep a close eye on bios updates for the near future too, since I don’t have a ton of trust in intel’s microcode rn, and I hope they find and fix more bugs.
Rough overview of the issue: Microcode intel provided to mobo manufacturers had a bug that, when the CPU asked for voltage x, would provide voltage 2x. This effected primarily i9 14th gen, and the other i7/19 on that socket, but applies to all 13th and 14th CPUs to lesser concern. This has resulted in especially intel 14900 CPUs frying themselves over the course of normal usage.
Intel is providing a 2y extended warrantee for these chips, and not much else.
The update has to do with the firmware code of the power delivery components of the motherboard if I understand it correctly. This is absolutely not something you want an OS interfacing with. I’m kinda surprised the BIOS even interfaces with it, though I guess it makes sense thinking about it.
Ideally the CPU requests power in accordance with usage and predicted usage. The onboard power delivery components (on the mobo, not the PSU! the PSU powers these components but doesn’t have the fine control the CPU needs). Intel writes part of the firmware, and the mobo company determine how exactly they handle providing clean power.
This basically means there’s 3 places information changes hands for a CPU to say I’m wokring hard give me more power. The CPU requests specific power features. The Microcode interprets these power features and requests changes to the power delivery system. Power delivery system interprets and delivers power.
Step 1 and 3 are easy Intel talking to intel, or mobo manufact talking to mobo manufac. The issue is that when the microcode component translated the CPU request to in turn request it from the power driver, it was doubling the voltage asked for. Which is melting chips.
Note, I don’t understand the minutia of the hardware design side well. I still don’t even really understand how micro-controllers work, so I’m probably misrepresenting something significantly.
My issue is that I feel like it is very possible for Intel to push this microcode update to the OS side too without many issues, but perhaps you’re also right. I can’t say if you’re right or not, but I believe that such a big issue shouldn’t be behind an BIOS update. Admittedly, the CPUs that most affected are likely paired with boards that aren’t sucky in the BIOS updating department, so I guess it isn’t that bad.
Microcode is essentially firmware for your CPU - in the case of controls for CPU voltage, it needs to be deployed and up and running before the computer even begins to think about loading an OS of any flavour, hence the patches being distributed via BIOS updates by vendors.
Intel says this issue should be fixed now. I believe their word on this one, but I hope they learn from this. This issue has been around for well over a year, it seems.