PCs are spontaneously crashing because of Intel problem, company says

Chips are seeing ‘instability issues’ because of ‘elevated operating voltage’ – but it can be fixed

(AFP via Getty Images)

Intel says its PCs are spontaneously crashing – but that it has found the cause of the problem.

Users have been returning computers that have its Intel Core 13th/14th Gen desktop processors installed, the company said. Those problems computers were showing “instability issues”, which meant that they stopped working.

Now the chip company has been able to examine those returned computers and found that “elevated operating voltage” is causing the problem. That is the result of a problematic piece of code that means that the chips are asking for the wrong amount of power, which then causes them to stop working.

Intel had said that it was investigating the problem in April, after users said that they were unable to play games without their computers crashing. Some had found workarounds, but they involved changing the settings and did not always work.

Other updates from Intel also seemed unable to fix the problem. But now it says that it has analysed it and found the problem – and will be fixing it.

The company will be sending out a patch in mid-August. It will be validated to ensure that it both works properly and fixed the problem before then, it said.

In the mean time, the company asked users still being affected by the problems to contact its customer support. “Intel is committed to making this right with our customers” it said in an update posted on its own forums.

But the update led to yet more questions from those affected users. Many asked what exactly what was happening during the crashes – and whether they might have done irreversible damage to the processor itself, which would not be fixed with a software update.