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Comment by PaulKeeble | Hacker News Reader

Its absurd this is still going on 6 months after the story first broke and we are really none the wiser. With estimates of 10-25% of CPUs impacted from the desktop side it seems likely all the CPUs are going to fail (including mine). They can't even recall and replace products yet as the problem isn't known. I sure hope Intel isn't just hiding the cause when its known all along because that is going to turn into big lawsuits across the world.

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Completely agree. The lack of clarity around all this is hardly confidence inspiring. Definitely seems like a good time to be considering AMD or Qualcomm.

It does indeed make me glad I've opted to pick AMD over Intel for my recent computer purchases (at least of the x86-64 variety).

I've been using AMD since 2004. My first AMD processor was the Athlon 64 3000+, I was a kid I wasn't really allowed anything too expensive. We had dominately used Intel upt that point but when 64bit CPUs hit it was a revolutionary thing.

The roughest era of AMD CPUs was the FX era. While it was comprable to its mid-range competition it was alos a sure fast way to burn down your house with its power draw.

Ryzen was a huge step forward in CPU design and architecture.

I see this era as Intel's FX era, if they have the right leadership in place they can turn the boat around and innovate.

The funny part is that those FX processors were max 125w TDP. No different than today really.

>The roughest era of AMD CPUs was the FX era.

Ahem. Bulldozer?

>Ryzen was a huge step forward in CPU design and architecture.

First gen Ryzen was kinda mediocre. Second gen(correction: meaning Zen 2 not Ryzen 2000 which was still Zen 1) was where the performance came.

Also let's not ignore how they screwed consumers like me by dropping SW support for Vega in 2023 while still selling laptops with Vega powered APUs on the shelves all the way till present day in 2024, or having a naming scheme that's intentionally confusing to mislead consumers where you don't know if that Ryzen 7000 laptop APU has Zen2, Zen3, Zen3+ or Zen4 CPU cores, if it's 4nm, 5nm, 6nm or 7nm or if it's running RDNA2, RDNA3 or the now obsolete Vega in a modern system.[1] Maddening.

Despite that I'm a returning AMD customer to avoid Intel, but I'm having my own issues now with their iGPU drivers making me regret not going Intel this time around. The grass isn't always greener across the fence, just different issues.

I get it, you're an AMD fan, but let's be objective and not ignore their stinkers and anti-consumer practices which they had plenty of and only played nice for a while to get sympathy because they were the struggling underdog, but didn't hesitate to milk and deceive consumers the moment they got back on top like any other for profit company with a moment of market dominance.

My point being, don't get attached or loyal to any large company, since you're just a dollar sign for all of them. Be an informed consumer and make purchasing decisions on objective current factors, not blind brand loyalty from the distant past.

[1] https://www.pcworld.com/article/1445760/amds-mobile-ryzen-na...

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/amd-confusing-naming...

>>The roughest era of AMD CPUs was the FX era.

>Ahem. Bulldozer?

Bulldozer is the same as FX.

>AMD FX is a series of high-end AMD microprocessors for personal computers which debuted in 2011, claimed as AMD's first native 8-core desktop processor.[1] The line was introduced with the Bulldozer microarchitecture at launch (codenamed "Zambezi"), and was then succeeded by its derivative Piledriver in 2012 (codenamed "Vishera").

>AMD FX is a series of high-end AMD microprocessors for personal computers which debuted in 2011

Ha, well that's wrong. This is the first time I find a mistake or more accurately, a contradiction in Wikipedia.

AMD's first FX CPU (the FX-51) came out in 2003 as a premium Athlon 64 that was an expensive power hungry beast, which is the one I assume the GP was talking about. Here, also from Wikipedia:

"The Athlon 64 FX is positioned as a hardware enthusiast product, marketed by AMD especially toward gamers. Unlike the standard Athlon 64, all of the Athlon 64 FX processors have their multipliers completely unlocked."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon_64#Athlon_64_FX

It's not contradictory. The "FX" you're talking about is used as "Athlon FX"[1], whereas the "FX" in the article is "AMD FX"[2]. The branding might be a bit confusing, but the article isn't wrong.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AMD_Athlon64_FX.jpg

[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AMD_FX_CPU_New_logo....

>The roughest era of AMD CPUs was the FX era.

Or the early Athlons that would literally burn down without cooling? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYQSHXNFvUk

Toms Hardware posted retraction over a year later admitting motherboard was at fault and test was proposed and designed by Intel (including picking motherboard vendors) as part of their Pentium 4 promotion drive.

Same as Pentium 3 of same era, thermal throttling on socket A was supposed to be implemented by Motherboard vendors using chip integrated thermal diode. Pentium 3 would burn same way if put on a motherboard with non working thermal cutout.

> thermal throttling on socket A was supposed to be implemented by Motherboard vendors using chip integrated thermal diode

TBirds and spitfire didn't have die sensor, that was first on Palomino/Morgan.

That said I've seen P4s die due to cooler failure so it was still dumb.

This is from that Toms article:

"Just like AMD's mobile Athlon4 processors, AthlonMP is based on AMD's new 'Palomino'-core, which will also be used in the upcoming AthlonXP processor. This core comes equipped with a thermal diode that is required for Mobile Athlon4's clock throttling abilities. Unfortunately Palomino is still lacking a proper on-die thermal protection logic. A motherboard that doesn't read the thermal diode is unable to protect the new Athlon processor from a heat death. We used a specific Palomino motherboard, Siemens' D1289 with VIA's KT266 chipset."

Intel suggested Siemens D1289 board for the test, board didnt have thermal protection. Intel suggested (or even delivered) Pentium III motherboard with working thermal protection.

> First gen Ryzen was mediocre. Second gen was where the performance came.

Are you sure? I just looked at Ryzen 5 1600 vs 2600 benchmarks and the difference is around 5%. And I also remember the hype when the first generation was released. I think Ryzen gen 1 was by far the largest step.

Modern chip model numbers are just branding, and one must look at the benchmarks if you want value:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Yes, it is deceptive and annoying shenanigans for retail products =3

Zen 2 is Ryzen 3000.

Becoming mediocre by Intel's standard was a huge step at the time. So both of you can be right.

Almost on par with Intel in single core but twice the amount of cores. A big deal if you had a use for all these cores - I did, compiling C++ code.

Both of you forget that for the longest time Intel consumer chips excluded virtualization and other features until Ryzen 1st generation had it available. Like AVX-512 for example. 1st generation was a huge win in functionality for consumers even if it didn't hit the same performance of Intel. AVX-512 wasn't support on first gen, but there were other features I forget now but it was also a reason I had stuck to AMD.

I actually like both companies. Intel isn't bad, right now isn't great for them though.

We are better for Intel and AMD to coexist. But my gamble is on AMD because I've always liked the compatibility of the hardware with variety of technology. You can easily get server grade interfacing on consumer grade parts. For the longest time that wasn't true for Intel. When AMD pulls an Intel I'll be full Intel. There are huge wins for Intel getting new fabs built in the states, because it means a lot for security and development.

As for pulling an Intel, they kind of did with 5000 series pricing iirc.

> First gen Ryzen was kinda mediocre.

I've used both the Ryzen 3 1200 and 7 1700 and all of them seemed fine for their time and price.

Honestly, I had the 1700 in my main PC up until last year, it was still very much okay for most things I might want to actually do, except no ReBAR support pushed me towards a Ryzen 5 4500 (got it for a low price, otherwise slightly better than the 1700 in performance, still good for my needs; runs noticeably hotter though, even without a big OC).

I guess things are quite different for enthusiasts and power users, but their needs probably don't affect what would be considered bad/mediocre/good for the general population.

Im sure you will be happy to hear this is purely artificial limitation introduced by AMD for product segmentation purposes. Very first Ryzen Zen generation does fully support ReBAR in hardware, but its locked by AMD bios.

https://www.techpowerup.com/276125/asus-enables-resizable-ba...

Yeah, there were also efforts like this, too https://github.com/xCuri0/ReBarUEFI

Given that I got an Intel Arc A580 for myself, this was pretty important! Quite bad that it wasn't officially supported if there are no hardware issues and I would have liked to just keep using the 1700 for a few more years, but opted for just buying a new CPU so my old one would be a reasonable backup, path of least resistance in this case.

Would also like to try out the recent Intel CPUs (though surely not the variety that seems to have stability issues), but that's not in the cards for now because most of my PCs and homelab all use AM4, on which I'll stay for the foreseeable future.

"Evil Inside(tm)" software made sure many of the libraries and compilers had much slower performance on AMD chips for years.

We had to use intel cpu/gpu + CUDA gpu simply because of compatibility requirements (heavy media codecs and ML workloads.)

Lets be honest, AMD technically has had a better product for decades if you exclude the power consumption metric. ARM64 v8 is also good, if and only if you don't need advanced gpu features.

The Ryzen chips definitely are respectable in passmarks benchmark value stats rankings. =)

The 3700x and 5700x are 65W parts specifically made for quiet/cool boxes (they’re also 8 core). I have both since I enjoy my sanity and dont care about 10% extra performance. They are the pick of the litter in my mind. Also have a laptop with 5850h. Same with their Navi chips, not blazing hot but good enough, and my boxes and nice and quiet.

I think we've been in the "good-enough" computing age for awhile, and only the CUDA-gpu/codec-asic primarily feature in most desktop upgrade decisions.

Quiet machines are great, especially when you have to sit next to one for 9 hours a day. =3

I have a 3700x I keep around 1.05v and it is completely quiet (and p95 stable) under a massive air cooler which basically never spins up the fans.

> AMD technically has had a better product for decades if you exclude the power consumption metric

And single core performance.

And some other stuff which obviously didn’t matter during the period in question but suddenly became very important when AMD surpassed Intel in that regard…

I remember that I received a ridiculously high RPM fan with my FX-8350 CPU (in the box), which sounded like a vacuum when it ran. Took me less than a week to upgrade to a proper fan that managed to cool that damn thing at 600RPM or so, and life was quiet again!

I'm still running that fan/CPU combo... I intended to replace it many years ago but have never pulled the trigger yet.

Did you use AM5? It was hardly without issues, with users experiencing 30+ second POST times. I'm not even sure that's fixed yet with most motherboards OOTB.

Wow, I was planning an AM5 build but 30 second POST is yikes. Does it go away with an update?

The long POST times are a consequence of DDR5 link training. It's not entirely an AMD-specific problem. Most motherboards for either Intel or AMD now have a feature to skip most of the link training if it doesn't look like there's been a hardware change or since the last boot, but it's unavoidable on the first boot.

30 seconds would be a blessed relief. Link training takes upwards of 3 minutes for my 4x 32GiB DDR5 machine whenever I update its firmware, and then 3 minutes all over again when I load the XMP profile instead of running at the new firmware's safe stock 4000 MT/s.

link training does have an impact, but regardless of link training it looks like many users still report 15+ seconds before ever reaching the bootloader: https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/1815vyr/am5_users...

It looks like some newer motherboards are finally fixing the issue. Note that AM5 is now 2 years old.

I've picked AMD over Intel too, but I've had so many issues with it that I partly regret it. Memory stability issues, extremely long boot times, too high voltage, iGPU driver timeouts. Most of the issues have been fixed, but not all. After months of dealing with an annoying memory leak, I've just recently been able to confirm that it is caused by a Zen 4 iGPU driver.

Sounds like bad ram (clean contacts, re-seat, and test) or temperature issues (the main reason we still use mobile i7-12700H was cheap ddr4 64GB ram stick kit, Iris media gpu drivers, and rtx CUDA gpu.)

Intel has its own issues, Gigabyte told me to pound sand when asking to unlock the bios on my own equipment to disable IME.

There is no greener grass on the fence line... just a different set of issues =3

>Sounds like bad ram (clean contacts, re-seat, and test)

Since he's taking about iGPU issues, he most likely has a laptop APU, so no RAM to reseat. I'm also having similar issues on my Ryzen 7000 laptop. Kinda regret upgrading from the Ryzen 5000 laptop which AMD obsoleted just 2 years after I bought it, as at least that had no issues. Hopefully new drivers in the future will fix stability but you never know.

What I do know, is that this will most likely be my last AMD machine if Intel shows improvement to match AMD, since their Linux driver support is just top notch.

Depends on the failure mode, as it is common for specs to drift around under load (also, temperature cycling stresses PCB, and can shear BGA connections.)

I'd try a slower cheap set of lower-bandwidth/higher-latency ram sticks to see if it stops glitching up. If you are using low latency sticks (iGPU means this is usually recommended), than dropping the performance a bit may stabilize your specific equipment.

Of course, I'm not that smart... so YMMV... =3

There are no sticks in my laptop. I was taking about soldered RAM as is he norm on recent high speed LPDDR5X laptops.

Please pull the chip maker/model off your rig:

sudo apt-get install cpu-x

sudo cpu-x

We may still be able to use this information to compare with other users glitches to see if there is some underlying similarity.

Unfortunately, if it is a thermal stress/warping on the PCB cracking open RAM BGA balls on chips or shifting traces... One won't really be able to completely identify the intermittent issue.

We were actually looking at buying a similar economy model earlier this year (ended up with a few classic Lenovo models instead)... so please be verbose with the make/model to help future searchers =3

Can't be thermal, I checked.

X-ray vision like Superman I gather... nice... ;)

Please dump the problematic cpu/ram chip model numbers to help other users. These chip manufacturer numbers is not really personally identifiable information, as they are shared between hundreds of thousands of products.

The classic cpu-z for Windows users is here if you don't run *nix:

https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Best regards, =3

>X-ray vision like Superman I gather... nice... ;)

That snarkyness is uncalled for. I repasted the laptop, ran benchmarks and checked the temperature sensors plus used my FLIR. It's no thermal issues. It's just AMD iGPU driver buggyness.

  Processors Information
  -------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Socket 1      ID = 0
  Number of cores    8 (max 8)
  Number of threads  16 (max 16)
  Secondary bus #    0
  Number of CCDs    1
  Manufacturer    AuthenticAMD
  Name      AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS
  Codename    Phoenix
  Specification    AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS with Radeon 780M Graphics   
  Package     Socket FP7
  CPUID      F.4.1
  Extended CPUID    19.74
  Core Stepping    PHX-A1
  Technology    4 nm
  TDP Limit    54.0 Watts
  Tjmax      90.0 °C
  Core Speed    2761.5 MHz
  Multiplier x Bus Speed  27.71 x 99.6 MHz
  Base frequency (cores)  99.6 MHz
  Base frequency (mem.)  99.6 MHz
  Instructions sets  MMX (+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, SSE4A, x86-64, AES, AVX, AVX2, AVX512 (DQ, BW, VL, CD, IFMA, VBMI, VBMI2, VNNI, BITALG, VPOPCNTDQ, BF16), FMA3, SHA
  Microcode Revision  0xA704104
  L1 Data cache    8 x 32 KB (8-way, 64-byte line)
  L1 Instruction cache  8 x 32 KB (8-way, 64-byte line)
  L2 cache    8 x 1024 KB (8-way, 64-byte line)
  L3 cache    16 MB (16-way, 64-byte line)
  Preferred cores    2 (#1, #3)
  Max CPUID level    0000000Dh
  Max CPUID ext. level  80000026h
  FID/VID Control    yes
  # of P-States    3
  P-State      FID 0x898 - VID 0xBF (38.00x - 1.194 V)
  P-State      FID 0x858 - VID 0xAB (22.00x - 1.069 V)
  P-State      FID 0xA50 - VID 0x97 (16.00x - 0.944 V)
  PStateReg    0x80000000-0x49AFC898
  PStateReg    0x80000000-0x45AAC858
  PStateReg    0x80000000-0x4425CA50
  PStateReg    0x00000000-0x00000000
  PStateReg    0x00000000-0x00000000
  PStateReg    0x00000000-0x00000000
  PStateReg    0x00000000-0x00000000
  PStateReg    0x00000000-0x00000000

  Package Type    0x4
  Model      00
  String 1    0x0
  String 2    0x0
  Page      0x0
  Power Unit    0.0
  SMU Version    76.73.00
  TDP/TJMAX    0x36005A
  TCTL Offset    0x0
  PMTV      004C0008
  Package Power Tracking (PPT)    54.0 W (current)
  Package Power Limit #1 (long)     35.0 W
  Package Power Limit #2 (short)    25.0 W


  DMI Physical Memory Array  
   location  Motherboard
   usage   System Memory
   correction  None
   max capacity  64 GB
   max# of devices  4

  DMI Memory Device  
   designation  DIMM 0
   format   Row of chips
   type   LPDDR5
   total width  32 bits
   data width  32 bits
   size   8 GB
   speed   6400 MHz
   manufacturer  Micron Technology
   part number  MT62F2G32D4DS-026 WT
   serial number  00000000
   voltage   0.500000
   manufacturer id  0x2C80
   product id  0x0


  Display adapter 0 (primary) 
   ID   0x2180003
   Name   AMD RadeonT 780M
   Board Manufacturer Lenovo
   Codename  Phoenix
   Cores   768
   ROP Units  16
   Technology  4 nm
   Memory size  1024 MB
   Current Link Width x16
   Current Link Speed 16.0 GT/s
   PCI device  bus 99 (0x63), device 0 (0x0), function 0 (0x0)
    Vendor ID 0x1002 (0x17AA)
    Model ID 0x15BF (0x3819)
    Revision ID 0xC7
   Root device  bus 0 (0x0), device 8 (0x8), function 1 (0x1)
   Performance Level Current
    Core clock 800.0 MHz
    Shader clock 400.0 MHz
    Memory clock 800.0 MHz
   Driver version  32.0.11021.1011
   WDDM Model  3.1

People use special x-ray machines to inspect the BGA solder bonds to the PCB underneath chips. These chips may also be additionally glued down to the PCB on higher end equipment (impossible to visually inspect.)

Note BGA chips were never initially intended to be larger than 20mm wide, and can still put enormous shear forces on the contact bonds as the solder solidifies post re-flow (and the bimetallic cantilever PCBs form start to pop-back.) A certain percentage of products will thus fail when they warm up as the PCB will locally heat/warp the area again, and foobar a few random connections in the process. A low-heat paint-stripper heat-blower might be able to replicate the crash to eliminate this theory, and you might be able to RMA the board/chips if you are still under warrantee.

Could indeed also just be software as some suspect, but that is a lot harder to find in kernel drivers.

It is hard to read peoples emotions online, but do assume if someone is reaching out to help they probably think you are worth respecting too.

Thanks for posting data other users may find useful, and have a wonderful day. =3

No, it's not a solder/BGA issue because RAM/CPU/GPU stress benchmarks would cause some instabilities but that's never the case. The instability only manifests when running video decode tasks(watching youtube) in the browser and browsing websites in paralel, meaning it's 99% sure a iGPU driver issue.

Have you tried h264ify and blocked 60fps video?

Might be interesting if the bug is codec dependent, as YT can stress some browsers configs (software codecs etc.)

Does it do this with the windows 11 driver set as well? =)

Desktop Ryzen 7950X.

Increasing the VRAM size (UMA size) to 4 GB fixed the frequent driver timeouts for me.

Reverting to older driver (driver cleaner -> driver v23.11.1) fixed the memory leak. This memory leak is weird since PoolMon doesn't show anything unusual. Nothing shows as using too much memory anywhere, except committed memory size grows to over 100GB after few days of uptime and RamMap shows a large amount of unused-active memory.

GPUs have the most complex drivers in the whole system, we're talking tens of millions LOCs, so it is absolutely not surprising that you're having issues like that given how recent AMD's investment into APUs is. I wouldn't use them for a few more years; get a cheap discrete GPU from nvidia or maybe even from Intel.

The rtx3090 is an Ampere gpu, and will apparently be supported in the new open nVidia driver release.

Should get interesting soon =)

In Nova? Or just the in-kernel component?

Press release:

https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-transitions-fully-t...

Yet to personally try it out, but this should eventually enable better integration with the library ecosystems. =3

Hm? AMD's investing in APUs is not a new thing, that's going back to the FX days with their FM1 socket. Since Ryzen 1 they have their G APUs, and their integrated graphics power the steamdeck and many other mobile handhelds. Plus, Intel's integrated graphics are known for their driver issues (and so is Arc, for now), so I'd disagree with that recommendation.

APU is not only not a new thing, it’s a marketing term AMD themselves invented over 10 years ago pushing the entire concept of having an iGPU.

Please pull the chip maker/model and ram details off your rig:

sudo apt-get install cpu-x

sudo cpu-x

I think comparing your specifications may help other users narrow down if a manufacturing or software defect is present.

Thanks in advance =3

I have a similar CPU, and I also get frequent iGPU crashes, but only when opening multiple tabs (6+) with video.

I also increased UMA to 4 GB, it reduced the crash frequency, but it still happens.

The discrete NVIDIA GPU I use at the same time is fine.

Please post the cpu-z (win) or cpu-x (linux) chip make/model for other users to compare/search.

If there is enough data here, we may be able to see a common key detail emerge. i.e. if the anecdotal problem(s) remain overtly random, than a solution from the community or OEM may prove impossible.

Thanks in advance, =3

I initially got somewhat frequent hangs on Fedora with a Radeon 680M iGPU (in a Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U APU). The hangs stopped when I added amdgpu.dcdebugmask=0x10 to kernel boot options, based on some comments in an AMD Linux driver bug report [1]. That seems to disable panel self-refresh so it would seem to be related to that somehow.

Stability has been fine since. The bug report has since been closed but I haven't tested in a while to see if disabling PSR is still needed or if the issue has actually been fixed.

I haven't seen significant stability issues on Windows, although I don't use it much on the AMD device.

[1] https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/2443

Thanks for contributing.

Your tip may help some folks in the future. =)

Is that Wayland or Xorg?

With PSR in the mix, is the system really hanging or is it just failing to update the screen somehow? I.e. can you tell the difference with logs or a remote connection or configure and use an unprompted shutdown via the power button?

It was on Wayland. I'm not sure if I tried with X.

I can't remember the details of it. It effectively hung in the sense that I couldn't get the system into a usable state again locally without rebooting. I'm not sure if the system responded to the power button or not, or whether there was useful log output.

I didn't bother trying with a remote connection since the hang was frequent enough that it wouldn't have been of any use as a workaround anyway. I'd guess switching to another virtual console probably didn't work because I'd probably remember it if it did.

I can try re-enabling PSR and see if the problem is still there if you're interested.

Looks like some of the patches discussed in that bug report work around the problem by disabling PSR-SU for the specific timing controller my display also has. Those patches are in current kernels already. So basically the problem is gone for me, even if I remove the dcdebugmask.

So, I don't really know if the system was fully hanging, or if the display was just unable to update any more, but it was likely exactly the same that happened to other people with Parade TCONs in that bug discussion.

I did ~12h RAM test few times and it always passed successfully (except when I was testing EXPO profile on early BIOS version).

I also did Prime95 CPU stress testing a few times without issues.

All issues seem to be related to either BIOS or drivers.

Pleas join the branch discussing the idea of using slower/cheaper RAM.

What is your current ram chip model, maker, and configuration on your machine?

sudo apt-get install cpu-x

sudo cpu-x

Cheers, =3

Corsair Vengeance 64GB (2x32GB) 5600MHz C36. Module Part Number: CMH64GX5M2B5600C36. DRAM manufactured by Samsung.

Running RAM at default speeds (4800MHz) or using XMP profile 5600MHz C36 doesn't affect these issues (they are no more or less frequent).

EDIT: XMP profile, not EXPO.

Thanks for helping the other users =3

Some more info if it helps anyone:

CPU Ryzen 9 7950X. Family: F (ext.: 19), Model: 1 (ext.: 61), Stepping: 2, Revision: RPL-B2.

iGPU: Raphael, revision: C1.

MB: ASUS TUF Gaming X670E-PLUS WiFi. Rev 1.xx. Southbridge rev.: 51.

I would never buy an AMD machine again after my last Ryzen 3600X. So many issues. It had to be power cycled 2-3 times to get it to boot. Memory corruption issues and stability issues galore. Not overclocked. Stock configuration. Decent quality board and power supply. Just hell.

Swapped board out assuming it was that. Same problem. Turned out to be the CPU which was a pain in the ass getting a warranty replacement for.

Ended up buying a new open box Intel 12400 Lenovo lump off eBay and using that.

> Decent quality board

Which board was it?

Tried an MSI B550 initially. Think the second one was an Asus B550. The CPU swap did work ok the original board!

But at that point I was using the Lenovo box. So I just sold all the crap on eBay for the next victim.

Interesting. MSI doesn't really have a fantastic reputation for boards, and apparently ASUS's quality isn't that good any more either. :(

For my Ryzen 5000 series build (a while ago now) I went with an ASRock board for ECC support, and also ECC ram.

It's been mostly flawless, though as I'm undervolting the ram it does let me know about an ECC corrected error once every 6-9 months or so. ;)

I have been using Gigabyte for a very long time and had no problems. ASUS was OK for me too, but MSI boards were the worst due to stability, driver and cooling curve problems. Don’t buy MSI.

I don't think there's a lot in it to be honest between vendors. They are all cheap garbage with lurid ass chunks of metal and artwork designed by a 5 year old stuck all over them.

And there's one thing you can NEVER trust and that is objectivity from gamers when looking at failure and reliability statistics. It's one huge cargo cult.

Notably my kids both have Ryzen 5600G + MSI B550 boards with no problems.

The B550 series is a power reduced cost cutting version of the x570 boards. They are only meant for the 6 core version of chips, and the 65W versions. You need to pick your components carefully.

The chipset doesn't deliver power. So this is wrong. It has less PCI lanes and that's about it. I don't need them so I didn't buy them :)

B550 was that limited initially. Even the Ryzen 9 5950X runs on B550 series motherboards today. B550 is a bit scaled down, e.g. no PCIe 4.x lines, just 3.x, but that's OK with me.

My motherboard is an ASUS ROG Strix variety with 4x32GB ECC RAM and the Ryzen 9 5950X works just fine.

VRM is the component that you need to be looking at regarding the power delivery for the CPU. There are many motherboards that combine a lower-tier chipset and a high-end VRM.

I had similar issues with Zen of a few different generations, and with various boards. As a result, I built a new machine around an Intel 12400 as well. I did have to buy a thermaltake socket reinforcement bracket to mitigate the bending issue.

Oddly, this Intel build somewhat restored my faith in humans to build hardware and software as the thing seems to work quite well.

An issue with these parts was that the OOB config wasn’t very good - even if you knew to turn on the XMP profiles it still threw a ridiculous amount of voltage at the chip in pursuit of a few percent performance increase.

I built an Intel workstation for the first time in two decades when the 13700K was released. It hasn't been a bed of roses, starting with thermal throttling from the LGA1700 socket bending the IHS so badly that the heatsink only contacted it in a strip down the middle, needing to physically reseat the onboard HDMI for the display signal to resume after the monitor is disconnected, a generally boiling TDP, DDR5 quirks like 5-minute training times (no blame here, just didn't expect my servers to boot faster), and generally having goofier names for UEFI options designed around overclocking. I still don't know how to use XTU.

Couple that with the underwhelming software support for AI/ML on their own hardware for about a year after CPU and GPU launch, and I wish I'd just stuck to AMD.

I don't think either are perfect, but it's the devil you know, and I've grown to trust that even when AMD cocks something up, they'll listen to customers, coordinate engineering efforts with OEMs, and handle it. Intel are either too high and mighty or don't empower their engineers to treat partners like partners without layers of management getting involved to be able to do something similar.

> Couple that with the underwhelming software support for AI/ML on their own hardware for about a year after CPU and GPU launch, and I wish I'd just stuck to AMD.

What support did AMD have?

Choosing Intel brought no advantage over AMD. What support did AMD need to overcome that?

Seems like a strange way to express that point? Why mention underwhelming support for AI/ML if it’s the same on both? (if we’re talking about desktop chips I don’t even understand what’s that supposed to mean).

I've been staunchly an Intel stan since Pentium 4s were cool and this year will be my first AMD build. Have already been using their server hardware at the office and not disappointed at all.

No particular straw broke the camel's back, they just haven't managed to justify their price premium in a very long time.

If you play games, Intel has no answer to the X3D series from AMD. It's even worse with their p vs e cores that creates issues in many games.

> It's even worse with their p vs e cores that creates issues in many games.

Didn’t AMD also have issues with different cache types/sizes on dual CCD chips? Meaning that it basically didn’t make any sense to buy anything more expensive than the 7800x3d if you only care about gaming.

Just last week I bought a new desktop for a family member. I was considering an Intel CPU, but at the last minute found a better and cheaper option with an AMD processor. Am I glad I dodged that bullet.

I've been firmly in camp Intel ever since my third Athlon 2200XP burned itself out (and finally took the motherboard socket with it on its way to the melty grave) back in circa ~2005 (Intel CPUs had thermal envelope protection at the time, AMD CPUs did not).

This fiasco has me convinced that I will not be building an Intel system again, and I haven't even (yet) had any problems with either of the Z790 i7-14700K systems I put together in March.

Being in any camp is just a bad way to approach things.

I go with AMD because they make the best desktop CPUs right now. When Intel gets their shit together (hopefully) and the pendulum swings back I'll go with them.

These are all corporations at the end of the day. They get better and worse overtime. They certainly never stay the same forever and deserve any kind of loyalty to their brand.

Well, maybe, but Intel is historically much scummier than AMD ever was. ICC benchmark cheating, OEM bribery debacle, ECC only for XEON, constant socket changes, shitty non-solder TIM for a long time, etc...

Remember when Nvidia used to have the better open source drivers than ATI? The company that's in the lead always acts the shittiest because they can because they already have the lead. Don't tie yourself to one company.

Changing platforms was easier than fixing cooling?

Unknown to me at the time (I wasn't even yet an adult) is that the heatsink was of an incorrect model, so it wasn't making good contact and doing the job properly. This wouldn't have been a problem if the CPU thermal throttled; that would immediately cause a performance problem that I would have been curious about. No, instead they just died, over the course of about 2 years. Changing platform wasn't my choice, my mother bought a new desktop and it had a Pentium. I don't remember the model.

If the Xeon counterpart isn't failing as well, then they most certainly know the problem. Too aggressive voltages for a more fragile transistor size

I think there’s a real concern Xeon e-2400 may be failing at this point too. It's an open question if Emerald Rapids might have the same issues (and EMR has mesh, not ring, so this is an interesting question as to diagnosing the cause!) but W-2400 and W-3500 still use Golden Cove.

The leading theory at this point is not really voltage or current related but actually a defect in the coatings that is allowing oxidation in the vias. Manufacturing defect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTeubeCIwRw

It affects even 35W SKUs like 13700t, so it’s really not the snide/trite “too much power” thing. Like bro zen boosts to 6 GHz now too and nobody says a word. And believe it or not, if you look at the power consumption, both of them are probably fairly comparable in core power - both brands are consistently boosting to around 25-30W single-thread under load. AMD's highest voltages will occur during these same single-core boost loads, these are the ones of concern at this point - if it is just voltage that is killing these 35W chips, well, AMD is playing in the exact same voltage/current domains.

Furthermore, if it was power it wouldn’t be a problem that is limited to 10-25% of the silicon, it would be all of them.

There was a specific problem with partners implementing eTVB wrong, and that was rectified. The remaining problem is actually pretty complex and potentially there are multiple overlapping issues.

It just has become this lightning rod for people who are generally dissatisfied with Intel, and people are lumping their random "it doesn't keep up with X3D efficiency!" complaints into one big bucket. But like, Intel actually isn't all that far off the non-x3d skus in terms of efficiency, especially in non-AVX workloads. "140W instead of 115W for gaming" is pretty typical of the results, and that's not "burn my processor out" level bad. 13900K has always been silly, but 13700K is like... fine?

https://tpucdn.com/review/intel-core-i7-13700k/images/power-...

https://tpucdn.com/review/intel-core-i7-13700k/images/effici...

https://tpucdn.com/review/intel-core-i7-13700k/images/power-...

https://old.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/yehe1s/intel_rapt...

(granted this may be launch BIOS, and it sounds like part of the problem is that partners have been tinkering over time and it's gotten worse and worse... I'm dubious these numbers are the same numbers as you'd get today, but in fact they are pretty consistent across a whole bunch of reviewers, ctrl-f "CPU consumption" and the gaming and non-AVX power numbers are in broadly unconcerning ranges, 57-170W is broadly speaking fine.)

Again, even if there is a power/current issue, at the end of the day it's going to have a specific cause and diagnosis attached to it - like AMD's issues were VSOC being too high. Saying "too much power" is like writing "died of a broken heart" on a death certificate, maybe that's true but that's not really a medical diagnosis. Some voltage on some rail is damaging some thing, or some thermal limit is being exceeded unintentionally, and that is causing electromigration, or something.

You might as well just come out and say it: intel's hubris displeased the gods, they tempted fate and this is their divine punishment. That's really what people are trying to say. Right? Don't dress it up in un-deserved technical window-dressing.

I wonder if it's a hardware design or build defect, and the solution may be too inhibiting of performance.

10-25% are Intel's numbers, it's closer to 50% in production

Hard to tell. My workplace is currently running on nothing but 13th Gen i5' HP Elitebooks. We haven't had any issues but then I suspect these would all be running CPUS from the same batch, possibly even the same wafer.

No, intel has said nothing at all (that’s part of the problem) and 10-25% are the numbers from Wendell and GN who have been investigating the issue in various companies’ prod environments and event logs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTeubeCIwRw

No need to make shit up, things are bad enough already.

Uck. intel is dead what a joke. Sell it off for scrap. Hasn’t made any real innovations in 30 years.

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