The IT Nerd

This week has had a lot of bad news for Intel and AMD. In both cases, they have bad news about the quality of the chips that they make. Let’s start with AMD and their “Sinkclose” vulnerability:

The Sinkclose vulnerability allows hackers to execute code within the System Management Mode (SMM) of AMD processors, a highly privileged area typically reserved for critical firmware operations. To exploit this flaw, attackers must first gain access to a system’s kernel, which isn’t easy, but it is possible. However, the system must already have been compromised by some other attack. 

Once this access is secured, the Sinkclose vulnerability allows the perpetrators to install bootkit malware that evades detection by standard antivirus tools, remaining nearly invisible within the system and can persist even after the operating system is reinstalled.  

The vulnerability leverages an ambiguous feature in AMD chips known as TClose, which is meant to maintain compatibility with older devices. By manipulating this feature, the researchers were able to redirect the processor to execute their own code at the SMM level. This method is complex but provides attackers with deep and persistent control over the system. 

This is pretty bad. But to be clear, a threat actor needs to already have access to your system to pull off this attacks. But AMD has acknowledged this and has said that they will push out fixes for these soon, if they’re not already out.

Now let’s go over to Intel who has some serious stability issues with their processors:

Alderon Games revealed that it had observed a nearly 100% failure rate of Raptor Lake processors in its own testing. Telemetry from end customers reports thousands of Raptor Lake CPUs crashing in customers’ gaming PCs. Alderon Game’s own development systems utilizing Raptor Lake CPUs also suffer from frequent instability, leading to SSD and memory corruption. On top of this, the studio’s dedicated game servers leveraging Raptor Lake parts experience “constant crashes” to the point where they are taking entire servers down. 

The studio’s benchmarking tools also show failures with Raptor Lake parts, specifically decompression and memory tests unrelated to its Path of Titans game, which the company is developing.

The worst part is that Alderon Gamers has observed CPU deterioration over time, specifically over three to four months. Initially, the chips will work fine but eventually start failing. Microcode, BIOS, and firmware updates have failed to resolve these stability problems for the game studio.

So, unlike AMD who can push out fixes that will address their issues, Intel’s chips will eventually fail. That’s in my mind makes Intel’s issues worse than AMD. And after a lot of inaction from Intel, the company is finally admitting to the issue, which dates back to 2022, and is doing something about it:

Intel has announced that it has found the root cause of the crashing issues plaguing its CPUs. The company will issue a microcode update to address the issues by mid-August, ostensibly ending the long-running saga that began when the first sporadic reports of CPU crashing errors surfaced in December 2022 and grew to a crescendo by the end of 2023. Intel’s response comes after complaints about the issue, which causes PCs to inexplicably crash/BSOD during gaming and other workloads, reached a fever pitch in recent weeks. However, the microcode update will not repair impacted processors. Intel also confirmed a rumored issue with via oxidation in its 7nm node, but said those issues were corrected in 2023 and didn’t contribute to the failures.

Intel’s advisory says an erroneous CPU microcode is the root cause of the incessant instability issues. The microcode caused the CPU to request elevated voltage levels, resulting in the processor operating outside its safe boundaries. Intel is now validating a microcode patch to correct the issues, with its release slated for mid-August. This patch will be distributed through BIOS updates from motherboard OEMs and via Windows updates, so the timing for end-user availability could vary. 

The bug causes irreversible degradation of the impacted processors. We’re told that the microcode patch will not repair processors already experiencing crashes, but it is expected to prevent issues on processors that aren’t currently impacted by the issue. For now, it is unclear if CPUs exposed to excessive voltage have suffered from invisible degradation or damage that hasn’t resulted in crashes yet but could lead to errors or crashes in the future.

Intel advises all customers having issues to seek help from its customer support. Because the microcode update will not repair impacted processors, the company will continue to replace them. Intel has pledged to grant RMAs to all impacted customers.

Here’s another reason why Intel’s issues are worse than AMD’s issues:

Intel’s problems are beginning to catch up in a major way with the chipmaking behemoth. Just a couple of days after the company revealed via a community board post that the cause of 13th Gen “Raptor Lake” and 14th Gen “Raptor Lake Refresh” desktop processor (CPU) instability had been discovered in more chips than first thought, the Abington Cole + Ellery law firm began a class action lawsuit investigation.

The law firm — based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a focus on class action litigation — is currently gathering information from users who have experienced issues with the Raptor Lake chips.

And yet another reason:

Intel’s nightmare year continues. Fresh on the heels of laying off 15,000 employees and amidst a class action lawsuit about failing 13th Gen and 14th Gen CPUs, Intel now faces a lawsuit from its shareholders. The lawsuit claims that Intel hid issues that led to the company’s market value dropping $32 billion in one day.

“[The] company’s materially false or misleading statements regarding the business and its manufacturing capabilities inflated its stock price from Jan. 25 to Aug. 1,” claims the suit.

Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger and CFO David Zinsner are the respondents of the lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday, August 7, 2024 in San Francisco federal court. According to Reuters, Intel shareholders were blindsided by the fact that Intel’s foundry services are “floundering,” in the words of the shareholders.

So while AMD can fix the issues with their products and eventually move on, Intel is facing so much trouble that it could “end” them. Or at the very least hobble them to such a degree that they are never going to be anywhere near the top of the pile when it comes to chipmaking ever again.

Sucks to be Intel.