Root cause of Vmin shift instability
Intel® has pinpointed the Vmin shift instability problem to a clock tree circuit in the IA core that is particularly susceptible to reliability degradation at elevated voltage and temperature. Intel has observed that these conditions may result in clock duty cycle shifts and observed system instability.
Intel® has identified four (4) operating scenarios that may result in a Vmin shift on affected processors:
1) Motherboard power settings exceed Intel power recommendations.
A. Damage limitation: Intel® Default Settings Recommendations for 13th and 14th Generation Intel® Core™ Desktop Processors.
2) eTVB microcode algorithm that enabled 13th and 14th generation Intel® Core™ i9 desktop processors to operate in higher performance states even at high temperatures.
A. Damage limitation: Microcode 0x125 (June 2024) fixes the eTVB algorithm issue.
3) Microcode SVID algorithm that requests high voltages with a frequency and duration that can cause a Vmin shift.
A. Damage limitation: Microcode 0x129 (August 2024) deals with high voltages requested by the processor.
4) Microcode and BIOS code requesting increased core voltages, which can cause a Vmin shift, particularly during idle and/or low activity.
A. Damage limitation: Intel® releases microcode 0x12B, which includes 0x125 and 0x129 microcode updates and addresses increased processor voltage requirements during idle and/or low activity periods.