topic Re: Re:do I owe a defective i5 13600k? in Mobile and Desktop Processors

Do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

frack — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 12:46:08 GMT

Hello all,

I am creating this post because I lately faced an issue which I could not find a proper root cause.

Everything started with my PC (self built): configured with:

i5 13600k (3 months of life)

asus Z790-A wifi

2x16gb ram DDr5

while running videogames, at some point during the gaming session the game crashed. It returned to main Windows desktop, and after less than 5 seconds also the latter crashed with one of the many blue screen. After this crash and the machine rebooted itself, the PC started crashing at every Windows loading attempt, as show in below picture. Error is not consistent and it changes basically every time the machine reboots. See some examples in the attached picture to this thread.

Re installing Windows again did not helped. After windows files were copied in the drive during the installation process, the machine rebooted to finalize it and the issue was still there. From this point, I started doing more deeper testing, listed in chronological order:

- removing one RAM bank ad the time, the error persisted

- detach both hard drives and load a reduced-feature distribution of Windows, and the error persisted

- Perform a fast memory test (fast because If the failure happened so often, then memory should fail with ease), however the test didn't spotted any errors (test lasted about 30 minutes).

- tried to load a Unix (linux mint) distro from USB stick -> the OS started but it crashed after 10 seconds, even though it kept on and it didn't properly rebooted by itself during this test

- tried a CPU stress from boot: none of the application started, one was detecting "stalls" without properly being able to open the tool itself

- remove the GPU -> problem still persisted

- Update to the latest BIOS -> problem still persist

The stalls errors seen in the CPU test made me think something wrong in the CPU. I then started playing with bios configuration, in the specific with number of "active P-cores", when I realized the following:

Setting the Active Performance Cores from "all" to 5 allowed me to pass the windows booting phase!

were instead, by manually deactivating Per P-core control (I only tried disabling only core[0] and only core[1], the problem popped up again.

I came to a point where I cannot understand why disabling one random core( I don't know which core is disabled when I select from "All" active cores to "5" active cores the motherboard) the systems seems working normally. I have plan to perform a more extensive Memory test during the day/night, to see if some errors within the RAM, but I have a gut feeling this issue is not related by them.

The CPU is still in warranty period, so I could leverage my warranty to have the CPU replaced, if I could show that the CPU is really defective. For this reason, I am asking if any has some idea how I could proceed in doing testing with some specific software to hunt the root cause of the problem. by disabling one CPU in the bios I can only see 5 CPUs in the tool I can load from Windows itself, and the inactive one seems disappeared, without being able to spot which specific one is "parked" or currently inactive. Hope someone can help me understanding what's going on here and how I could try hunt for this problem.

Many thanks for the help whoever will be able to help me!

Re: Do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

frack — Sat, 29 Jul 2023 17:11:02 GMT

Hello,

I managed to perform some additional testing over the machine, and it turned out that RAM test passed with 0 errors detected.

I have also succeed in isolate the "candidate defective" core: I did so by disabling "Per Core control" the core number [5].

My concern now is: how do I make sure to be able testing this core to see if really damaged?

Please help me with some ideas/suggestion how this can be done.

Thanks all!

Re: Do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

Sandman192 — Sun, 30 Jul 2023 04:25:54 GMT

Maybe try memtest86 and have it do 1 CPU core at time.

Re: Do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

frack — Sun, 30 Jul 2023 18:41:09 GMT

I had the same intuition yesterday, so I disabled all the cores but the performance one and its own thread and the mem test seems passed.... This case it is getting even mysterious every passing time

Re: Do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

Sandman192 — Sun, 30 Jul 2023 20:12:39 GMT

What heat sink or water cooling do you have.

Remove CPU and reset it. But blow some air on the empty socket. Heat can do strange things like messing with the pins.

Re:do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

Andres_Intel — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 15:45:06 GMT

Hello frack,

Thank you for posting on the Intel communities. I am sorry to hear that you are having Blue Screen of Death issues with your Intel® Core™ i5-13600K Processor, I will be happy to help you.

To have a better understanding of the situation, please answer the following questions:

Download, run, save and attach the report for the following tool Intel® System Support Utility for Windows (SSU), you can find the steps on the link How to get the Intel® System Support Utility Logs on Windows.

Regards,

Andres P.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Re: Do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

frack — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 12:32:56 GMT

I have a 360 AIO, temps were always kept under control. Unfortunately I came writing after trying re-paste and clean the socket area with compressed air, but problems still stands there.

in my investigation I realized that sick core can be kept enabled, but frequency ratio for that core must be set to its lowest possible value, for some reason 35. This means that the sick core could not reach beyond 3.5.GHZ, in practice this limitation is applied to all the core, with a consequent lost of performance.

Re: Re:do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

frack — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 12:33:38 GMT

sure:

Re:do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

Andres_Intel — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 13:53:49 GMT

Hello frack,

Thank you for your response, it has been really helpful.

Please follow the steps below and let me know the results:

What is the memory RAM make and model?
Have you overclocked the processor?
Update BIOS to version 1210. For guidance, you can contact the motherboard manufacturer.
If you have made a hardware and software change, undo any recent hardware or software changes.
Testing by booting the system using only essential components (motherboard, processor, one stick of memory, one storage drive , and power supply).
If possible, test the motherboard with another compatible processor, and provide the processor model.
If you are not able to complete the previous step, try to test the processor with another compatible motherboard, in this case, provide motherboard make, model and BIOS version.

Regards,

Andres P.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Re:do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

Andres_Intel — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 16:36:39 GMT

Hello frack,

Were you able to test the motherboard with another compatible processor or test the processor with another compatible motherboard?

Let us know if you still need assistance.

Best regards,

Andres P.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Re: Re:do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

frack — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 20:26:55 GMT

Hello,

Sorry if I will be a little unpolite here, but if I had chance to perform a physical hardware testing by swapping the CPU with another one, I would not had felt need to ask a question here, and just send the failed product in RMA. Am I correct?

I felt I just needed some guidance if I can have any chance to do any sort of testing/error logging and analysis without the needs of sending the whole PC to an IT store, which will simply swap my CPU with another one and figure whether the problem came from it or not

I will be also glad to accept honesty in saying there are no tools able to to this. To me it just seemed so weird this is not doable, as the whole HW needs to run like a swiss clock, otherwise, even just a single bit, leads a system to failures.

Windows support analyzed the log I had managed to collect, and they were just able to observe a "generic error" in memory dump - something which does not help too much.

So, only option, if existing seems like some analysis at boot level which could catch this failure.

Are you able to provide such diagnostic tool?

Thanks, and sorry again to be too annoying here

Re:do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

Andres_Intel — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 20:55:22 GMT

Hello frack,

Thank you for your answer and clarification, all the information provided has been really helpful.

We have two diagnostic tools that can be useful for you:

Intel® Processor Diagnostic Tool or Intel® PDT where you can verify the functionality of all the cores of Intel® Processor. For guidance, you can access The Intel® Processor Diagnostic Tool Overview, Download, and Documentation. This tool generates a file that may be helpful for us, please attach it to your response.
Intel® Extreme Tuning Utility (Intel® XTU) is useful for a stress test, you can take a screenshot o the test results and attach it to your response.

Remember to answer the information requested in the previous response:

What is the memory RAM make and model? This helps me to check compatibility.
Have you overclocked the processor?
Update BIOS to version 1210. For guidance, you can contact the motherboard manufacturer. We recommend having the BIOS up to date.
If you have made a hardware and software change, undo any recent hardware or software changes.
Testing by booting the system using only essential components (motherboard, processor, one stick of memory, one storage drive, and power supply).

Please keep me informed and let me know the results.

Regards,

Andres P.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Re:do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

Alberto_R_Intel — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 02:22:22 GMT

Hello frack, I just wanted to check if the information posted previously was useful for you and if you need further assistance on this matter?

Regards,

Albert R.

Intel Customer Support Technician

Re: Do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

Sandman192 — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 17:00:00 GMT

If you can try OCCT Pro free version and you can test what cores in any order you want to test.

Re:do I owe a defective i5 13600k?

IsaacQ_Intel — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 19:23:09 GMT

Hello frack

We hope you are doing fine.

We have not heard back from you. So we will close this thread. If you need any additional information, submit a new question, as this thread will no longer be monitored.

Regards,

Isaac Q.

Intel Customer Support Technician