Root Cause of Vmin Shift Instability
Intel® has localized the Vmin shift instability issue to a clock tree circuit within the IA core that is particularly vulnerable to reliability aging under elevated voltage and temperature. Intel has noted that these conditions can cause a shift in clock duty cycle and observed system instability.
Intel® has identified four (4) operating scenarios that may cause a Vmin change on affected processors:
1) The motherboard power supply configuration exceeds Intel's power guide.
to. Mitigation: Intel® default configuration recommendations for 13th and 14th generation Intel® Core desktop processors.
2) eTVB microcode algorithm that allowed 13th and 14th generation Intel® Core i9 desktop processors to operate in higher performance states even at high temperatures.
to. Mitigation: Microcode 0x125 (June 2024) addresses the eTVB algorithm issue.
3) SVID microcode algorithm that requests high voltages at a frequency and duration that can cause a change in Vmin.
to. Mitigation: Microcode 0x129 (Aug 2024) addresses high voltages requested by the processor.
4) Microcode and BIOS code that request high core voltages that can cause Vmin to shift, especially during periods of inactivity and/or light activity.
to. Mitigation: Intel® is releasing microcode 0x12B, which covers microcode updates 0x125 and 0x129 and addresses high voltage requests from the processor during periods of idle and/or light activity.
