The American law firm Abington Cole + Ellery, specializing in class action and intellectual property cases, has begun an investigation into problems with failures and instability of the 13th and 14th generation Intel Core “Raptor Lake” processors. The firm is considering filing a class action lawsuit on behalf of Intel customers.
Image Source: Intel
Intel previously reported that its 13th and 14th generation Core processors may be unstable due to overvoltage. The company will release a microcode update in August that should fix this issue. However, there is speculation that the new microcode will not be able to fix the problem for all affected processors. Intel also promised to replace all processors affected by this problem with new ones. Earlier it also became known that instability in operation occurs not only in older processor models; it can affect all models with a nominal power consumption rating (TPD) of 65 W or more.
Lawyers at Abington Cole + Ellery have seen Intel’s announcement but want to make sure the company lives up to its responsibilities to replace faulty chips. To do this, they turned to users of the Reddit forum calling on owners of Intel processors to report cases of non-compliance with warranty obligations on the part of the manufacturer, if any.
One of the Raptor Lake owners explained how the exchange procedure works. In his case, Intel easily agreed to the RMA (return the product to the manufacturer for repair or replacement) procedure. The rules are simple and clear. The owner of the problematic processor is asked to take photos of the chip and then send the photos to Intel. After this, the company contacts the user and offers to make a special payment of $25. The company then ships a new processor. To get a $25 refund, the user must send the faulty processor to Intel. Another way to do this is to immediately send the faulty processor to Intel without paying a special fee of $25, and later receive a new processor. The fee is a protection against fraud.
So far, Intel is fully coping with replacing faulty processors. However, there will most likely be some dissatisfied customers sooner or later, since the company has sold several million of these CPUs to date. Abington Cole + Ellery are preparing to file a lawsuit against Intel if they find enough victims. If such a case is considered in court and Intel loses, the judge may order the latter to pay compensation to all owners. In this case, lawyers will also receive their share (and a considerable one), so they are interested in this investigation.