It is safe to say that the CPU is the most important part of the computer. Forget the discrete GPU or sound card since without a CPU, it would be just chunks of metal and silicon. That being said, CPUs are designed to handle workloads, especially the higher-end ones in which some industries require to perform complex calculations and whatnot.So we can only imagine how it must feel when you buy a CPU only to have it freeze up on you when you need it the most. Unfortunately that seems to be a case happening for some Intel Skylake owners, although the upside is that Intel has since acknowledged that there is a bug and that they are working to fix it.
The issue was originally discovered by the folks at hardwareluxx.de, before they passed their findings over to Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS). According to Intel, “Intel has identified an issue that potentially affects the 6th Gen Intel Core family of products. This issue only occurs under certain complex workload conditions, like those that may be encountered when running applications like Prime95. In those cases, the processor may hang or cause unpredictable system behaviour.”
Intel did not identify why the bug occurs, but it seems to affect both Windows and Linux computers, but they are working with hardware partners to distribute the fix via a BIOS update.
Filed in . Read more about Intel.