Random CTDs on high end Intel chips? Check your bios settings

User Support Hub Crashes (CTDs)
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I’ve been recently experiencing random crashing on my previously stable box with an i9-1300KF CPU. I completely flattened my box and reinstalled everything after exhausting pretty much every other possible troubleshooting step, but that didn’t help. Looking at my thermals, I saw that my CPU temps were regularly climbing to 100C in spite of having agressive cooling and proper fan profiles.

Finally, I found out today that apparently this is a known problem with certain Intel CPUs. It appears that the mobo manufacturers (I have an Asus ROG STRIX 790-H WiFi) are defaulting to virtually unlimited power and current settings that are allowing the CPUs to run out of spec and causing system instability under load.

There are plenty of details in this redit thread. I pulled up the Intel reference and confirmed the poster’s findings regarding the published power specifications.

Here are the potential fixes for Asus Z790 and Gigabyte mobos.

ASUS Z790 Motherboards:

  1. Save your current settings into a profile so you can return to them later if you want.
  2. Reset your BIOS to default settings. Ai Tweaker tab:
  3. Disable MultiCore Enhancement.
  4. Enable XMP(if your RAM supports it).
  5. Set SVID behavior to Typical Scenario.
  6. Set short duration turbo power = 253
  7. Set long duration turbo power = 253
  8. Set max core/cache current = 307Amps

Boot into windows and test. If you are still unstable, go back to BIOS and set SVID behavior to “Trained”. If you’re still unstable on “Trained”, then revert back to your previous config. This guide is not for you.

Gigabyte Motherboards:

  1. Save your current settings into a profile so you can return to them later if you want.
  2. Reset your BIOS to default settings.
  3. Enable XMP(if your RAM supports it).
  4. Set Package Power Limit 1 = 253
  5. Set Package Power Limit 2 = 253
  6. Set Core Current Limit = 307Amps

The issue has been confirmed by Intel and is documented by Tom’s hardware

I’ve just applied it and I’ve seen my CPU temps drop considerably when running MSFS, so I’m hopeful that it will resolve my stability problems. I’m not sure why this suddenly started cropping up on my box–I had been running MSFS without issue until the day the stupid windowing bug was introduced.

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Thanks a bunch for sharing. This is the first time I’ve seen this and have had a 13900K since February of 2023. Intel, Gigabyte, and Asus really screwed up with this one.

I think this thread needs more visibility as this issue is affecting a lot of people. I applied these settings and here is what happened:

Instantly noticed a drop in 15-20C of my CPU temps. Prior to this, it was routinely running mid 90s during workloads and hitting 100C quite frequently. This was bizarre since it hasn’t always done this. I guess Gigabyte was taking a while to really cook my CPU and degrade performance.

I’m requesting a replacement from Intel since this issue is ridiculous.

I have some desire to revert back just to test what insane power it was pushing into the CPU, but I’m scared to do it since I don’t want to ruin the processor. I’ve seen an article saying 13900Ks are being returned in droves and this is the likely cause.

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Could you please post a link to that article?

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