This feels like something of an inevitability, but now it’s actually happening. A class action lawsuit accusing Intel of knowingly selling CPUs prone to crashing has been filed in a federal court in California (via Techspot).

The plaintiff is actually one Mark Vanvalkenburgh of Orchard Park, New York. But his beef is with an Intel Core i7-13700K he picked up from Best Buy in January 2023.

“After purchasing the product, Plaintiff learned that the processor was defective, unstable, and crashing at high rates,” the suit states. Vanvalkenburgh applied the Intel microcode patch designed to fix the problems, but apparently this failed to resolve the instability and crashes. Vanvalkenburgh’s lawyer’s expect other Intel customers to join the suit.

Just for clarity, all this pertains to the well documented problems with Intel’s 13th and 14th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs. Intel now claims that the problems are resolved with the aforementioned patch, albeit it took Intel three tries at releasing a patch before it settled on what is now claimed to be the overall solution. But even if that is true, it will surely be problematic should it be proven that Intel knew the chips were duds but sold them anyway.

Thus the killer passage in the suit could be the following claims:

“By late 2022 or early 2023, Intel knew of the defect. Intel’s Products undergo prerelease and post-release testing. Through these tests, Intel became aware of the defect in the processors. In addition, Intel monitors return rates, press reports, and user reports of defects. By late 2022 and early 2023, there were numerous reports that the Intel chips were failing at high rates. Thus, Intel knew that its Products were defective by late 2022 or early 2023.”

If that is proven, it will surely be very ugly for Intel. Of course, it is perhaps not totally surprising that this particular Intel customer found that his problem was not resolved by Intel’s microcode patches.

Intel has conceded that once the clock tree circuit in a CPU is damaged by voltage spikes, those patches won’t fix it and the chip needs to be replaced. That’s why Intel extended the warranties on Raptor Lake chips by two years and implemented an enhanced RMA process.

Anywho, the suit seeks damages including punitive damages, restitution, disgorgement, and an order broadly awarding the plaintiff and all other class members compensation to be determined at trial.

Given Intel’s well publicised struggles, which most recently have seen it drop out of the Dow Jones stock index, this is hardly good news. But it was almost certain to happen. It will be interesting to see if Intel fights this one to the death or offers a speedy settlement. Watch this space.