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from the same-designer-as-the-iPhone-6 dept.
Found this at HotHardware. From the article:
It's been discovered that some third-party heat sinks can physically damage Intel's new Skylake CPUs, along with the pins in the accompanying motherboard socket. The problem has prompted at least one cooler maker to change the design of its Socket 1151 heat sinks and it wouldn't be surprising if others soon followed suit.
The apparent issue is the substrate Intel used for its Skylake chips. A close-up shot of a Skylake CPU sitting side-by-side with a Broadwell processor shows that the substrate is noticeably thinner on Skylake, and thus prone to bending from the force that some third-party heat sinks exert. It also poses a problem for the tiny pins in the socket area of Skylake motherboards.
Sounds like something to be careful of when building that new rig. Has anyone experienced the issue?
takyon:
Update - 3:08PM: This just in from Intel...
"The design specifications and guidelines for the 6th Gen Intel Core processor using the LGA 1151 socket are unchanged from previous generations and are available for partners and 3rd party manufacturers. Intel can't comment on 3rd party designs or their adherence to the recommended design specifications. For questions about a specific cooling product we must defer to the manufacturer."
And so it would appear this is an OEM 3rd party manufacturer issue, rather than a generalized issue with the processor(s).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MrGuy on Saturday December 05 2015, @06:47PM
There's an issue with some heatsinks working with a particular processor. The heatsink manufacturer blames the processor manufacturer. Then the processor manufacturer comes back and blames the heatsink manufacturer.
I'm not sure how your conclusion "therefore, it's the heatsink manufacturer's fault, and not the processor" follows from those facts.
(Score: 2) by moondoctor on Saturday December 05 2015, @07:03PM
What they are saying is that the coolers exceeded specs. Loosely: The old ones could handle more pressure, even though the pressure was not within spec. The new ones buckle under an over-spec load.
After this statement it is now about whether the cooler folks were selling units that put pressure beyond the spec.
We'll see...
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Saturday December 05 2015, @07:58PM
The old WHAT could handle the pressure?
The problem is that the the coolers are deforming (and possibly breaking) the CPU chips.
A close-up shot of a Skylake CPU sitting side-by-side with a Broadwell processor shows that the substrate is noticeably thinner on Skylake,
Skylake a new chip. There are NO OLD coolers that should be used, the new chipset requires a new cooler. End of story.
Manufacturers are sending out their old Broadwell coolers without a glance at the specs.
So far it only looks like the Scythe brand [extremetech.com] of coolers are at fault.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday December 05 2015, @08:43PM
The heat sink makers relied on undocumented behaviour (the processor being able to stand a larger force than specified) which changed for the newer processors. Any heat sink for the old processor that was manufactured to spec should work for the new processor as well.
Let me make a car analogy.
Intel made bridges and told people that only cars up to 5 tonnes weight should drive over them. But some car manufacturers noticed that they could drive 7 tonnes cars over those bridges without them breaking, and sold such cars.
Then Intel started to make new bridges that would break when you drive 7 tonnes cars over them, however 5 tonnes cars still can drive over them without problems. Therefore all cars which officially were able to cross the old bridges can also cross the new bridges. However the cars that are heavier than allowed will break the new bridges even though they happened not to break the old bridges.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday December 05 2015, @09:28PM
Any heat sink for the old processor that was manufactured to spec should work for the new processor as well.
No, it shouldn't. They are different chips, with a different thickness substrate, for a different market segment (thin tablets), and they had DIFFERENT SPECS WERE PUBLISHED by Intel. Some 3rd party suppliers noticed the old heat sinks sorta fit, and decided to pawn off old equipment for the new processors.
You must be new to computers. Here's a clue: Things change rapidly in the computer industry, mkay? Remember that fact. It will serve you well later in life after you are out of Junior High School. What works today, can not be expected to work tomorrow with different motherboards, different chips.
Let me make a car analogy.
Sorry, NO. Cars are not involved. These are not the bridges you were looking for,
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday December 05 2015, @09:46PM
FTFS (emphasis by me):
Note that, according to the summary, that's a direct quote by Intel. Now who knows better about Intel specs, Intel or frojack? Well, hard call! ;-)
No. But I'm able to read. That's a big advantage; you should try it, too.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday December 05 2015, @07:07PM
Intel can't comment on 3rd party designs or their adherence to the recommended design specifications.
And why not?
If there is a brand known to work improperly, name-em and shame-em.
Thanks a lot Intel, for dodging the issue here and leaving at the mercy of shoddy manufacturers. I bet similar reluctance won't be seen when we have to buy a new CPU because some lame fan broke the corner off of our processor. (Yes I have seen this happen in the past}.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday December 06 2015, @12:38AM
Nothing "shoddy" here except Intel, unless you are actually gonna buy a classic "who ya gonna believe, me or your lying eyes" from Intel. Look at the pics yourself, see the substrate? See how much thinner it is? Yet Intel claims that even though they cut the substrate in half that its no different than the previous chips specs..yeah, and pull this leg it plays jingle bells.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday December 06 2015, @12:41AM
And why not?
Lawsuits, of course.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday December 05 2015, @08:23PM
The specs from Intel are unchanged. There were some out of spec heatsinks that just happened to work OK with older CPUS. The new CPU is less forgiving of out of spec heatsinks but works fine with old heatsinks that are in spec.
So it's the 3rd party's fault for having a heatsink that was never in spec.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MrGuy on Saturday December 05 2015, @11:04PM
Assertion supported solely by Intel's statement.
Unsupported assertion. Where is the evidence that the working heatsinks were out of spec?
Unsupported assertion. Where is the evidence the failing sinks are out of spec? Where is the evidence that the CPU's DO work with in-spec heatsinks.
Logical conclusion that follows if you accept these assertions as factual.
I'm not saying you're not correct, just that I don't see evidence to support this argument presented here.
Intel's statement (which supports the first assertion) is a statement from one of the parties in a dispute over who is to blame for an engineering issue claiming it's the other party's fault. I'm personally skeptical of taking their unsupported word for it. The second and third assertion are [citation needed] to me. They may be true, they may not.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 06 2015, @06:49AM
Intel's statement (which supports the first assertion) is a statement from one of the parties in a dispute over who is to blame for an engineering issue
It is also a statement from the party that actually wrote the spec and published it. Although I don't have a copy, it would be so very trivial for any ticked off 3rd party to show the change if it existed that it would be the world's dumbest lie. They're smarter than that.
It's a story that has been repeated so often in the industry that I don't find it at all difficult to believe, though I would welcome evidence to the contrary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @12:21AM
As far as I can tell, the specs are indeed unchanged, but they don't specify the disputed parameter.
According to the article, Intel is saying that the 6th generation has the same specifications for mounting pressure as did earlier generations. I found the "Thermal Mechanical Design Guidelines" (TMDG) for the 4th generation of processors. [intel.com] This looks like it's meant to be the go-to document for designing coolers, but I found no mention of the "maximum mounting pressure" that the article says is specified. I didn't find any different TMDG document for newer processors that use the LGA1151 socket (they exist for those using the LGA2011 socket).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2015, @09:33AM
Ha!