CPU/Mobo Skylake CPU bugs and defects

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vishalrao

vishalrao

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See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/11/math_bug_splatters_skylake_intel_working_on_fix/

Plus, I notice there seem to be quite a few graphics issues with the Skylake CPUs on Windows, Linux.

Even my i5-6500 with ASUS H170-Pro mobo the BIOS updates that have been frequently coming in, one of them mentioned "improve VGA stability issues" and also "please update your Intel graphics drivers". I also occasionally get a graphics "reset" (most recently while working on a document in LibreOffice on Win10) without doing any graphics intensive stuff.

I've been following the Dell XPS 13 threads on notebookreview.com forums and those folks also seem to be having issues.

I'm wondering if Skylake is a lemon :D

Anyone else have any insights on Skylake platform stability so far?
 
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rather than push the envelope with skylake i think intel decided to trim down their costs.
thinner substrate, no support for anything before win 10.
can't blame them though - makes perfect business sense. why release a product with no competition? so consolidate costs to increase margins or lower prices. step 1 to increase market share.
but i don't think skylake is a lemon. the complex math bug is a rare case scenario with a fix incoming.
 
More suspicion that Skylake is a lemon: https://www.thurrott.com/hardware/73161/intel-starts-shipping-kaby-lake-chipsets

And while Intel has never formally confirmed this, my sources at Microsoft and elsewhere have told me that Skylake, the original “tock” release following Broadwell, was among the buggiest of chipsets that Intel has ever released. Problems with Skylake are at the heart of most of the issues that Microsoft has seen with its Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book devices, and it’s fair to say that the software giant now regrets delivering the very first Skylake-based devices into the market in late 2015.
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@mk76 - it's OK to upgrade to skylake - these posts are just but overblown I guess :) depending on what your current config it may or may not be worth it. I upgraded from Q6600 based platform.

I'm actually running a skylake build i5-6500 with H170 mobo and with latest BIOS/OS/driver updates, it's stable. But then I don't do gaming or other heavy work (video/graphics editing etc) - only an occasional source code compilation. Running Win10 and linux dual boot.

Probably some custom skylake based laptops (like Surface range) are facing issues, but they're being resolved with regular updates too.
 
Not really. I have a Dell 5459 and here are the list of issues

1. Issues with USB devices. Suddenly, no new USB devices can be connected without restarting.
2. Issues with network. WiFi, LAN both stop working. Freshly formatted Windows 10.

As I am the only user with a Skylake device, will need to verify and confirm.
 
This came shocking to me ad I was planning to upgrade to Skylake i7....:nailbiting:
So now do I need to wait for next release??....another 6 months???
 
Maybe Dell quality has gone down the toilet these days. I have the new HP Envy 13 laptop with Skylake i5 and everything seems stable. Dual booting Win10 and Linux on this too.
 
vishalrao said:
Maybe Dell quality has gone down the toilet these days. I have the new HP Envy 13 laptop with Skylake i5 and everything seems stable. Dual booting Win10 and Linux on this too.
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Pretty sure it has for the Vostro laptops and Latitudes as well.

One has a non working USB port. Another display not working. Another had touchpad issues.

Luckily, no more laptop purchases, as I dont know what to give!
 
@mk76 that is just *one* skylake bug which got lot of publicity (hang with complex calculations) - i've been reading about at least a few other problems (mainly CPU graphics) and experienced them too but those were few months ago when I first got my desktop upgraded. graphics driver crashed when opening a word document in libreoffice on win10. BIOS POST bootup time was very long. But these issues seem to be resolved (haven't faced any in recent times) after latest driver/OS/BIOS updates.

Also, on Linux forums/mailing lists, there are many people complaining about Skylake linux graphics driver issues (mainly KDE devs) - though not sure if this is due to bad source code or bad hardware which they're trying to work around with driver patches. But again, I haven't faced stability issues on Linux either (though I don't run "heavy" stuff on it).

Another puzzle for me is the new Intel "Speed Shift" tech, it seems to be working on my laptop but not on Win10 desktop (linux seems to have it enabled) - not sure if this will be enabled with soon upcoming Win10 "1607" version (Anniversary Edition on Aug 2nd).

One thing to note on Win10 - at least for me, even though the regular Windows Update says everything is up-to-date, if I go into device manager and right-click things like my "display adapter" and click "update driver" it actually then looks for and downloads latest driver - which means OS is not updating latest drivers automatically - I had to manually trigger some of these updates. (Maybe some setting I did but cannot figure out what it is).[DOUBLEPOST=1469172108][/DOUBLEPOST]
mk76 said:
Can we assume newer fabricated chips will have the bug fixed by default ?
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Probably Intel won't bother with Skylake updates too much (especially in the chips themselves) and will now move on to Kaby Lake and beyond (14nm) to focus.
 
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Between a i3 6th gen 2.3 ghx and a i5 4th gen 1.7 upto 2.4 dual and 2.7 ghz single core would be better ? 6th gen has benefit of x265 hrdware decode but the cpu can anyway decode it fast enough as i dont care for battery life. worth getting a 6th gen lappy ?
 
I dunno, I'm guessing i5 will be better, and worth getting a "6th gen" laptop (but avoid dell maybe haha).
 
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