Sean Hollister

Senior Editor

Sean HollisterAug 8, 2024

Lenovo wins worst answer award re: replacing your Intel CPU.

The number-one PC maker has answered our question whether it’ll honor Intel’s two-year extended warranty on damaged chips — but the answer doesn’t even include the word “warranty.”

Lenovo has been made aware of the instability issue affecting Intel’s 13th and 14th Generation Processors and is working with Intel to understand the potential impact on our products and how to best resolve them. We will work toward integrating into our future product BIOS any fixes provided by Intel once available. We recommend customers impacted by any CPU instability issues to contact Lenovo service for support.

Intel is footing the bill for replacements; this shouldn’t be a hard decision for Lenovo.

Will PC makers replace your crashing Intel chip? We asked 15 of them

Sean Hollister

Aug 7

Sean HollisterAug 8, 2024

CyberPowerPC has decided to hop onto the Intel-warranty-respecting bandwagon.

It now offers a five-year warranty on Intel’s problematic 13th and 14th Gen CPUs, just like its closest competitors.

We also got a vague new statement from Dell/Alienware that suggests it might extend its own parts warranty, but doesn’t promise to do so.

Will PC makers replace your crashing Intel chip? We asked 15 of them

Sean Hollister

Aug 7

Sean HollisterAug 8, 2024

Should we do a big screaming headline about Intel BIOS updates?

Falcon Northwest CEO Kelt Reeves tells The Verge:

Please help us get the word out to all Raptor Lake desktop users, especially i9 users, in big screaming headlines that they need to update their PC to the latest BIOS now to stop/prevent the CPU wear and hopefully avoid the need for an RMA. Don’t wait for the August microcode – that’s the last 5% (we hope) of the solution, but 95% of the fix is available now. Think of the new BIOS’ as the vaccine against this issue, but it will do no good unless people get shots in arms.

Intel spox Thomas Hannaford wouldn’t go as far as “95% of the fix,” but he says “Kelt’s PSA is a good one”. Besides, the August microcode is rolling out now:

Intel’s BIOS updates for crashing CPUs are now rolling out

Tom Warren

Aug 8

Sean HollisterAug 7, 2024

Sony’s PSVR 2 PC adapter is apparently just VirtualLink — I have good and bad news about that.

⭕ If you’ve got USB-C on a reference design GPU, you may not need the adapter at all. Some report you can plug the headset right into certain cards once you install the app.

❌ Sony’s dongle doesn’t have Bluetooth; I’ve spent hours trying to get PS VR2 controllers to work well on desktop, despite using a Sony-approved Bluetooth dongle.

PSVR 2 Works on PC Without the Adapter If You Have the Right Graphics Card

[Road to VR]

Will PC makers replace your crashing Intel chip? We asked 15 of them

Sean HollisterAug 7, 2024

This unannounced AMD graphics chip is coming to a handheld docking station near you.

OneXPlayer just spilled the beans on the AMD Radeon RX 7800M — cuz it’ll be in its new graphic dock, the OneXGPU2. As Liliputing points out, the last time someone designed a portable eGPU around a Radeon laptop chip, most other boutique handheld makers followed suit.

Big FPS boosts for handhelds when docked, I hear, but quite pricey too.

The original OneXGPU.

Image: OneXPlayer

Sean HollisterAug 6, 2024

The DJI Neo is poised to become my dream budget drone.

Most drones are aimed at relatively technical pilots — but that’s changing! The DJI Avata lets beginners experience flying like they’re in the cockpit; the HoverAir X1 is a pocketable self-flying camera.

While we originally thought the Neo might chase HoverAir, it sounds like it could double as a cheaper Avata, too! I wish my Mini 2 worked with the motion controller and goggles.

Sean HollisterAug 3, 2024

Will PC makers extend their warranty on Intel’s crashing chips? This one just did.

Puget Systems writes it’s indeed seeing higher failure rates with 13th and 14th Gen Intel Core processors — so it’ll extend warranty to three years for affected buyers. Normally, Puget only warranties parts for one year.

We don’t yet know if Intel is helping PC makers extend warranty. So far it’s only extended warranty on its own retail chips.

Puget Systems' Perspective on Intel CPU Instability Issues

[Puget Systems]

MrBeast blames terrible Beast Games conditions on the CrowdStrike outage

Sean HollisterAug 2, 2024

The ‘world’s first horizontally foldable 360 degree laptop’ is just $900.

I wasn’t expecting the Acemagic X1 to be affordable, but it makes sense — like we discussed a month ago, its other specs are pretty mid.

ALSO like we discussed a month ago, the laptop will indeed have Stewart Brand’s iconic Whole Earth Catalog quote engraved into a decorative gold rectangle above the keyboard because reasons!