PC Processors

[RobSmith]

Dear AMD,

About two years ago I bought a brand new laptop with 4800H and I had issues with it ever since.  I used it very lightly and occasional due to my main PC so I have no chance to catch the severe stability issue - Green Screen (of Death) every one to three days. Now when I have to drive it daily, I found it impossible to use due to fact that all my work can be gone at any random moment of time.

Searching for solution I have found (just on first page) that almost every manufacturer (ASUS, ZOTAC, GIGABYTE, BEE-LINK, GenMachine) have this issue and it getting worse over time.

https://community.amd.com/t5/pc-building/green-screens-on-gigabyte-brix-gb-brr7h-4800-ryzen-4800u/m-...

https://forum.bee-link.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=85647

https://community.amd.com/t5/drivers-software/green-screen-crashes-on-pn50-with-4800u/td-p/446534

I think you should really know about 4800 flaw at this point  and come with a solution that can let people permanently fix it.

Please DO NOT give generic answers like:

1 Reinstall Windows

2 Update drivers

3 Check for viruses

4 Make RMA

5 Change RAM

I am not using windows and I cant make RMA because my barely used laptop is out of warranty.I have put different RAM and it obviously make no difference.

What should you do is to escalate this defect to the engineering team, find the root cause and purpose a solution even if it cause slowdown. I will be happy with temp fix and some bios / drivers / microcode update. I paid over 1000 euros for a laptop that has defect CPU. I am very tempted to make a complaint to European Commission to see if they agree that you know about this design defect and did nothing all that time.

[misterj]

RobSmith, this is a user Forum and we seldom see AMD employees here. Please open an AMD Online support request. Thanks, John.

[elstaci]

Might not be a defective processor but rather possibly a bad batch of defective processors when made at the factory.

If the processor was truly defective than all those symptoms would occur on every hardware that processor was installed in, correct?

Just guessing but I imagine over half a million laptops or PCs have those processors installed. If it was defective than those manufacturers of laptops and PCs would be spending huge amount of money on Warranty tickets to replace the processors.

If that was the case than AMD would be well aware of any possible defects in the processor because the manufacturers would be breathing down AMD neck to fix the issue.

Plus the Manufacturers of Laptops and PCs have their own engineering departments that can verify if the issue is a defective processor thus notify AMD.

So far I haven't heard of any recalls on those AMD mobile processors from AMD nor any articles from Tech sites mentioning those processors as being defective.

You live in the EU so you have automatically a 2 year Warranty from the EU Retailer under EU Consumer laws.

You should have used your laptop more often during the 2 year Warranty range to make sure your laptop was working correctly. But in your case, you were negligent in that respect.

Now the 2 year EU Warranty has expired and now you decide to use the laptop extensively and find out you have all types of major issues with it.

I would believe many EU Retailers would be complaining to the European Commission and AMD if they have a large percentage of laptops and PCs returns under Warranty due to a defective mobile processor.

EDIT: Since you are not using Windows drivers for your AMD IGPU that could be the reasons for your green screens and crashes or instability.  Most likely it isn't the processor but the Linux drivers that are causing your problems.

All your issues are due to the IGPU and not the actual processor. The IGPU run on AMD Graphics driver so if you have a unstable or incompatible graphics driver you will have graphic or video issues such as the ones you are having.

[snake561]

This definitely has nothing to do with linux / windows or the OS whatsoever. I tested it on at least 5 linux distributions, windows and maybe 10 kernels on linux. On Windows it even crashed before I could install it... After I installed it, it crashed after maybe half an hour... 

The CPU is obviously flawed (the kdumps in linux everytime indicate a CPU problem) and for me the crashes got worse over time. Maybe at the beginning it would crash once a week or sometimes even less, so I didn't bother to much.

I have tried almost 100% of the hardware options, changed RAM, used nvme and sata, used only nvme, only sata, changed the power adapter, reset CMOS, upgraded BIOS, checked all bios settings and tried all of them, the system would still crash, with the same hardware working elsewhere without problem. The non working part is only the CPU mobo combo (cant change the CPU, mobo because they are soldered together).

It is time to throw this trash 4800U into the trashcan where it belongs. Will consider very strongly if I buy anything AMD in the future, this is total crap and ignorance from them!

[elstaci]

Have you tried to RMA your laptop or PC to see if the manufacturer will replace the Motherboard and Processor by any chance?

Have you run your laptop's diagnostics to see if any hardware or software issues comes up?  Granted most of the time diagnostic will show up as being fine even if it isn't.

[snake561]

Unfortunately didn't try to return it, because as said in the beginning the problems (crashes) happened maybe once a week or so, and I didn't find it so problematic, so I am also out of warranty... Thought that it must be some driver problem and will handle it later or some kernel update will fix it as always. But when it started to happen more often, regardless of OS (WIN or linux) or kernel I started to dig deeper, test things... And found that all over the internet there are people mentioning random crashes without any logs in linux (journalctl, syslog...). Many of them were solved by BIOS updates, kernel parameters for C - states and so on...

There is also a known term you can search for: random ryzen crash bug...
https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/y78yf7/is_the_ryzen_random_freeze_bug_still_a_thing...

There are countless of web pages describing problems with ryzen CPUs, there are even github repositories which helped many that had for example problems with C-states:

https://github.com/r4m0n/ZenStates-Linux

https://github.com/jfredrickson/disable-c6
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/2447

...

I tried every of this fixes, every BIOS option that I had and for me nothing worked. I enabled kdump in linux for diagnosing, because there were no logs when the system crashed. I dont remember the exact outputs but when I searched there where indications of a faulty CPU.

Here people were also trying many different things, for some it works for some it doesn't:
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/random-system-freeze-on-pn51-e1.117493/page-4

Seems that vendors know about the problem with this CPUs, that's why BIOS updates in many cases fix the problem, however as it seems nothing helps in my case and in case of many others.

[misterj]

snake561, we need to see the errors that are occurring. In Windows you will find them in the Event Log. Post those and we can begin to look into your errors. Have you ever run on a desktop Ryzen? Get the same errors? John.

[elstaci]

One to to determine if you have a hardware issue is by doing a full Recovery of your laptop to the way it was originally when you first purchased the laptop.

After doing a Full Recovery of your laptop without updating or adding any 3rd party apps and the problems still occurs that is a good indication you have a hardware issue.

Logically thinking if your laptop was back to the same state as when you purchased it and the same issues occurs then it can't be a software issue (unless there was some corruption during the Recovery operation) more likely a hardware issue.

Note: I can understand why you didn't take your laptop in to be checked. I would have done the same thing you did and first tried to troubleshoot the issue thoroughly since it is a hassle RMAing a laptop and being without it for most likely a long time.

If you have a expensive laptop (over $1,000.00 dollars)  maybe you can purchase the same laptop motherboard and processor or with a upgraded processor in Ebay, as an example, and see how much a computer shop will charge you for replacing it.

[misterj]

RobSmith, I doubt this is a processor defect. What did AMD say in response to your Support Request? Have you opened a support request with the seller? What do they say? What OS are you running? Post several Details of Critical errors you have seen. In Windows, use the Event Viewer to filter for Critical errors. Who is the vendor? Who made the MB? John.