Some of you may remember me outlining the steps I took to get Fallout 76 running with as few crashes as possible. I mean games are gonna crash no matter what, but what was happening to me was to the point of multiple bluescreens, Chromium browsers throwing “STATUS_ACCESS_VIOATION” and other things.
It had been suggested that somewhere (I think even Reddit) that if I’d done the steps that I’d taken in the last post, changed the RAM, and system board and it still kept doing it, it was time to to reach out to the chip manifacturer.
This by, and of itself was, well, entertaining is a polite way of saying it. I needed to get my serial number off the box. Which I don’t have. 🤦🏻♀️But. After about a week, I found the receipt for it from when I purchased it. Which still caused a bit of panic. Why? My spouse and I both bought the same processor and system board on the same day. What saved my proverbial bacon is that I knew I’d gotten mine at the local store (as in like two-three streets away) and theirs were from another store in the chain about 20 minutes away. Ok, it wasn’t saved exactly at this point, but my memory having a 80-90% recall… made me worry less.
So, off to the Intel RMA page with my collection of notes, receipts and all the steps I’d taken outlined in plain language. The ticket was off to here it needed to be, and I was honestly surprised at how fast and thorough it was. You must remember, I did technical support for assorted companies (both software and OEM companies) for over, a decade, inching closer to two decades. Being clear, concise and giving only relevant information is something that, as a tech support person, we loved. That’s not to say that sometimes there is something in the “anything else you’d like us to know” that helps. But the majority of the questions they’re asking are usually a flow chart. “Did Part A do Action C” stuff. Once we were able to remove the thermal paste to return the processor, we confirmed -yep my processor had been the busted one from purchase.
Within 3 days, I was informed that yep, I had hit the unlucky round that can happen to anyone, and that they’d replace the processor. I was given several options, and due to exchange rate – and needing to not be without a processor in this system while I work, I opted to do a standard warranty – as the cross payment would be just a few dollars more than upgrading to the new Core 9 Ultra. So that is what happened.
And my Fallout game? It’s working GREAT.
I was and am pleased with the Intel Warranty Support group – they kept me apprised of everything either by a phone call or email. I received the replacement i914900k yesterday and I’m just waiting on the motherboard that needed to be replaced as well.
Until Next Time:
