Intel Chip Update Causes PCs To Reboot Unexpectedly, Rollout Halted

While Intel has been busy trying to roll out fixes to the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities assaulting its chips, there are now new problems arising. Apparently, the updates are causing some devices to reboot unexpectedly and the worst thing about it is that Intel might have expected it. That’s why the company has decided to stop the rollout of the updates, at least for the time being.

As CNET reports, Intel is now telling phone companies, computer manufacturers, and even users to stop updating their chips right now. The company’s choice of words is also interesting because based on a blog post, Intel might have been expecting the update to cause some reboot problems.

“We recommend that OEMs, cloud service providers, system manufacturers, software vendors and end users stop deployment of current versions, as they may introduce higher than expected reboots and other unpredictable system behavior,” the post reads.

While it is always safer to assume that there are going to be issues with a patch, Intel could have been better prepared to deal with a widespread reboot problem if it knew that it was coming. In any case, the company is currently working on a fix to make sure that the chips can be updated with a problem in the future.

It’s also worth noting that since the aforementioned bugs do affect core systems of a whole lot of Intel chips, the problem is not exactly easy to fix. The discovery of the bugs caused a flurry of activity to fix them in a short period of time, The Verge reports, and some of these fixes were bound to cause major errors.

At this point, consumers are still encouraged to update their computers once this particular issue has been addressed. It’s basically deemed the lesser evil since it makes devices less prone to outside influences.