Intel Issues Partial Recall For New Chip

Scott Bullock

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Nov 11, 2010
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Intel Issues Partial Recall For New Chip

Intel is recalling its newest support chip, the Intel 6 Series, for its speedy degradation.

Earlier today, Intel revealed that a design flaw in one of its recently released chipsets, code-named Cougar Point, causes the SATA ports on its new Sandy Bridge processors to degrade over time.

SATA (or Serial-ATA) ports are used for connecting devices like hard drives or DVD drives to the processor, and if the ports degrade until these devices can't connect, then your fancy computer just became a hell of a lot less useful. Because of this, Intel has issued a partial recall of the chipset.

The chipset has only been available since January 9th, so the impact of the recall should be relatively minor. The only affected computers, Intel says, are ones that use Second Generation Core i5 and Core i7 quad core based systems. If you purchased a computer featuring one of these processors, Intel urges you to go to its website [http://www.intel.com] and click through to the support page.

While this mess gets sorted out, owners of affected machines can continue to safely use their computers. The problem is not something that should immediately present itself, and may not be encountered at all in the time it takes Intel to rectify its situation.

While it may be an inconvenience to all those affected by the faulty chip, no one is going to feel the repercussions like Intel will. According to its site, the company expects this recall to set it back about $700 million this year.

Source: Kotaku [http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2011/01/31/intel-identifies-chipset-design-error-implementing-solution?cid=rss-258152-c1-264102]

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Sovereignty

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Jan 25, 2010
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700 million.. Wow. Bet someones sitting back thinking, "We really should have tested that a bit more."
 

Popido

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Oct 21, 2010
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Aw fuck. I guess I could wait a little longer... Fix'd shipment should start pouring in on late february.
 

kurupt87

Fuhuhzucking hellcocks I'm good
Mar 17, 2010
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Bollocks, building an i5 2500k rig right now. Gah, extra faffing about is not welcome.
 

HentMas

The Loneliest Jedi
Apr 17, 2009
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Sovereignty said:
700 million.. Wow. Bet someones sitting back thinking, "We really should have tested that a bit more."
i can imagine his boss looking at him with exorbitant eyes and yelling "YOU THINK!?"

hehe, well, considering the company is taking all the blame and making amends right from the start, i kind of find this issue cool

nontheless this kinds of mistakes are the ones that can either make or break a succesfull year.
 

henrius

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Jul 2, 2008
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Thanks for the post! I'm pretty sure this will include my computer unfortunately...
 

Formica Archonis

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Nov 13, 2009
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Scott Bullock said:
The chipset has only been available since January 9th, so the impact of the recall should be relatively minor.
Unless you're the guy who's gonna have to RMA every board returned to the store he works at and do all the associated paperwork. So, me.:/
 

Haywoot

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Jul 6, 2010
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markisb said:
cowboy0101 said:
Ok I just purchased the i7 sandy bridge 2600k is this the same chip
Do I need to return it?
yes
Wrong! The problem effects the Intel series 6 motherboard chipsets also known as the P67 and H67 -chipsets. This problem does not effect the Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 -processors! Also, the only major problem is with the SATA 3GB/s -ports, so if you don't use them, you should be OK. My Asus P8P67 EVO -motherboard has 4 x 6GB/s-ports so I'm only using them and hoping for the best...
 

Haywoot

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Jul 6, 2010
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More info can be found from: http://techreport.com/discussions.x/20326

Quote from The Tech Report:
"The issue is a circuit design problem resulting in a gradual degradation over time of SATA connectivity on the affected ports, manifesting itself as high bit-error rates on those ports and eventually as total device disconnects.

That's a serious issue, but it's limited in scope. Intel says storage devices connected to those ports should not be damaged, and data on the devices should be intact and readable on another system.

The ports potentially affected, interestingly enough, are the four 3Gbps SATA ports on the chipset. The two 6Gbps SATA ports aren't at risk."

Yeah, so its (hopefully) not as bad as it first seemed...