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View Full Version : Intel Finds Design Flaw in New Sandy Bridge Chipset



godsfist
01-31-2011, 08:12 AM
Intel is working to fix a design flaw in its Sandy Bridge chipsets relating to SATA performance

Intel has just issues a statement regarding its Series 6 (Cougar Point) chipset and a design flaw that has been uncovered. The company reports the following:

As part of ongoing quality assurance, Intel Corporation has discovered a design issue in a recently released support chip, the Intel 6 Series, code-named Cougar Point, and has implemented a silicon fix. In some cases, the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipsets may degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD-drives. The chipset is utilized in PCs with Intel's latest Second Generation Intel Core processors, code-named Sandy Bridge. Intel has stopped shipment of the affected support chip from its factories. Intel has corrected the design issue, and has begun manufacturing a new version of the support chip which will resolve the issue. The Sandy Bridge microprocessor is unaffected and no other products are affected by this issue.

As Intel notes, the actual Sandy Bridge processor is not affected by this design error, and it stopped shipment of chipsets that are hampered by this SATA performance degradation problem. Intel also states that it will begin shipping "fixed" chipsets towards the end of February to its customers.

"The systems with the affected support chips have only been shipping since January 9th and the company believes that relatively few consumers are impacted by this issue," stated Intel in the press release. "The only systems sold to an end customer potentially impacted are Second Generation Core i5 and Core i7 quad core based systems.

This little gaffe is expected to cost Intel $300 million USD.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=20789

SpuTnicK
01-31-2011, 08:14 AM
original thread here (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=266043) ;)

godsfist
01-31-2011, 08:20 AM
sonofa....

Delete it mods

Ket
01-31-2011, 08:33 AM
:rolleyes: You'd think "little" issues like this would get picked up on before shipments. I have a sneaking suspicion intel knew about this before first shipments.

josh1980
01-31-2011, 11:42 AM
:rolleyes: You'd think "little" issues like this would get picked up on before shipments. I have a sneaking suspicion intel knew about this before first shipments.

Intel has one of the most stringent certification process in the industry. We may never know if they tried to cover up the issue or ignore it, but I can say this...

Apparently the issue isn't present in all of the chipsets. Only so many would have the issue(1 out of X) and so the issue wasn't discovered until a few people called Intel complaining of the same issue. It supposedly took about a week to find the issue and identify the actual culprit. Then production was stopped.

Honestly, since Intel stands to lose $1 billion on this, I don't think it's likely Intel knew about the issue beforehand. I'm guessing that since the issue was statistically insignificant its possible one or two people might have a clue that "something" might be wrong, but due to the issue not being reproducible and the issue not being common enough, the issue wasn't a "show stopper".

The fact that they've halted production says alot. The issue can't be fixed with a driver update or BIOS update, so Intel doesn't have much choice. I'd wager if Intel had known the extent of the issue they would have halted production before they risked a recall.

If you remember the Pentium division bug from the 1990s intel fixed the issue and didn't issue a recall. However, they were replacing chips that were in engineering applications for free. A BIOS update was also issued to help mitigate the issue.

Overall, this isn't good for those of us wanting Intel Sandy Bridge computers. Motherboards are going to be in short supply for the next 2 months :(.

Ket
01-31-2011, 12:06 PM
From what anand are saying, it reads more as though there was a faulty wafer at the beginning of production (first 100,000 - 500,000 lets say), hence the bug being reported by their customers. As a result intel are issuing a recall and chipset revision as a safety precaution, theres no guarantee any consumers will see this problem. All very "ifs and buts" IMO. Although good practice procedures alone dictate even if a few people thought something was amiss, the issue should of been looked into prior to any shipments. All its done is cause a great amount of frustration and angst among people.

Skratch
01-31-2011, 12:35 PM
ok im building a system for a friend and using this chipset with everything from ssd to dvd drives being sata,this sucks.What do we do if we have a board coming?

zalbard
01-31-2011, 12:38 PM
ok im building a system for a friend and using this chipset with everything from ssd to dvd drives being sata,this sucks.What do we do if we have a board coming?
Can you not accept the shipment and ask for money back? Not sure how such things work where you live...

ugotd8
01-31-2011, 12:47 PM
ok im building a system for a friend and using this chipset with everything from ssd to dvd drives being sata,this sucks.What do we do if we have a board coming?

Don't panic for starters. I would suggest putting everything possible on the SATA3 ports, if you need SATA2, I'd get a $10 sata2 card.

Jupiler
01-31-2011, 01:00 PM
Guess that 1 thread regarding this issue is sufficient.

Discussion continues here (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=266043)

Closed.