Intel says flaw in Series 6 Sandy Bridge chipsets

[combust3r]

Well, if the bug only applies to B revision of chipset - I guess I'm not affected 😀

 

[rumpleforeskin]

Well, if the bug only applies to B revision of chipset - I guess I'm not affected 😀

i though only reviewers received the A revision chipset and that all consumer boards where based on the B revision?

 

[combust3r]

Well I guess not 🙂 H67MA-UD2H was one of the first boards of the whole bunch to see the light of day, they were among the first to sell in Taiwan way before SB was actually available and NDA was lifted.

 

[Vette73]

i though only reviewers received the A revision chipset and that all consumer boards where based on the B revision?

Thats what intel said. HMMM :hmm:

 

[combust3r]

OK, I've created a poll so we can see what percentage of motherboards out there are affected (if there is any truth behind the statement that Rev.B PCH is the only one affected by this flaw).

 

[Anomaly1964]

My revisions are only in numbers...?

 

[s3s]

Well I just received a message from tiger direct saying that my Maximus IV is delayed due the unusually large response we are temporarily out of stock. I'm still on pre-order. Nothing mentioned about the recall even tho they pulled all there boards. I will still stay on pre-order since I don't have all of my parts yet. I'm not that concerned. Who knows like someone else said maybe the price on the CPU will go down since there are no motherboards to buy. It does suck for the people who put there rigs together already. It will be interesting to see what kind of time frame, I'm looking at for my motherboard. I will keep this updated.

 

[bcterps]

This is why you ALWAYS wait till the second stepping CPU's and chipsets are out before buying a all new platform. If you live by this rule your life will be ALOT easier, and its not like it takes more than 6 months after launch to get to the second stepping so its worth waiting. At least this is what i have learned from my years of buying PC's(first PC i owned was a 486)

This issue ONLY occurred in the second stepping.

"To make matters worse, the problem was inserted at the B-stepping of the 6-series chipsets. Earlier steppings (such as what we previewed last summer) didn’t have the problem. Unfortunately for Intel, only B-stepping chipsets shipped to customers. Since the fix involves cutting off voltage to a transistor it will be fixed with a new spin of metal and you’ll get a new associated stepping (presumably C-stepping?)."

 

[Hogan773]

You've created a poll based on one poster's information?

Why do we think that there was a change in Rev B? Maybe I missed it somewhere.

 

[Ferris23]

Sorry if this has been answered, but if I just stick with the 6Gbps ports and buy a SATA add on controller card wouldn't that be a solution to not having to deal with tearing out my motherboard?

 

[combust3r]

Mine says revision 9...?

Please click on the SouthBridge in Device Description, that's CPU you got there 🙂

/edit: Try with the latest beta on their web site...

@Hogan773

Well there is already two of us, Asus P67 Pro also with the Rev. A (if you look at the voters profile, that's why I made this vote public).

 

[Anomaly1964]

Please click on the SouthBridge in Device Description, that's CPU you got there 🙂

/edit: Try with the latest beta on their web site...

@Hogan773

Well there is already two of us, Asus P67 Pro also with the Rev. A (if you look at the voters profile, that's why I made this vote public).

Northbridge and Southbridge are both in numbers...hmm.

 

[Anomaly1964]

Please click on the SouthBridge in Device Description, that's CPU you got there 🙂

/edit: Try with the latest beta on their web site...

@Hogan773

Well there is already two of us, Asus P67 Pro also with the Rev. A (if you look at the voters profile, that's why I made this vote public).

Even with beta, just numbers...

 

[Seven]

Northbridge and Southbridge are both in numbers...hmm.

Same numbers here..

 

[combust3r]

 cat hwinfo.log | grep -A10 SATA
  25: PCI 1f.2: 0106 SATA controller (AHCI 1.0)
  [Created at pci.318]
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2
  SysFS BusID: 0000:00:1f.2
  Hardware Class: storage
  Model: "Intel SATA controller"
  Vendor: pci 0x8086 "Intel Corporation"
  Device: pci 0x1c02 
  SubVendor: pci 0x1458 "Giga-byte Technology"
  SubDevice: pci 0xb005 
  [b]Revision: 0x04[/b]
  Driver: "ahci"
  Driver Modules: "ahci"
  I/O Ports: 0xfe00-0xfe07 (rw)
  I/O Ports: 0xfd00-0xfd03 (rw)
  I/O Ports: 0xfc00-0xfc07 (rw)

That's because this is how it identifies itself, output from hwinfo under Linux. You have to have latest AIDA beta to identify chip propperly, but I guess you have A4 also...

/edit: Hm, funny, anyone got an idea how to interpret Revision propperly ?

 

[Edrick]

I have the latest beta (non trial) AIDA and mine is only showing up as '04' as well.

 

[ahurtt]

Sorry if this has been answered, but if I just stick with the 6Gbps ports and buy a SATA add on controller card wouldn't that be a solution to not having to deal with tearing out my motherboard?

Yes. And keep in mind that if you have a Marvell SATA III (6 Gbps) controller it is not meant for optical drives, only data drives. So one thing to keep in mind when deciding what to do. That might be what I do since I can't think of anything else I plan on using the expansion slot for at the moment and I'm not using the 3Gbps ports right now anyway. It sticks in my craw a little bit that my new motherboard isn't exactly what I paid for but all things considered this is NOT the huge deal most people are making it out to be...at least not for me. I think the retailers should give people the option of either full free RMA for a fixed board when they come out, or get a $25-$50 cash rebate (covered by Intel) to make up for having paid for something you don't get or is hobbled, or a free add on card to restore the functionality.

My guess is people who bought less expensive boards without additional 6Gbps ports and need more ports will go for options 1 or 3 whereas a lot of people who bought more expensive boards and who still have enough available unaffected ports without using the 4 bad ones might just take the cash rebate and be happy.

That's how I'd handle the situation if I were Intel and their partners but what do I know? I'm just an idiot customer who paid full price for beta hardware.

 

[solarissf]

apologies if this has already been answered.
if I have an ASUS P67 Pro, who would replace the motherboard... would asus do it, or the place where I purchased the board online?

 

[combust3r]

@Anomaly and Edrick

http://www.aida64.com/downloads/aida64extremebuild1241ow5ief2yskzip

From Feb 01 ?

Hm, I wonder if Aida interprets this correctly at all, when I go to Device Manager -> System Devices -> Intel 6 Series / C200 blah blah PCI-e Root Port -> Properties - Details - Hardware Ids I get:

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C10&SUBSYS_50011458&REV_B4

 

[eddietandy]

I think the retailers should give people the option of either full free RMA for a fixed board when they come out, or get a $25-$50 cash rebate (covered by Intel) to make up for having paid for something you don't get or is hobbled, or a free add on card to restore the functionality.
.

I could definitely go for the free add-on card option, as I don't really want to rip out my tidy new install. PITA, you know... Just want my four ports back, and I don't envision needing any other PCI cards. For those that want the replacement, they should just send a new board (Z68?) with prepaid return shipping on the defective one.

 

[Doggiedog]

Despite this bug, I'm still able to use my new rig. I do lose my drives occasionally but at least it's working.

I just feel really bad for those guys that have the new chips and can't use them. I wonder if you can return them or will Intel pay for any difference in purchased priced and price of the chips when the fixed boards are reintroduced. I would be POed if I got a 2600K for $340 at launch and then have the price come down to $250 in April.

 

[Modelworks]

😵

Intel regrets using cheese in the SATA controller area of the chipset.



What kind of defect would cause this? Manufacturing?

I'm guessing that if they fixed it this quickly then it was a manufacturing issue. If they had to change something in the design it would have taken much longer.

I think people would be amazed at how much of produced die is tossed out because of flaws, some fabs discard product at a rate as high as 80%.


Still this looks bad for quality control .

 

[Modelworks]

I could definitely go for the free add-on card option, as I don't really want to rip out my tidy new install.

Bad idea. The reason I say that is because if it effects the SATA port area of the chips then it could also start to effect other areas as time goes on. I don't think this was a re-design of that part of the chip but instead is a change at the fab to correct something in manufacturing.

When they say it starts to effect speed, that implies that the reason the speed goes down is because the error rate goes up. That would require the attached device to re-send data that was corrupt. Either that or something is causing the controller to slow down in clock speed and execute code slower.

If you can get a replacement now then do it, don't opt out just because it is inconvenient.

Just be glad they caught it now and not 6 months from now.

 

[Ferris23]

Bad idea. The reason I say that is because if it effects the SATA port area of the chips then it could also start to effect other areas as time goes on. I don't think this was a re-design of that part of the chip but instead is a change at the fab to correct something in manufacturing.

Just be glad they caught it now and not 6 months from now.

I don't think that's the case, this is isolated to the controller that supplies voltage to those SATA ports from what I understand. It does not effect anything else.

 

[Hogan773]

Yes. And keep in mind that if you have a Marvell SATA III (6 Gbps) controller it is not meant for optical drives, only data drives. So one thing to keep in mind when deciding what to do. That might be what I do since I can't think of anything else I plan on using the expansion slot for at the moment and I'm not using the 3Gbps ports right now anyway. It sticks in my craw a little bit that my new motherboard isn't exactly what I paid for but all things considered this is NOT the huge deal most people are making it out to be...at least not for me. I think the retailers should give people the option of either full free RMA for a fixed board when they come out, or get a $25-$50 cash rebate (covered by Intel) to make up for having paid for something you don't get or is hobbled, or a free add on card to restore the functionality.

My guess is people who bought less expensive boards without additional 6Gbps ports and need more ports will go for options 1 or 3 whereas a lot of people who bought more expensive boards and who still have enough available unaffected ports without using the 4 bad ones might just take the cash rebate and be happy.

That's how I'd handle the situation if I were Intel and their partners but what do I know? I'm just an idiot customer who paid full price for beta hardware.

Is this true re: Marvell controller? I was thinking of plugging my 2 HDDs into ports 0 and 1, and then moving my DVD to one of the Marvell Sata6.0 ports.

re: recall process, I do hope they end up sending a brand new board and I send them my old one. I don't want some hack at a desk with a soldering iron and a pile of thousands of mobos to be yanking a chip from my mobo and then sending the original back to me.......I want a mobo that was built on a standardized line with all the new ones.