ouch, intel's 64 bit itanium has a serious bug.

[Adul]

http://www.theinquirer.net/12110106.htm

CORPORATE USERS wanting to buy Itanium machines are being told that the processors are going through rigorous testing but the INQUIRER can now confirm there is a serious bug with 733MHz and 800MHz versions of the processor preventing them from shipping.

 

[AGodspeed]

This isn't good at all. Intel delayed IA-64 for several years and now when it finally comes out, things like this keep on floating in.

The same thing happened with the 900MHz Xeon Intel had to recall because of a manufacturing defect. In fact, I remember Intel's response to the matter, which was something like "This information is as yet unconfirmed blah blah blah..."

I hope this isn't true, since I know McKinley is more complex manufacturing wise than Itanium, and if Intel is still having trouble with Itanium then, well, that's just not good.

 

[christoph83]

its kinda hard to trust the inquirer for information but might want to read this part:

However, the question that occurs to the INQUIRER is that if one major OEM refuses to ship because of reliability problems, shouldn't the other 19 OEMs call a halt to shipments too? µ

Doesnt make much sense to me.

 

[AGodspeed]

Doesnt make much sense to me.

It makes perfect sense.

It is very unlikely that it's a design flaw on Itanium's part, which is why the other 19 OEMs are still shipping Itanium processors. It's more likely that a batch of Itaniums have manufacturing flaws and they were all shipped to a certain OEM (Compaq?).

This is just like the Xeon manufacturing flaw of a few months ago. The design of the Xeon itself was not the problem, rather a batch of Xeons with manufacturing flaws.

 

[christoph83]

So they had a batch that was bad and they sent them to compaq but no one else...so compaq has stopped shipping...so either intel keeps shipping random batches of bad chips to the other 19 OEMS(which means other OEMs would mention the problems in the future) Or that was the only bad batch and they need to be replaced. 1 out of 20 OEMs have stopped shipping and this is a serious bug? And this ...according to the inquirer has been shipping since May? So they've been shipping these same chips to Compaq without problems till now?And this coming from only one OEM? Something isnt adding up.

 

[Diable]

The only way I can see Compaq and Compaq only getting a batch of bad chips is either they didn't get thess chips directly from Intel or Intel knowingly sold Compaq bad chips.