Sandy Bridge design flaw - Intel halted on NASDAQ - updated 2/8/11.

[Hogan773]

Intel told them to. But somebody at the top of Intel is very wrong about this. It's an easy fix, with a SATA card.

-John

John, with all due respect, we understand your opinion that a SATA card could effectively replace the 4 bad ports. We all get it. No need to reply to every single post saying "Intel should provide us a SATA card"

Not trying to flame, but just sayin......we get it

 

[bryanW1995]

what the heck @ newegg pulling all the SB chips and mobos..

jesus christ when are they gonna put them back up? APRIL???? just put a huge disclaimer stating the problems with the mobos or whatever; dont deactivate them and crap!!!

I don't think they had a choice. Intel probably told all of their retailers to do it.

 

[AdamK47]

I don't think they had a choice. Intel probably told all of their retailers to do it.

That's what I'm betting.

 

[bryanW1995]

this is probably the biggest disaster in cpu history; the entire market has just been COMPLETELY halted: laptops, desktop pcs, system builders...jesus what a mess

that's funny, my 5 year old daughter said that last night about dinner..."Mommy, this is the biggest disaster in history!!". she probably had more tears than you, but I think it was close.

 

[Hogan773]

I don't think they had a choice. Intel probably told all of their retailers to do it.

This is not a "normal" situation and I don't blame Newegg for hitting the stop button till they get more info. When someone tells you that the product is defective and WILL be getting recalled....why keep taking orders and paying to send them out just so you can potentially be increasing the number of units that you need to deal with a few weeks later.

Conceptually I do agree that the consumer should be allowed to make a decision whether they still want to buy.....but then again, Intel may be strongly persuading resellers not to do this because it just balloons the cost of a recall. Even if someone says "hey I'm willing to take the risk", once there is a big recall in 6 weeks, I'll bet many will say "hey I might as well get a new mobo if everyone else is....." Only way would be for someone buying today and forward to sign some agreement exempting them from benefitting under the recall, but in reality from both a logistics and legal standpoint, I seriously doubt Intel or Newegg would try this. Too complicated.

 

[Gheris]

that's funny, my 5 year old daughter said that last night about dinner..."Mommy, this is the biggest disaster in history!!". she probably had more tears than you, but I think it was close.

Agreed on the sarcasm of "biggest disaster." Could be much worse. It's a disaster for Intel, but the market moves on. It's a major blunder though, and consumer confidence will end up taking a hit. When you shell out your hard earned cash for something you expect it to work. Here's hoping Intel can turn it around quickly.

 

[Gheris]

This is not a "normal" situation and I don't blame Newegg for hitting the stop button till they get more info. When someone tells you that the product is defective and WILL be getting recalled....why keep taking orders and paying to send them out just so you can potentially be increasing the number of units that you need to deal with a few weeks later.

Conceptually I do agree that the consumer should be allowed to make a decision whether they still want to buy.....but then again, Intel may be strongly persuading resellers not to do this because it just balloons the cost of a recall. Even if someone says "hey I'm willing to take the risk", once there is a big recall in 6 weeks, I'll bet many will say "hey I might as well get a new mobo if everyone else is....." Only way would be for someone buying today and forward to sign some agreement exempting them from benefitting under the recall, but in reality from both a logistics and legal standpoint, I seriously doubt Intel or Newegg would try this. Too complicated.

The issue for the retailer is being lumped in with the situation. Bob orders a motherboard and it's "busted." Even though he knew their was a chance of this he still went ahead with the purchase. Unlike most rational people Bob starts a crazy internet campaign on Intel and Newegg because they sold it to him. Bad rep is a poison for online retailers.
Better safe than sorry in this situation.

 

[spacejamz]

Three ways to fix this:

Wrong way: Don't do anything and hope it blows over

Right way: Replace motherboards with bad chipsets

Zorkist way: Provide SATA card

 

[Hogan773]

This is what Asrock customer service sent me:

"SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 31, 2011 – As part of ongoing quality assurance, Intel Corporation has discovered a design issue in a recently released support chip, the Intel® 6 Series (and the Intel® C200 Series Chipset), 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. 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.

The company expects to begin delivering the updated version of the chipset to customers in late February and expects full volume recovery in April. Intel stands behind its products and is committed to product quality. For computer makers and other Intel customers that have bought potentially affected chipsets or systems, Intel will work with its OEM partners to accept the return of the affected chipsets, and plans to support modifications or replacements needed on motherboards or systems. 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. The only systems sold to an end customer potentially impacted are Second Generation Core i5 and Core i7 quad core based systems. Intel believes that consumers can continue to use their systems with confidence, while working with their computer manufacturer for a permanent solution.

If you believe you may be affected by this issue, please contact your place of purchase, or your Intel Field Sales Representative.

To chat with an Intel Support Agent, click here and then click on Chat.

This applies to:

Intel® 6 Series Chipset
Intel® C200 Series Chipset"

click here just takes you to http://www.intel.com/support/feedback.htm?group=chipset

So it looks like Asrock, early on, is passing the buck..
It will be interesting to see what the other MOBO makers will do ..

C'mon.....you obviously don't have much appreciation for how a big company works in practice. The message from ASRock IS basically the press release from Intel. ASRock was just notified about this a few hours before you contacted them. I am SURE that Intel hasn't put together a full detailed list of all the aspects of a recall, how it specifically works, etc. But you expect ASRock customer service agents to just start taking arbitrary positions like "oh yeah, send it back to XYZ address and we'll plop in a new Sata controller chip for you"

All ASRock is doing is basically relaying what THEY know, which is the same as what YOU know. And you've already written them off as leaving you in the lurch. I hope I'm not proven wrong, but I'd be very surprised if any major mobo manufacturer WOULDN'T CHOOSE to participate in a recall program where INTEL is picking up the costs. They just don't have any details yet (because the details don't EXIST yet) so what do you expect them to say?

 

[spacejamz]

Up until yesterday, I had my Marvell ports disabled in EFI...turning them on now adds about 2-3 seconds to my boot up start up time so it can recognize the drives....

 

[AdamK47]

The motherboards have been pulled from Micro Center.

 

[bryanW1995]

I posted this statement from OCuK in motherboard forums but I know some of you don't go there,


http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18236710




They are still selling 1155 boards in the UK at this time.

I'm surprised they didn't mention using the sata 3 ports.

 

[Hogan773]

Agreed on the sarcasm of "biggest disaster." Could be much worse. It's a disaster for Intel, but the market moves on. It's a major blunder though, and consumer confidence will end up taking a hit. When you shell out your hard earned cash for something you expect it to work. Here's hoping Intel can turn it around quickly.

That's why Intel is smart for hitting this now. A small number of people are ACTUALLY affected. There are a bunch of people who will see something on the news about Intel and a billion dollar chip mistake, and for 95% of them it will reside in their brain for about a day until it is replaced with the next babble from Entertainment Tonight or Oprah. So unless those people are actively making a purchasing decision in the next few days, I don't think the Intel reputation will be harmed much.

Had Intel waiting till all of those people bought their new laptops and desktops over the next year, and THEN had a recall with 10x as many units.....much bigger $$$ cost and reputational cost for Intel.

 

[smakme7757]

I have all my storage connected to the Intel sata ports. No problems here, but they did say that the performance decrease would rear its head in anywhere from 6months to 3 year with a very small percentage being affected very early.

 

[Seero]

I think people are over reacting. "OMFG THERE IS A CHANCE THAT MY HDD WILL DIE! OMFG THERE IS A CHANCE THAT I WILL LOSE DATA!"

I mean, don't we have this problem since day 1?

 

[Hogan773]

The issue for the retailer is being lumped in with the situation. Bob orders a motherboard and it's "busted." Even though he knew their was a chance of this he still went ahead with the purchase. Unlike most rational people Bob starts a crazy internet campaign on Intel and Newegg because they sold it to him. Bad rep is a poison for online retailers.
Better safe than sorry in this situation.

Yep totally agree. It hurts Newegg proportionately greater than someone like HP or Dell I'm guessing, as Newegg customers are more likely to be actively aware of SandyBridge and targeting very specific purchase. I do believe that the majority of Dell and HP consumers are looking to buy a "computer" and probably aren't aware of SandyBridge. So just keep selling them a "Core i7" system as the best option (even though its a 950) and they'll hit the buy button. I'd think fewer Newegg customers will just roll back and say "aw fuggit, I'm getting an i5 760 cause I can't wait 2 months for SandyBridge" especially after they're aware of what SB can do

 

[Mem]

I'm surprised they didn't mention using the sata 3 ports.

I thought they did?...

In some cases, motherboards featuring the 6 Series Chipset (P67 & H67) that have Sata devices connected to ports 2-5 could potentially degrade over time.

Motherboards with devices connected to Ports 0 & 1 remain unaffected or using the 6G ports.

 

[Diogenes2]

Up until yesterday, I had my Marvell ports disabled in EFI...turning them on now adds about 2-3 seconds to my boot up start up time so it can recognize the drives....

Do you have AHCI and " Hot Pluggable " enabled in the BIOS ?

Also make sure you install the Marvell driver from the Ausus disk.. Otherwise the Win7 driver nay not cut it..

 

[Modelworks]

I have all my storage connected to the Intel sata ports. No problems here, but they did say that the performance decrease would rear its head in anywhere from 6months to 3 year with a very small percentage being affected very early.

That is the thing, all they are revealing is a problem with the chips that would result in more errors being generated on the connection causing bits to have to be re-sent. They are not going to go into a lot of detail on this because it would start to get into propitiatory information .

They did the right thing and issued the recall. With the way fabs work there may be some of the chips totally unaffected . Intel isn't taking that chance though and that is a good thing. I would guess that the hotter the boards chips get the faster the defect appears. Being an error related problem I can think of a couple places that would cause that, the transceiver used for the connection, the logic buffers used, the controllers cache memory, or the internal clock generator for the SATA controller failing and causing bad execution of the code.

 

[Spikesoldier]

probably whats going to happen is:
customer rma's mainboard to mainboard manufacturer's us office.
doa boards are shipped back to china on slow boat.
by this time, many 'fixed' PCH's have already been manufactured in various fabs.
intel provides a new cougar point PCH to mainboard manufacturers for each mainboard.
mainboard manufacturer replaces PCH chip on mainboard.
rebox everything and replace accessories
back on slow boat to US
many cheap refurbs now available for SB, lowering platform cost of entry at BD launch.

looks like its possible in two month (April) timetable.

 

[spacejamz]

Do you have AHCI and " Hot Pluggable " enabled in the BIOS ?

Also make sure you install the Marvell driver from the Ausus disk.. Otherwise the Win7 driver nay not cut it..

Not sure how that make a difference...when the marvell hardware was disabled, the system does not try to identify the drives attached to it. Now that it is enabled, the screen that did not flash previously now shows the system identifying the devices attached to it which adds to the start up time. Not a big deal, I was just trying to be funny...

Don't remember when I built this if I loaded the driver or not, but everything seems to be working right now...my SSD, 2 SATA drives and blu ray writer are on the 4 6Gbs ports but my front eSata connection is still on one of the 3Gbps ports, but I don't use it very often...

 

[imported_mystro]

That's why Intel is smart for hitting this now. A small number of people are ACTUALLY affected. .

When you purchase *any new advanced product, you'll always be the final beta test team with the only difference being... you payed for the privilege.
Everyone who jumped in will get corrected boards with the only exception being if you dealt with a low-ball retailer...then good luck, I'm sure we'll hear the crying here.

 

[Diogenes2]

..........Being an error related problem I can think of a couple places that would cause that, the transceiver used for the connection, the logic buffers used, the controllers cache memory, or the internal clock generator for the SATA controller failing and causing bad execution of the code.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4143/the-source-of-intels-cougar-point-sata-bug

The problem in the chipset was traced back to a transistor in the 3Gbps PLL clocking tree. The aforementioned transistor has a very thin gate oxide, which allows you to turn it on with a very low voltage. Unfortunately in this case Intel biased the transistor with too high of a voltage, resulting in higher than expected leakage current. Depending on the physical characteristics of the transistor the leakage current here can increase over time which can ultimately result in this failure on the 3Gbps ports.

 

[scooterlibby]

I don't want to seem like an Intel fanboy, as I have built several AMD systems in the past, but my particular SB situation isn't too bothersome. I have two HDD's and an optical drive that rarely gets used. I also got a P67 with extra SATA 6gbps ports, so even if I got more drives I'd still be able to avoid the SATA 3gbps ports.

More broadly, as has been repeated, if the failure rate truly is close to the estimated 5% over 3 years, the chances of being affected aren't that great.

Definitely a sloppy BS move by Intel, but I feel relatively unscathed. I understand others, though, with different SATA configs, have a legitimate grievance.

Frankly the RMA process is a pain in the ass so I may just ride this out.

 

[dudeofdur]

C'mon.....you obviously don't have much appreciation for how a big company works in practice. The message from ASRock IS basically the press release from Intel. ASRock was just notified about this a few hours before you contacted them. I am SURE that Intel hasn't put together a full detailed list of all the aspects of a recall, how it specifically works, etc. But you expect ASRock customer service agents to just start taking arbitrary positions like "oh yeah, send it back to XYZ address and we'll plop in a new Sata controller chip for you"

All ASRock is doing is basically relaying what THEY know, which is the same as what YOU know. And you've already written them off as leaving you in the lurch. I hope I'm not proven wrong, but I'd be very surprised if any major mobo manufacturer WOULDN'T CHOOSE to participate in a recall program where INTEL is picking up the costs. They just don't have any details yet (because the details don't EXIST yet) so what do you expect them to say?

I expect them to take my motherboard and turn it into a time machine

on the serious side I wish they would start a exchange program that would give me a replacement motherboard if and when mine fails... I know dreaming up a storm here...