A Thread For Clevo/Sager Notebook Recall News and Questions.

You're right, of course.

Still, there is a tremendous amount of "float" that will happen before the vendors start getting sales dollars again. A month is a long time in business. A month with half your normal sales volume or less could well shutter smaller companies. Either that, or you lay people off and turn off the lights and heat for three or four weeks. Painful either way.

I guess my idle speculation is that vendors, especially the smaller companies, will have to find a way to generate cash flow to keep operations moving until the revised systems are ready to sell. Refunding or discounting from Intel won't pay the bills, it just will give them back a portion of the assets that they invested in stock to resell at a markup.

Will we see some polish and sale pricing of the old generation machines to make them more attractive to fence-sitters? New configurations based on other chip-sets? Incentive pricing for pre-orders of stock they won't be able to ship for a month or more? All those things could keep cash flowing through the company, but they also all erode the profit margins.

I hope they all make it through this, and I'm frankly glad I'm not in the business.

 

AMD laptops should get a temporary boost.

 

I'm not sure I understand that the understood FIX is only on paper?

The problem was one transistor on a SB companion (input/output) chip at the upper design level which had higher than expected current leakage due to a high-current bias and thin gate oxide. Two potential fixes (no pun intended) upon ramping up their design software:

1. Lower the design current or 2. increase the gate oxide layer.
(There are others but likely unnecessary)

Then test (check for other errors), translate to a new physical layout for the upper layer, change masks and manufacture. (Some of which they were likely doing pre-notification)

Intel's business is transistors and the age-old problem of current leakage in transistors has been around since the 1950's - this FIX shouldn't exactly be rocket science to them, and they're set up to retool layouts and masks pretty quickly I would imagine.

I could see this being a major issue if the SB chip had the flaw or if the flaw had been at the primary build structure of the companion chip, but that's simply not the case.

Granted, because Intel has already had to admit a problem, the last thing they would want to do is deal with another one later on, but the actual defined issue here, in and of itself, does not necessarily warrant the length of delay everyone is expecting or hearing. Just my opinion.

I agree that Intel may play it safe and use the maximum amount of time publicly issued, but as I stated in an earlier post, I simply didn't think they would do that considering the miniscule level of the flaw and the fact that they are a business and need to minimize the financial damage quickly.

On another note, the cost of this recall is so high because it includes the cost of flawed chips manufactured/shipped AND lost revenue combined during the delay. The cost-portion for replacing already-received bad PC's is the lowest component by far. I also find it highly unlikely that Intel will or can be held responsible for lost revenue of those companies downstream of them in the supply chain considering they control 80% of the chip market, but who knows.

 

While some may be sitting on the sidelines, others are seeing the short supply even after the dust settles and are getting in line now.

Don't think that sales have slowed down...they haven't.

It isn't that unusual to be offering pre-sales for 30 to 60 days before a new release as long as we are not under an NDA. The cool thing for resellers is we couldn't take pre-orders until the Sandy Bridge release date back on the 9th of January so there were no pre-sales for Sandy Bridge, but now that we are out from under the NDA we are just in a fairly normal pre-sales offering period.

If you want to know how the market perceives it, just watch Intel's stock.

 

Good point!

 

so i placed my order for the 170 late jan, and paid in full. will the price of the laptop change when the chipset is fixed? ill be damned if it got cheaper than what i paid for 2 months ago

 

Mostly in those cases,

if the price drops, you will be refunded the difference amount.

if the price rises, you will only have to pay what you paid for in Jan.

So, it is really a good idea to jump in pre-orders in price regards as well.

 

I removed my post because it turned out to be incorrect, my apologies to meraki1990.

 

Since mine won't ship until March most likely, hopefully the price drops on something. Two months of depreciation on hardware that has at most a 1 year retail life before its outdated is a decent chunk of its life.

 

However the demand is very high for SB products. I don't see the price dropping.

 

The way price changes and adjustments will happen is...

You will get the lowest price if there are any changes. You will for sure be refunded if prices are lowered for any reason. You can change up your components at the lowest going prices up to the ship time...
__

 

Is this a Clevo-wide thing or just your promotion?

 

We have the same policy.

 

Mathis512, we realize you are new here, but a little searching will reveal that this has be asked and answered numerous times by virtually every reseller here. You can change your specs, or even your model, at anytime before it ships, and you are price protected up until the day it ships. Your price cannot go up other than for changes you make, but it can go down if the current price on your ship date is lower than the price when you submitted your specifications.

 

Yeah, I should never write about things that I'm 90% sure of, and I've heard of before.

I've practically been living on this forum the past few weeks, and I know that I've seen that policy before, I just didn't know where to cite it and where the post was. It was specifically a post by Justin@XoticPC.

 

What about negotiated for discounts? If for example I got 3% off or $50 off etc, and the retail price drops by $50 before it ships, am I protected for the discount as well or just for if retail drops by $60?

Also for components, if I switch to a $200 cheaper video card, do I get the full $200 off, or a prorated $190 or only $150 for the difference between retail prices?

 

That one again would be a better question posed to your builder / reseller specifically. Usually the discount is protected, And if you switch to a $200 cheaper video card, then you get $200

 

Thanks for the reply! Now I just have to call up my credit card company to check their policy on whether their extended warranty and coverage for accidents starts on billing day or on delivery day, because delivery day just got pushed back quite a bit.

 

Well they shouldn't bill your credit card until your system ships.

 

^This. It costs money to use credit card transactions so resellers usually don't fully process CC orders until it ships. So you should still be okay warranty wise thru your CC company.

 

One irrelevant question though....How easy is it to change the motherboard on the recalled laptops and how fast can be done?

 

They already billed me but said they can do a rebill/refund when they ship so my warranty is in place... $500 for 90 days accident protection and +1 year parts, not bad for free, well I give up the cash discount...

Smaller companies need the cash flow (I'm basically extending them a free loan) due to the delay I'd say... If they try to pull anything the credit card is worth it because I can charge back

 

I have been following this thread and the thread specific to the Sandy Bridge recall. I've seen the component switching mentioned several times, but I've yet to see price protection specifically mentioned until now. I may have missed it somewhere.

 

Of course we would protect pricing =) Just bad business if we didn't. We always take care of our customers.

 

Sounds great, I'm glad to hear that is the case. I'm comfortable knowing that we have options and that we are protected.

 

the slow economy would reduce sales but sandy is the first meaningful upgrade in some years and a lot of us have been holding out for that. More processing power AND better battery life for the old price, in the mean time memory and harddrives are bigger and faster and may be the cases are a bit more refined too. All that has me paying attention.

Do I "need" a new machine? Not if I'm being honest with myself. I want one.

 

I just want to be ready for Battlefield 3. Of course I could probably cancel and wait until these are fully available and get a 6970m and still be fine. Probbaly push me out to June or so though.

 

You know it's the time for amd to release its Bulldozer CPU. I've never used amd in my whole life. Maybe now i make a switch. A notebook with Bulldozer and 6970m. How's that?

 

Gigabyte released a tool for SB motherboards "that tells you if the SATA ports that you are using are in fact the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports" - original post at Maximum PC | Gigabyte Utility Checks Your Sandy Bridge SATA Port Configuration, tool at GIGABYTE - Support & Downloads - Utility - Motherboard

 

From my experience in dealing with repairing a notebook, you just have to disassemble every single piece of it, except for the screen.

That's all.

 

The motherboard requires complete teardown for just about any laptop..

As all components that are attached to it must be removed....

 

They are actually going to build brand new motherboards, and then just swap them.

The ones they take out they are going to put in a large container...and send them to Intel with a big yellow ribbon wrapped around them.

 

Why not a white flag?

 

Man, can you miss something you don't have yet?

 

YES, you can indeed!

 

I mess around with the configurator at lease twice per day. Then I just stare at it, and weep.

It hurts so badly, to know I'm at least two months away from being satisfied.

 

Wow, you're doing better than me! I mess with it every hour it seems.:GEEK:

 

I hope that doesn't mean two months of waiting for everyone--

 

***ALERT***

In case this wasn't posted elsewhere:

As of today, Intel announced they will immediately begin shipping P67 and H67 chipsets again as long as laptop manufacturers do not use the effected SATA ports.

QUOTE: "This should not only mean that Sandy Bridge laptops will be on the market sooner rather than later, but it should also help to speed up supply of updated chips to those who actually need them."

http://blog.laptopmag.com/intel-and...et-issue-sandy-bridge-notebooks-to-ship-again

 

This does not pertain to any Sager or Clevo notebooks unfortunately.

 

This will only help laptops that:

1. Only have one hard drive and one optical drive
2. Do not have an eSATA port

The next problem is to update the BIOS so that the optical drive uses ports 0 or 1, which when taken with the no eSATA port will not really solve the issue for many laptops. It will not affect Sager or most of the ASUS laptops. It will not affect any ASUS laptops that have two hard drive bays and one optical drive bay (e.g. G series and ASUS N73JQ).

 

As it said in the article, and I have been unable to find any alternate word on it, Intel declined to release what manufacturers (Clevo?) were involved with this new policy to resume laptop Sandy Bridge shipments.

Either way, Clevo/Sager and others WILL likely be helped over the coming weeks, if you read the article, from the trickle-down effect of freeing up the new chipsets, sooner rather than later, for laptops that DO require using the SATA 3.0GB ports like the NP8170, etc, as is Intel's intention here.

 

Thanks for posting that GRazor71. I think we will still have to wait for an official word from Clevo/Sager.

Going by what has already been discussed so far, the 81xx do make use of the affected sata ports though, so I am not sure if Clevo/Sager fall into the category of OEMs who promise not to use the other four ports.

 

Right, and let's hope it does free up chips for Sager and other OEM's. Somewhere else it mentioned some manufacturers using a different SATA controller chip to get shipments out.

But my point was that all Sager notebooks make use of the SATA II (SATA 300, SATA 3Gbps, whatever ) ports because they have more than two SATA devices whether it is optical drive or eSATA.

 

Now I see what you were saying. It was a little confusing. Yes, everyone should understand that this will not have a direct effect on Clevo units, but only an indirect effect due to resultant decreasing demand for the new chipsets moving forward.

I understood that to be the case in the article, but I should have stated it more clearly while referencing it. Sorry about that!

 

Wait, its possible to switch which port the ODD uses through a BIOS update? I thought the ports were hard wired and can't be switched? If thats the case then why not just give us 8150 owners a BIOS update that changes the ODD from Port 2 to Port 1?

 

I would certainly take a laptop that had the SATA controller reprogrammed/rewired so that the unaffected ports are being used only by my SSD and ODD. They could plug up the eSATA and specifically drop it from the warranty for all that I care. Is there a reason that eSATA would ever be a desirable port over USB3.0?

 

I don't think Sager or any other company would disarm a designed physical port for the sake of a workaround - especially when their chipset supplier is on the hook. This waiting game may seem like hell right now (maybe that's just me) but it's all relative. Two months from now it won't be any more important than deciding what cereal to eat for breakfast in the morning.

 

It certainly would be nice if they left that decision up to the customer since they are on the hook to us .

LOL, since Eurocom can charge extra to have Clevo installed items added to an order (i.e. webcam, fingerprint reader), why can't Sager take off useless ports that are holding up the laptop's production by 2 months for free?

 

You make an interesting point! But the only thing fair in life is that unfairness affects us all!