INTEL Recall of Sandy Bridge CPU's!???

Still though, the failure mode is bad enough that a recall is the only reasonable response. When your failure can randomly affect user's data...you have to fix it, otherwise no one will have confidence in your product.

 

Well it could be only 5% of users will utilize those features enough to cause issues. But sounds like every one will fail if utilized in that capacity.

It would be good to know what that failure mode is though.

If it is true that SATA ports 0 and 1 are unaffected then that means only my optical drive and eSATA are affected. I won't use eSATA until I get it fixed then, not necessary, and only use my optical for blu-ray movies and reading data or burning non-essential data. So I guess I'm safe, but would like to get it fixed eventually.

 

Well, what I wonder is what the status is going to be if I don't usually use eSATA, and I need the laptop preferably by early March...

If I order one now, will I still get a delivery? Are shipments frozen by Clevo? if they are then there's no point for me to order one.

Also if I order one knowing about the issue, can I still send it back to get a new mobo around June? Sucks to send it back when I get to play games finally but the main purpose of me getting a new laptop is not trusting my XPS will survive past my finals...

Also if I get it soon enough I can still call up Dell about possibly warranty replacing stuff in my XPS, even though its actually functioning so I don't know how to get them to fix it...

Scratchy hard disk and hot video card aren't enough to get a warranty fix are they?

 

They must have updated the article:

However, earlier in the article:

So much for that small percentage experiencing the problem in 3 years.

Looks like delays for new systems:

 

I'm not talking about previous generation, I'm talking about H67/P67 chipsets. Chips were sent to manufacturers long before 9th Jan.

 

Remember 1/9 was the release date. ALL 6-series chipsets of B0, B1, B2 stepping (Which would be ALL of them no matter date of manufacture) have this issue. B3 stepping which corrects the issue will be out late this month.

 

Ah, Okay makes sense. I read it differently/wrongly and thought that there had been a HW level change after 09 Jan. Current Rev of my Sata is 04.

Thanks for clearing it up. Appreciated.

 

So there is no way I am getting my laptop by the end of feb.

Is there any way I can tell them I don't care about the eSATA and take one of the defective ones?

 

Now I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't have spent that extra money and bought from mythlogic. Just a hop, skip, and jump away from me. Probably get it corrected in a couple days instead of the couple weeks I'll need to ship it out...

 

My M860TU was already crawling to the finish line, and now my LCD is threatening to go on the fritz.

April expectations are devastating. If my machine finally goes, I'm freaking stuck, and I refuse to buy a Clarksfield notebook to hold me over.

But I may have no option, damn it. Intel is killing me.

 

Get a netbook to tide you over.

... runs away ...

 

Well... Best Buy has a no restocking fee policy currently..... 14 days.... hint hint....

 

New thread for Clevo and Sager's recall

Resellers: please post recall news you receive from Clevo/Sager in that thread.

and lol at netbook... I'm 6'5" 200lbs. Those 10" things feel like peanut brittle in my monstrous gorilla hands.

 

I was probably going to wait until the Mobility 6970 GPUs were ready anyway, but this will make the waiting easier.

This is really bad news for the whole industry. A lot of people won't want to buy anything until Sandy Bridge is available again.

 

According to the thread it's only affecting the P67 chipsets and not the laptop H67 (Huron River) ones. Any confirmation?

 

Read page #2. All SB equipped notebooks are effected.

 

Please see this post I made in the other thread, it contains the latest info we have from Sager / Clevo

 

As some of you may have heard, Intel has recently announced a halt to shipments of 6 Series chipsets due to a quality concern. Sager has been working with Intel and Clevo to determine details and the timeline for a resolution of this problem. While we continue to do everything in our power to understand this issue, we have made a decision to halt shipments of 8130, 8150 and 8170 systems until we have a full grasp of the issue and a timeline for resolution. We realize this may be an inconvenience to some of our customers, but we feel it is important that we have full confidence in the product before shipping. We thank you in advance for your patience.

 

^^^^Yes the above is the official announcement at this time...

 

Well I took the hit and ordered anyways so I'll have a machine before May... Can't guarantee I'd get it otherwise in time...

If it gets delayed I can always get the 6970 instead I guess.

 

And in other news, AMD releases a mobile chipset and CPU to counter Intel's new Sandy Bridge, available now.

Just kidding.

 

^^^ Apu

 

Anybody noticed this yet?

 

Hmm.

8130 and 8150 have the HM65.

8170 has the HM67.

Let's see which ones come up to be the victim of this recall..

 

God this news is all over the place, first it was the 8150 that were not gonna have a serious issue, then it was everyone, and now it seems the 8170 are not gonna have the issue. I really hope we get some REAL clarity soon on this.

 

I believe mythlogic debunked this and all Sandy Bridge chipsets are affected.

 

All chipsets are affected, but not ports 0 & 1 which apparently are SATA 3 and not part of the affected chip. Those ports are dedicated to the internal drive bays of the 8170, and sounds like port 1 goes unused in the 8130 and 8150.

 

ALL 6 Series chipsets are affected. That is what our official Intel guidance says. Also the C200 xeon chipset also, but thats not really useful here.

 

From reading around the interwebs, it doesn't sound like any of this info is set in stone and that things are gonna pause until the dust settles.

 

Maybe this is the "creative innovation" they were referring to when they hired will.i.am as their "Director of creative innovation"...

Must have been focused a bit more on the entertainment than on the technology, I guess...

 

Anandtech has a great article (two actually) about this issue.

Intel Discovers Bug in 6-Series Chipset: Our Analysis - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

The Source of Intel's Cougar Point SATA Bug - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

$87.50 for shipping, labor, and time on average. Of course desktop boards will be a lot cheaper I'm assuming and possibly easier to fix. I dunno.

I'm still trying to figure out the math there though. What happens to the bad stock? I guess expect to see a bunch of refurbished desktop motherboards and possibly laptops with refurbed motherboards in there. Good chance for a discount.

 

Well what I still don't understand is how their claiming there is a 5% chance? I thought it was a more of a "you use it you loose it" sort of deal.

 

From anandtech aricle:

" If you have a desktop system with six SATA ports driven off of P67/H67 chipset, there’s a chance (at least 5%) that during normal use some of the 3Gbps ports will stop working over the course of 3 years. The longer you use the ports, the higher that percentage will be. If you fall into this category, chances are your motherboard manufacturer will set up some sort of an exchange where you get a fixed board. The motherboard manufacturer could simply desolder your 6-series chipset and replace it with a newer stepping if it wanted to be frugal."

 

So basically that 5% is just there so people won't get too scared when in reality with usage that could eventually bump up to a 100% change your sata port is gonna die.

 

Possibly. The good thing is that ports 0 and 1 aren't affected. For most laptop users that's more than adequate since most laptops only have one internal hdd/ssd and possibly an optical drive. However, many mfrs could have put the ODD on the SATA 3 pipes just to keep it separate from the SATA 6 pipes. Either way they can't sell machines with known bad chips unless those ports physically can't be used.

 

Yeah, sucks clevo decided to put the ODD on port 2 though, atleast thats the case with the P150HM. Why would they even think to do that for the 15 incher considering it only houses one HDD.

 

Unless eSATA is on Port 1 then that would make sense.

Also, what I'm afraid of is that Intel is going to want to turn a profit right away obviously. So I hope repair parts and money are readily available and not held back because they want all new chips to go to newly fabbed machines, and hold off on the repair parts for months on end.

I'm almost tempted to just return my Sager and wait until everything is fixed and then buy new. But I've waited quite a while for this. I'm sure once I get it I'll be reluctant to return it though.

 

I think we should be more worried about when clevo will be doing the repairs, intel already has its new chipsets in production from my understanding. The real issue here is what Clevo/Sager are going to do about it. Are they going to replace everyone's? Are they going to say something like we won't replace it until it actually fails? Who knows. Maybe we'll get a confirmation tomorrow or the day after.

 

The reason they put the ODD in slot 2 is because the slot 0 and 1 are reserved by the SATA III controller..

I think it will most likely be a replacement job of the motherboard for laptops..

 

So that means Slot 1 is likely unused on the p150hm as SATA III is usually used for HDD's? If thats the cast then using both the ODD and the esata port will kill their corresponding sata ports.

 

Yes, unless the eSATA port is assigned the SATA III controller,

eSATA port will also be affected by this issue...

 

The issue is with SATA II ports 2~5. The SATA III ports are 1 & 2 where the hard drive(s) are plugged in. Therefore it affects the ODD only which is connected to port 2.

Further, since your ODD doesn't need a lot of speed as compared to your HDD, the issue will be totally unnoticeable in the near term...if ever.

Since the eSATA port does not use the 6 port SATA controller it should be unaffected.

EDIT: eSATA DOES use on of the ports 2~5 so it is affected.

 

Oh, nice to hear.. the eSATA isn't affected!

But I was going to use the optibay for a hard drive.. Guess not anymore..

 

Yep this is great news for people like me, plus like he said since the ODD doesn't come close to read/write speeds of the HDD, i would assume it won't stress the controller as much so it might not kill it after all. Since after all nobody from the notebook realm really complained about SATA issues. It came directly from the desktop users who most likley have a crapload of HDD's plugged it. It was through their complaints that intel found the issue and decided to do a recall.

 

That was my thinking. The only problem is that they haven't disclosed the exact failure mode to either avoid it or see if we should really be concerned. If they notice it's with high speed constant data writes for extended periods, then ODD's in any capacity won't be affected really.

So on the NP8170 only three SATA ports are used? Ports 0&1 for the internal hard drive bays, and Port 2 for the ODD? Nothing else?

 

If thats the case then would that mean on the NP8150 only 2 are used? 0 and 2?

 

In theory, it should be.. We should wait for paladin44's words..

 

Just re-read my post #92 above...I think it says it all.

 

Great, thanks for the clarification!

+1

I've gotta spread some rep around before I can give it to you again.. maybe later.... haha.

 

Thanks! Although I still don't understand the part about the e-sata not being effected, if it doesn't use any of the sata controllers then what does it use?