Monday, January 31, 2011

Intel's Sandy Bridge chipset requires physical replacement.

Yikes. This is NOT going to be a very happy time for people who bought the next generation core i5 and i7 series computers this month. Intel announced that it found a flaw in the chipsets used in their Sandy Bridge series, that requires replacing the chipset on the motherboard. The good news is that it's not a fatal flaw that will present itself immediately, and that Intel will replace it for free. The bad news is, that you will have to send your computer back to the manufacturer to get the chipset replaced. Then there's all that inventory at the stores which have the flawed chipset -- will stores recall the computers or will they sell out, and issue a recall later?

UPDATE: Engadget's just posted that according to Anandtech, the culprit is a single transistor in the 3Gbps SATA controller of the chipset. If you want a clear - to a techie - explanation, head over to that Anandtech link.

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