I7 Sandy Bridge Recall

[idata]

So i just purchased the sandy bridge i7 1155 and know im finding out their is a recall

One page says sandy bridge is not affected, but another page uses the terminology that the cougar point with sandy bridge is being recalled

I am really CORNFUSED, PLEASE Help

Do I send it back or not????

[idata]

Listy, the program from Gigabyte is useable on ANY of the affected mother boards, your's too!! I thought you had your laptop now. If so, simply download and install the program, if necessary, and run it. They you'll see for yourself. That is the point in telling you about this. Then you can tell the shop what they don't know. Or, download that program to a PC you can use, put it on a USB flash drive, and bring it to your shop and have them run it.

To answer your question: "Couldn't they just check the circuit wiring??" On a laptop, highly doubtful if not impossible. Virtually all connections on a laptop are not done with cables or wires, the HDDs plug into a socket on the mother board that is different then the sockets used on desktops to attach SATA cables to.

First you'd need to take the entire laptop case apart just to see the mother board. Second, if you could locate the circuit traces on the mother board, how would you know what their purpose is? The chance of answering the SATA 3Gb/s or SATA 6Gb/s question by inspecting a laptop mother board is virutally zero. Will the shop spend the time and effort to do that, even if they could? I doubt it.

If ASUS told the shop they're SATA 2 ports, you're done, they could be affected by degradation in the future. You know all the rest, the choice is yours.

Interestingly, ASUS still has these laptops up on their web site, as if they are, and seem to be, still for sale. The information on their web site is rather non-technical, as is the manual, with no answers to be found in either. But, if they were using SATA 6Gb/s interfaces, you know that would be displayed in big letters, to indicate the technical prowess of their product (sarcasm intended.)

So you can't buy desktop mother boards with Cougar Point chipsets, but laptops/notebooks with them are still for sale. Not Intel's fault, and makes me wonder about ASUS.

[DSilv11]

Wow, nice looking laptop. Not such a thrilling manual (if your looking for technical data).

The response back does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

The impacted ports are the SATA II legacy ports.

The SATA 3 ports are not impacted.

Old legacy Drivers? I guess if you loaded no driver it would help the issue since then the port would not work (or the HDD either), Old Legacy drivers again implies the impacted SATA II ports The issue is a physical component layer issue as described on the link above. (If it was possible to work-around this in a driver, this would be an chip errata telling you you need to use a special driver rather than a $700M recall.)

Build data is the other consideration. The early versions of the chipset (before January 9, 2011) did not have the issue. The made a small change and induced this issue. Most products have a FRU or VPD (or some other name for it) but it is a build date in a data field in the BIOS screen for the system. (Sometime the build date is embedded in the serial number too)

I did not find any informatation on the warranty on the web site.

In the quality user manual I found a 1 year warranty statement, but it sure read like it was 1 year on the battery and did not say about the laptop.

I did find this bit on Asus web site http://service.asus.com/notice/ http://service.asus.com/notice/

and this one http://event.asus.com/2011/SandyBridge/notice/ http://event.asus.com/2011/SandyBridge/notice/ complete with the list of impacted Asus products and phone numbers to call if you have one.

Hope the weather clears down there.

All we have here is in the US northwest is rain, rain and rain. At least the weather forecasters get it right 95% of the time. (how hard is it to decide if it will be rain, scattered showers, or occasional sun breaks?)

[DSilv11]

and I thought my comment was sarcastic.

[idata]

Oh Doc, sarcasm drips from my ears at times, the women in my life have always hated my ability to skewer them with my sarcastic foil, which of course has cost me big time... but at least I had some fun.

It was inevitable that some of my sarcasm would leak out, after all, I've been restraining myself from answering our little friend recently...

PS: "In the quality user manual..." LOL!!

Message was edited by: parsec

[idata]

Yes I'm an Aussie. We have Cyclone Gillard (PM) still here after the storm and she's still wrecking everything and has every Australian in her path. With what you said about the weather in Chicago, I think we can trash global warming and just call it climate change and I'd avoid the "Billabong Dash".

The day my pre-order arrived the day they released the news from Intel. I had the 'I've got good news and I've got bad news' speech. It's still sitting in the city waiting for me to pick it up. They've said it may no be effected but I don't think it's going to effect me. I'm going away in four week so I have to have it sorted by then. Asus have a pretty good reputation? No?

[idata]

No, the response doesn't give me the warm fuzzy feeling either, well it does but it's the one running down your leg. I suppose a download link is going to be much cheaper than a 700million recall. They are selling it with a world wide 2 year warranty with one year on battery. I couldn't find anything on the techical data. I think it will be fine. 20 years to lose a HDD and lost 3 in a year. I'm the back-up king now but you know how things work....and no, they weren't the original 20year old hard drives.

Yes the weather has cleared but as I said to parsec with still have a destructive force here ripping through everything. Our Claytons leader. And thanks, yes it does look like a rip-snorter of a laptop doesn't it. I guess I'm going to have to reschedule my world domination plans to after April. Just might have to wait for the weather too.

[idata]

Hi

I believe that "Sandy Bridge" was design faulty.

Is all chipset model P67, H67, G67 are faulty ?

If above is Yes, So...When we get a replace a correct fixed a new 2nd edition chipset ?

Thanks

Mike

[idata]

It's a bit like magic, but if you read this thread all question will be revealed.

[idata]

I'm interested in procuring a faulty DP67BG board, but I'd like to run three hard drives - one SSD on a sata 3.0 port and then a raid configuration with two conventional drives. Since there are only two sata 3.0 ports on this board, can I add a Sata 3.0 PCI card and run the SSD off of that in tandem with the native sata ports? Is there such a thing as a sata 3.0 port multiplier? If so would that be better than adding a sata PCI card?

What kind of configuration would you use to run three drives and avoid the faulty sata 2.0 ports?

[idata]

Sure you can. I would say that you use the 2 onboard SATA3 ports for your optical drive & SSD & use the SATA3 PCIe card for your 2 conventional drives. An example of a PCIe SATA3 card is below.

http://www.testfreaks.com/blog/review/review-of-asus-u3s6-usb-3-0sata-3-6gbps-pcie-card/ http://www.testfreaks.com/blog/review/review-of-asus-u3s6-usb-3-0sata-3-6gbps-pcie-card/

But if you really want what is fast & avoid any SATA bottleneck, I suggest that you get rid of that SSD & go with PCIe SSD such as OCZ Revodrive.

[DSilv11]

The 2 raid drives should be placed on the same controller, either the on-board or add in.

To configure a raid across different controllers, you are doing a software raid which is not as efficient as what you can get in hardware or Firmware raid modes.

any additional ports on the add in card can be left empty, or used to connect addtional devices.

Make sure whatever added in card you select is on the board supported list, especially if it will contain your OS.

Cards that have not beed tested may have issues or conflicts that could generate problems.

Some manafactures BIOS will not reconize booting from add in cards (or other PCIe devices)

[idata]

On- board RAID is really not advisable as it's slower than an add-on PCIe RAID controller especially if you're running your hard drives on RAID 5.

[idata]

Can't find anything about it, been searching 20 min... Any date went out yet for the new chips? Went tu buy a pc last week and the guy in futurehop told me they sent everything back for the recall, and should get the pc's back in about 2 weeks. Can i trust this? Or should it take way longer? Thanks

[DSilv11]

If you would like the facts, see the notice update:

http://www.intel.com/consumer/products/processors/chipset.htm http://www.intel.com/consumer/products/processors/chipset.htm

Q: When and how will Intel start processing RMAs?

A: Intel will begin replacing product for our direct customers the week of February 14th. We ask all who think they may be impacted by this issue to return to their place of purchase. Please know that we are currently working out the details and your place of purchase may need some time before they have details available for you.

[idata]

My PC store rang me yesterday anf said my Laptop is ready to be picked up. Couldn't confirm if it had the new chipset in it. Is it possible that they could have the replacement stock in with the new motherboards. Just seems a bit early for the new stock to be in.

[DSilv11]

New chips shipped back in February.

New mother board would have been 1 to 2 weeks later rolling of the lines.

I am not surprised your new Laptop is in.

Enjoy! and let us know how it performs. .

[idata]

Hmmm....I notice that it.

Maybe they been quick replace 2nd Edition motherboard. After delivery the 2nd Edition Sandy chipset market from Intel. I don't know, if I'm wrong ?

Anyway, You make sure double check testing for SATA2 and SATA3. if successful.

Mike

[idata]

Sorry to disappoint you but it's not gonna happen. Not in 2 weeks. Intel is not the one that's going to replace motherboards, unless those motherboards were made by Intel (generic ones). Intel will begin replacing faulty chipsets probably within this month but it's only a part of a much bigger equation. Intel is not the one putting the replacement chipsets. The replacement chipsets will be shipped to several motherboard manufacturers (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, etc.). After this, it's the job of the motherboard manufacturers to put the replacement chipsets. The process of putting it in is not that easy as you think. You have to remember that there's already a faulty chipset soldered on every motherboard circuit boards that's going to get replaced. We're talking here of a very delicate motherboard circuit board. A lot could go wrong in the process. The removal process as well as the replacement I think will mainly be done in automation but still requires manual labor to complete. It's a time consuming process.

My earliest estimate will be that if Intel will push things to the limit, we'll be seeing some results by March but it will be very limited in terms of numbers. April I think is the best conservative estimate as most PC expert said. Don't count on getting the best in April as it will be mainly low to mid end motherboards. You'll be getting the best probably by the end of summer or fall. By that time, the second generation Sandy Bridge core processor will become obsolete.

Sandy Bridge CPUs are non-usable at this time.

Sandy Bridge is a failure.

[idata]

Me thinks you are confused:

"You have to remember that there's already a faulty chipset soldered on every motherboard circuit boards that's going to get replaced. We're talking here of a very delicate motherboard circuit board. A lot could go wrong in the process. The removal process as well as the replacement I think will mainly be done in automation but still requires manual labor to complete. It's a time consuming process."

Haha they are just going to integrate the chipset in new pcbs they arent going to reuse the ones with the original cougar point in them, you even say it your self "We're talking here of a very delicate motherboard circuit board. A lot could go wrong in the process." REALLY you honestly thought they were going to take all the old chipsets out and put the new ones in!HAHAH

i do however agree that you won't see them that soon but i disagree with that they are unusable, cos they blatantly are!

[idata]

I don't see how you could call them usable. Read my other posts and answer my questions, then tell me if they are usable.

[idata]

This is where Intel is not telling us the whole truth. If it only has to fix 5% of the entire motherboards then why on earth it pulled out the entire motherboards off the market & those already in circulation. This points out to a much bigger problem that Intel's trying to hide.

I thought for a moment before that Intel's going to just replace all Sandy Bridge motherboards with new motherboards that contain working chipsets. But this would be a costly endeavor for the chip maker as it essentially will be buying off the entire Sandy Bridge motherboards from all the motherboard manufacturers. The fabrication process is more complicated in just replacing the whole motherboard than by just removing the faulty chipset & replacing it with a working chipset. Some parts need to get ordered (ex: Japanese made capacitors used by most motherboards, Nvidia's NF200 Nothbridge chipsets used in some high end motherboards, etc.). This could take awhile as this things need to get ordered.

The government should launch an inquiry on this matter & someone needs to be held accountable. This Sandy Bridge fiasco is part of a much bigger conspiracy. Us, the consumers need to know.

Again, how can you say that a CPU is usable at the moment when there's no motherboard for it. Unless you can find a way for a CPU to work without a motherboard (maybe by sticking it in the rear of something) then the CPU is non-usable.

I have a Sandy Bridge CPU inside my drawer. I can't use it 'cuz I can't find a motherboard for it. The motherboards been recalled.