Intel CPU Warranty Invalid w/o CPU Fan?

saberint asks: "Recently, I had a good argument with Intel as I had a 3.2G P4 chip die on me within 6 months. I sent the CPU back to Intel only to be told that they will NOT honour the warranty because I did not send the fan back with it. Apparently the fan and the CPU's serial must match or else there is no warranty. This 'policy' is not listed on the warranty card or on their website. So for all you network admin or IT support people out there, keep the fan and the CPU together. Has anyone else experienced this with Intel?"

Comments

Overclockers and their "huge mamma" fans

[jpu8086]

This is obviously a scheme to deter overclockers from scamming away at Intel's Expense.

Holy shit, the 3.2 Ghz Processor blew up when I ran it at 4.0 Ghz. Let me try and get a new one. Oops, I glued on a custom industrial-quality fan to cool the damn thing.

I mean why would a person NOT use the fan provided by Intel in the retail package? The complete package is warranted, if something happens -- it is Intel's problem. So, don't put monster fans when the retail package will do.

Re:Overclockers and their "huge mamma" fans

[menscher]

I mean why would a person NOT use the fan provided by Intel in the retail package?

You obviously haven't heard them. They're loud. Much nicer to replace them with a Vantec stealth fan or somesuch.

Re:Overclockers and their "huge mamma" fans

[Anonymous Coward]

You have hit the nail exactly on the head... OEM. OEM means intel says "go complain to who you bought it from, not from us". That's the whole point, and why OEM parts are cheaper than the retail parts.

All the Intel retail kits come with fans and heatsinks. That's probably the easy way they can tell if you're sending an OEM or Retail part back.

Re:Overclockers and their "huge mamma" fans

[TheLink]

The AMD heatsink and fan that came with my boxed Athlon Palomino 2000+XP is really noisy - "hairdryer at a distance" noisy.

The AMD heatsink and fan that came with my boxed Athlon Barton 2500+ XP is much quieter (hairdryer in another room with a thick closed door), but doesn't appear to cool as well. It's in my room 24/7.

The PC with the Palomino seems to pump out a lot more heat - leave the computer on and the room warms up a lot.

That said, I live in the tropics and I have no problems with my CPUs not getting enough cooling, even without airconditioning etc. From time to time I run the burnK7 stuff to stress test the CPUs and cooling systems, and they still stay OK.
I've managed to get the barton up to 70 degrees C (room temp = 33+ degrees C ) when the CPU fan was a bit dusty.

But even then neither has ever crashed.

The barton PC has been up so far for 66 days (running FreeBSD 4.9[1]), it does mail, web, transparent proxy caching, dns, dhcp, pppoe, file serving etc for the house.

The last time I brought it down was to clean the fans and image the disk- dust really affects the cooling (and noise).

I've never overclocked it even though it's an unlocked Barton. I've underclocked it before tho - didn't seem to gain much in temperature reduction - 800MHz for a few degrees drop isn't really worth it.

So far I haven't really experienced Intel CPUs or AMD CPUs failing - most of that crashing stuff is due to other flaky hardware (esp RAM, HDD) or drivers. At my workplace we have had at least two UltraSPARCs failing - from Google it seems a common enough thing for UltraSPARC CPUs to fail even without abuse.

Re:Overclockers and their "huge mamma" fans

[obeythefist]

Actually, the reason Intel is asking for the fan is because they will look at the thermal gunk on the bottom of the fan, then tell you that you didn't install the fan correctly, thus voiding your warranty. I reckon if you check the fine print in the warranty documentation, they'll disavow any responsibility if they believe the fan has been installed incorrectly.

And when I say incorrectly, there really isn't much to it, the fan goes on and it clips on and it's done, but "incorrectly" means a whole different thing in warranty legalese.

Step 3 for intel: Profit.

devil's advocate

[TheSHAD0W]

I'm sure Intel has been getting plenty of returns, both from overclockers, from people who use the wrong fans for whatever reason, or who install fans improperly. Why should Intel have to bear the burden of these returns when it's not their fault?

Make a call to your lawyer.

[raider_red]

A letter from your attorney could go a long way toward fixing this. Better yet, if you have a friend in the legal profession, they might do it as a freebie. (Just expect them to call you to fix your computer at some time.)

Re:Make a call to your lawyer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Running a processor too hot will hurt it and it will prematurely burn out. The thermal guard only keeps it from melting on the motherboard, not from running hot.