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Intel Recalls New Chipset-Based Motherboards
VD writes "Intel Corp., world's largest chip maker, has made a serious mistake, which led the chip giant to recall its recently launched 925 and 915 chipset based motherboards. Intel reported the problem to be with the ICH6 and requested that motherboard makers recall their motherboards from the channel. The chip maker has agreed to pay compensation to motherboard makers for the losses." There's also a Reuters story as well.
Right now, I wouldn't want to be in the pants of the engineer responsible for the gaffe...
It is not necesarilly an engineer who is responsible for the mistake. It is not a design flaw, it is a flaw in the manufacturing process. Guess this could possibly have been caused by broken equipment, possibly careless handling.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
A little more info here:Intel Grantsdale Recall
For one thing, this news is 2 days old now. Thanks for staying current. :rolleyes:
For another, this is not a design flaw, it was a manufacturing flaw- a thin film substrate wasn't completely removed from the chipset before the chips were sent out to the mobo manufacturers, and they believe that the "recall" will only affect, at most, 1000 motherboards.
Lastly, there are no video cards available on the market that can be used on these motherboards, as they can use ONLY PCI Express video cards, not AGP. Therefore, virtually noone can even use the boards yet. Early adopters? I doubt if there are any yet.
Oh yeah, one last thing- I'd like to know what manufacturer doesn't use chipset based motherboards???? The poster of this article sounds like he was just trying to raise a ruckus, without even being informed about the issue.
Listen to my experimental-industrial-techno!
ICH6 = Intel I/o Controller Hub 6. Basically it is the south bridge for Intel's new chipset.
Karma? Hey I just call it as I see it.
He's referring to the earlier attempt to push Coppermine to 1.13GHz, which failed miserably.
"Now should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."
But since I have karma worse than that of satan... no one will ever get a chance to read this. *sigh* Such is life.
Maybe someone is browsing at 0, or -1?
The earliest releases of Apple's G3 233/266 motherboard had one component that would cause the motherboard to fail when faster processors were added (the Royal Technology brand voltage regulator module). I don't believe Apple ever issued a recall for this. There are also tons of reports of iBook motherboard failures, which Apple is recalling. They even have a link to this problem on the main page of their website.
There is practically no reason for the average (or above average) user to use PPC architecture when AMD is readily available, cheap, and fast.
A small piece of foil which was supposed to have been removed during manufacturing may not actually have been removed. If it has not been removed, it will cause a short which will drain the CMOS battery, which will mess up BIOS configuration and halt the Real Time Clock.
I applaud Intel for the callback.
I remember that they replaced my Pentium processor
when it had the F00F bug in it.
This was handled very well, even though I am in
Europe, a new processor was delivered via courier,
and I had to return the old one at the arrival of
the replacement, so I had no large downtime.
They did the right thing then, although at first
they claimed that only science users should get a
replacement, and private owners wouldnt notice
the bug. After a storm of complaints they did the
right thing, and now they do the right thing again.
Bram
Bram Stolk http://stolk.org/tlctc/
from http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20040625_1105 02.html
According to spokesperson Christian Anderka, a piece of foil which should have been removed from the ICH6 was not removed completely which could result in leakage current in the Real Time Clock circuit and potentially stop a motherboard from booting.