Asus, Gigabyte To Replace All Sandy Bridge Boards

J. Dzhugashvili writes "In the wake of Intel's announcement that all existing Sandy Bridge chipsets have a bug that causes degraded Serial ATA performance, top-tier motherboard makers Asus and Gigabyte have made public statements regarding their return policy for affected boards. Asus is promising 'hassle-free return and/or replacement', while Gigabyte says owners of affected boards are entitled to a full refund or replacement—and it recommends that users seek refunds. Both companies are advising users to contact the original place of purchase to proceed. On a related note, Gigabyte has announced that new Sandy Bridge motherboards with bug-free chipsets will be available in volume in April."

Comments

I'll take one!

[Dr. Spork]

Wouldn't it make more sense to offer some sort of a substantial rebate and a correctly functioning SATA raid PCI-E card? Some of these motherboards - that are clearly getting scrapped - were very fancy. This seems like a terrible waste, since those boards basically worked.

Re:I'll take one!

[gstrickler]

These motherboards will not be scrapped. The manufacturers have the tools and facilities to remove the defective chips and replace them. The defective chips may be scrapped, but the boards will be refurbished and used as replacement units.

Re:I'll take one!

[gstrickler]

First, you don't scrap a $100 motherboard over the labor cost of removing and replacing one component (which Intel is providing for free). I'll cost at most $10 to replace the chipset, probably less than $5. Add another $5-$10 for testing and packaging, and for under $20 cost to the manufacturer you have motherboard that you can sell for a whole lot more than $20.

Second, these boards typically start upwards of $100 and go up to $300

Third, at the very least, they'll cut the traces going to the 3Gb SATA ports and/or remove those ports, re-label the board with different model number, put on an updated BIOS that disables the 3Gb SATA, and sell them to a secondary market with only the 6Gb SATA ports active. These could be sold in markets were prices are lower, sold to a small clone vendor building cheap systems, or sold retail as "refurbished" at a discounted price.

Anyway you look at it, most of these boards are not simply going to be scrapped.

Re:I'll take one!

[Rudeboy777]

Perhaps, but many of these are not $100 motherboards. High-end P67 boards run in the $200-300 range.

This also would not be a small scale refurb operation -- thousands of identical boards could be processed in an assembly-line fashion making this much more cost-effective than a single worker refurbishing whatever came in the mail that day.

Re:This is a good thing.

[Shados]

The problem is in the current world, a lot of companies go under if they do that.

So you have:

A) the companies that screw you over
B)The companies that don't...oh wait, those went under.

Ok, so you have A) the companies that screw you over. Thats it.

Re:What About Intel's Own Motherboards?

[FrankSchwab]

Frankly, I think that sounds like an excellent response from Intel. Did you expect them to send a car right over with a replacement Mobo?

They just announced the problem. They don't have 8 million replacement chips, or 8 million replacement motherboards in house. If they waited until they did have that many, somebody would bitch about them delaying the announcement.

The rep answered your questions truthfully, told you that the exchanges would be handled through the retailer, and suggested that your board will probably work just fine until a replacement is available. Again, what more did you expect?

Angry? Sure you can be angry. Someone sold you something that's defective, and that's causing you problems. They can't immediately make it right, and that's going to cause you more problems. Suck it up - it happens everywhere, all the time, and is part of life.

Oh stop looking for reason to be angry

[Sycraft-fu]

I swear, some people are just looking for reasons to be pissed off.

So, Intel has offered you the ability to either get a refund now, or a replacement board later. What's more, to get your refund you don't have to deal with them, you deal with the people that sold you the board, Intel will reimburse them. Like if it is Newegg just contact them and they'll issue you a full refund RMA, no questions asked, for any product that contained a 67 chipset, mobo, laptop, etc.

You cannot be provided with a replacement right now, because there are none to be had, they are being made. However if you'd rather not get a refund and use the system as it is, that's fine you can do that and then get a replacement in a month or two when they are out on the market.

Seems to me as though they've done everything they can to rectify the situation. They are fixing the problem and everyone gets a free replacement when the fixed units are out. If you are unwilling or unable to wait, then you can send back the stuff for a full refund right now.

If this doesn't satisfy you I see only one of two situations:

1) You want a fixed chip right now. That means you are an idiot, expecting you can have something before it is physically possible.

2) You want Intel to issue you a refund directly, rather than the retailer because you feel that is a better "punishment" or something. In that case you are just being unreasonable. You can get your refund, just talk to the place that sold it. Hell you'll get it faster that way.

Seriously, I fail to see the big deal. There is a fuckup, they are doing what they can to fix it. Nothing else can be done that I can see.