Slashdot Mirror
Intel's Atom C2000 Chips Are Bricking Products -- And It's Not Just Cisco Hit (theregister.co.uk)
Thomas Claburn, reporting for The Register: Intel's Atom C2000 processor family has a fault that effectively bricks devices, costing the company a significant amount of money to correct. But the semiconductor giant won't disclose precisely how many chips are affected nor which products are at risk. In its Q4 2016 earnings call earlier this month, chief financial officer Robert Swan said a product issue limited profitability during the quarter, forcing the biz to set aside a pot of cash to deal with the problem. "We were observing a product quality issue in the fourth quarter with slightly higher expected failure rates under certain use and time constraints, and we established a reserve to deal with that," he said. "We think we have it relatively well-bounded with a minor design fix that we're working with our clients to resolve." Coincidentally, Cisco last week issued an advisory warning that several of its routing, optical networking, security and switch products sold prior to November 16, 2016 contain a faulty clock component that is likely to fail at an accelerated rate after 18 months of operation. Cisco at the time declined to name the supplier of that component.
Once you get a replacement CPU from Intel, it's easy to upgrade your system.
Get a small screwdriver, and insert it in the gap under the chip near pin 1. Gently rock the CPU out of its DIP socket; you may have to alternate pulling at each end of the chip.
The new chip's legs will be slightly splayed for use with automatic pick-and-place machines. You may need to gently bend them inwards before proceeding. Making sure that pin 1 is aligned with the marker on the motherboard silkscreen, gently push the new CPU straight down into the DIP socket. Your system is fixed!