Unmasking Mis-Labeled CPUs

Syniq writes "The folks at Tom's Hardware had an interesting story about a new free utility from Intel that checks the frequency of your processor to let you know if that PIII-500 is actually a PIII-500 or a PII-300 over-clocked and relabeled by the retailer to snag a little extra cash. An interesting story, but is this really all that common? Has anyone personally experienced this from an actual company (i.e. Dell, Gateway, Compaq, etc) and not from MrSmiley on Ebay?"

Comments

Re:Don't overlook the local scumbags

[goldmeer]

Intel's number in the US/Canada is:
1-800-321-4044

While fraud is illegal in all 50 states, you may find it hard to get overburdened prosecuting attorney's to wave there "I care" sticks at these people.

-Joe

MrSmiley (slightly offtopic)

[TurkishGeek]

Well, there really IS a "MrSmiley" on Ebay and he seems to be a honest Ebay user, judging by his Ebay feedback. Perhaps I have too much time on my hands today, but do you think it's completely germane to mention someone's Ebay name as an example for crooks that pop up on Ebay from time to time?

I guess we should be more careful when we make up those names.

Don't overlook the local scumbags

[Skyshadow]

Well, maybe Dell and Gateway don't overclock PCs, but there are a lot of little local PC shops that do.

I'm not sure why, but there are an awful lot of really crooked people who run local PC sale/repair places -- it's as bad as trying to locate an honest mechanic. It's probably for the same reason; more people don't really understand either of 'em to any real depth.

I was in our scummy local place (needed an ethernet card Right Now) and I actually saw a PC being marketed as a 500 Mhz, and down the tag a bit it said "Clock Speed Increased for Maximum Performance". It made me sick 'cause I could see my folks dropping $2000 and getting screwed by these kind of scumballs.

Is there some kind of 800 number you can call to report this sort of thing? Hell, is it even against the law?

----

Re: Don't overlook the local scumbags

[InitZero]

I was in our scummy local place and I actually saw a PC being marketed as a 500 Mhz, and down the tag a bit it said "Clock Speed Increased for Maximum Performance". It made me sick

I don't see the problem. A computer store over-clocked a PC to squeeze out every little bit of speed. Further, it labled the product as having had its clock speed increased.

Had the computer store not let the consumer know that the chip had been over-clocked, I can see why the dealer might be walking the line. But there was full disclosure.

Light overclocking is a relatively safe way of getting a few more cycles out of your processor. Don't flame a store just because they overclock.

InitZero

What about AMD chips?

[bmc]

I'm sorry to see that it's an Intel utility for Intel chips. I just bought a K6-III-based system, and I'd love to have some verification that it's really a K6-III, and not a K6-2 or something else entirely. Operating systems just identify it as a K6-family chip. It does claim to be a K6-III in the BIOS, but that would seem to be fairly easy to fudge.

Also, I doubt that the Compaqs and Dells of the world misidentify what they're selling, but how many home users really buy from them? I bought from a web retailer who offered a competitive price and a good warranty, but I have very little information on the company itself. Maybe this is just as dumb as buying from eBay, but I'd like to think there's some kind of middle ground.

I worked at a Best Buy store

[Haven]

I worked for best buy as a service technician, and we got tons of Compaq computers coming back that just died. The processor had died... upon inspection they had put AMD k6-2 350's in the machines and clocked them up to 400. Compaq had to buy the people all new computers with true 400s in them. I had to give a statement to compaqs lawyers saying that they were 350s clocked up and sold as 400s.

It happened to me

[Anonymous Coward]

A while bank I ordered a PII400 from a web-based vendor. What I got was a re-marked PII233 (or PII300, can't remember). I called Intel and explained my situation. They asked me to call the vendor back and ask for a refund or exchange. The vendor told me to send them the CPU and they would "test it". Right. I called Intel back and they asked me to send them the processor. They sent me a boxed PII400 (with fan). The one I had received from the vendor was an OEM cpu. From talking to the lady at the Intel fraud department, I got the impresssion that this was a common occurence.

"actual companies"?

[slothbait]

The relabelling problem is a serious one for the Do-it-yourself audience, and I suspect a large number of Slashdot reader are also into DIY.

I, personally, have never bought a prebuilt system. (neither have I ever owned an Intel processor). I get my parts from local hole-in-the-wall component stores which may be shadier than they look. I still wonder what kind of K6 I have in this system. Its supposed to be a 200, but the old K6's were very easy to relabel, so it might be a 166. I guess it doesn't much matter. I have run it at 166-233 without any troubles, but I do wonder.

Someone like Dell or Gateway would never try relabelling. If anyone ever found out, the company would lose all credibility with their customers and their market would completely dry up. Its the local companies, which often come and go quite quickly, which may be interested in some quick money and not too concerned about reputation.

And I suppose its nice for Intel to provide this, but its really for them and not us. If the customer is willing to pay the huge premium that Intel charges for their high-end chips, than Intel really wants to see that money. That is where they make the real money...the massive margin on their current top-of-the-line.

out of things to mutter,
--Lenny

Aww crap.

[crayz]

It says my Pentium III 600MHz is actually just a G4 running VPC. Sheeit.