Is Dell shipping Rev.04 B2 (recalled) Cougar Point chipsets??

Hi Guys,
If you have purchased your systems within the past 9 months, you should not be affected by this now old issue. Regardless, a lot of the software utilities used are not reporting the correct chipset more times than not. So, the solid way to know 100% is to remove the heat sink and look at the hardware branding as I show above.

Again, I doubt there are any issues at this stage unless your system production date was 11+ months ago.

Scott-

 

Thanks for the reassurance Scott. Although I wonder about those who are buying refurbs since they aren't exactly build at time of order.

 

They should be all B3 stepping, refurbished or brand new. Not sure if Intel did the corrections or refurbishers.

 

i've not opened the heatsink - but i get the symptoms verbatim as in the anandtech article re: the recalled sandy bridges. so i'm at 99% that that's what's going on.

but also - the majority of users out there will likely never see this issue - first 2 sata ports are ok - e.g. your system drive and your optical drive are not affected. which i guess is the reasoning behind this gross negligence.

 

Uhhh, after 6 months, have not had any issues with SATA or eSATA.

Part in bold is more likely your issue. "Bought on ebay" and "refurb" make it all highly questionable, regardless of whether the manufacturer refurbished it. When you buy something refurb, there is absolutely no way to be sure what happened to it that caused the return. Unless it's "customer didn't like it and we just put it back into a box", usually something went bad with it and you take your chances.

Under what conditions are you performing your test? Are you using the Intel RAID (verify drivers and Intel RAID firmware match)? Is this the factory install or a clean Windows install?

EDIT: Just to close this Cougar Point thing:

From Intel:

Intel® 6 Series Chipset
Chipset circuit design issue identified
Intel® 6 Series Chipset — Chipset circuit design issue identified

Is there a way I can tell an Intel® 6 Series Express Chipset B2 stepping from a B3 stepping?
The most accurate way to identify a B2 stepping from a B3 stepping is to read the S-Spec markings on the top of the Chipset, and either:

* Match up the S-Spec number to the stepping information published in the Intel® 6 Series Chipset Specification Update (PDF 85KB).
Intel® 6 Series Chipset, Intel® C200 Series Chipset: Spec Update)
OR
* Enter the S-Spec number in the "Search for product specifications" on the products page.

Note: Tools/applications designed to report the Intel® 6 Series Chipset Stepping Revision may not properly report stepping information due to system specific BIOS configurations.​

From Dell:

Dell Platforms Impacted By The Intel Stop Ship Of The Cougar Point Chipset | Dell
Intel Chipset Issue - Direct2Dell - Direct2Dell - Dell Community
Topic 2: What Currently-Shipping Products Are Impacted?
Four Dell computers launched in January with this new technology. The following Sandy Bridge platforms have been removed from Dell's websites for purchase:
* XPS 8300 desktop
* Vostro 460 desktop
* Alienware Aurora R3 desktop
* Alienware M17x R3 notebook

More information will be made available shortly on when these products will become available again.

There are no additional shipping XPS, Vostro, Alienware, Inspiron, Precision, Latitude, OptiPlex, PowerEdge or PowerVault products impacted by this announcement
​

Also,
* According to Wikipedia, the Cougar Point bug was announced Jan 31, fixed versions of the silicon went out starting Feb 14 (raw chip).
* If you have a E6420 or E6520, it uses a QM67.
* According to Wikipedia and Intel, QM67 was released February 20, well after the announcement and the release of the fixed chipsets.
* According to Intel, there is no such thing as a B2 revision of QM67: Intel® 6 Series Chipset, Intel® C200 Series Chipset: Spec Update)
* According to Dell, the only laptop affected was the Alienware M17x R3.

This is not to say they can't turn around and say "whoops, we goofed, some got through", but considering that they were actively looking for the problem and actively going about fixing it, it's highly doubtful they would've missed it.

 

ALL Sandy Bridge laptops/notebooks were already fixed by the time they announced it. It was only the original shipment of Sandy Bridge pre-launch that were affected. We had a couple HP's and ASUS G73SW's sold before Sandy Bridge officially launched. We eventually RTV'd all Sandy Bridge notebooks and all the ones shipped had B3 stepping.

In any event, some notebooks like HP's have their Health Checker software and it actually warns you if you have a possible B2 stepping motherboard.

 

alexF - appreciate your thorough run-through of the situation.

still, when i have aida64 reporting the faulty sandy bridge AND i got the symptoms exactly as the fault is reported - what am i to believe but that it IS the faulty one.

refurb - yeah, obviously, i'm taking chances...

it's a clean win7-64 - the machine came with 32bit OS. intel iaStor causes immediate timeouts under heavy load, with ms AHCI drivers i'm able to get some work done between storage timeouts.

but it's all soon to be mute - the machine is going to the depot for motherboard replacement.

 

update: it turned out NOT to be mute. in their great wisdom, dell replaced my faulty motherboard with another faulty one despite specific instructions on the ticket that the chipset was suspect.

meanwhile, i've also found another utility that's created by GigaByte specifically to identify the sandy bridge fault.
Gigabyte releases tool that checks if SATA devices are affected by faulty Intel chipset by VR-Zone.com

so it's not a few months after the recall that dell ships out faulty motherboards, it's now coming to a full year.

shame shame shame.

 

...

In this case, the Gigabyte tool is useless for detecting B3:
- That tool is intended for Gigabyte desktop boards produced by Gigabyte and during that time window (the note that comes with it says (Note) Support Intel P67/H67/B65/H61 series MB).
- The tool was made in February right after the B2 defect was found with the expectation that B3 would report as B3. Since Intel's corporate-stable platform made them decide to keep the identifier as B2, the tool will only see B2 on these models even if it is B3.
- Scott_RC-TEK posted earlier his software reports B2 but the actual chip has the stepping number for B3 (SLJ4M) etched on it: http://forum.notebookreview.com/del...called-cougar-point-chipsets.html#post7689531

Use the steps in this link to identify a B3 stepping chip using alternate means: B2 stepping QM67 chips incorrectly reported by CPU... - Lenovo Community

If there were any that needed to be recalled, it would've been already:
- Dell already recalled consumer-grade equipment (Vostro, XPS, Alienware) for the B2 issue.
- Latitudes and Precisions are *corporate* models used in medium-to-large business organizations which deploy non-trivial numbers of these units and pay Dell the "big bucks".
- You can expect that if there were a suspected defect in one of their flagship models, there are *lots* of organizations with much bigger stakes in these units than you or I that can make Dell listen *very* fast by threatening to sue and/or change suppliers for their *thousands* of (currently Dell) laptops/desktops if they weren't upfront about it (so in other words, we would've heard about it by now),
- They're *still* being class-actioned for the whole Optiplex bad cap mess from 7-8 years ago for allegedly knowing they were selling faulty units. I don't think they're likely to repeat that mistake.

If you have AHCI issues and timeouts, there's several other things that can cause it:
- bad drivers (try updating your Intel drivers/firmware),
- failing HDD (bad connection or bad sectors), you will want to check your HDD's SMART registers with something like SpeedFan or PCWizard or try another HDD,
- if the drive is external, maybe bad contact or a drive power issue (particularly if you use a USB-powered drive, if the contacts are old/corroded and/or if the drive pulls more power that it requires a Y-cable).

 

dear alexF:

i'm sure you know more about this than i do, but i wasn't born yesterday either.

i only started suspecting the chipset when i'd exhausted all other options at my disposal to no avail; and the recall fault symptoms as described on the net perfectly matched what i'm experiencing.

you may be right - but until i have a mobo that reports b3 stepping, or another fix is found, i can but suspect the chipset.

bad drivers - i've spent a month on perpetual driver (re)installation loop, going through all of them from the past two years or so. with or without LPM registry hack. no jive.
failing hd - works without a hitch on other computers.
"if the drive is external" - the sandy fault only exist on sata 3 ports, from #2 on - e.g. eSata.

anyway - thank you for your continued attention - i'll post back if new discoveries/remedies surface.