Intel resuming shipments of defective SB chip Sets to PC Manufacturers. Will you buy a L702x currently?

Could not believe my eyes. There it was. Headlines last night from Reuters saying Intel was resuming shipments of defective SB chipsets... b/c PC manufacturers "demanded" them!

It seems the L702x is again available to order.
With delivery stated as "late Feb"?

If this not old info (and is true), it seems likely
the L502x will be available "reasonably soon" too.

I still plan on buying a L502x. Only when... is the issue.
Do I want to be an early adopter? That is the question.
What about other readers?

--------------
Intel Asks For A Lawsuit
Daniel Bailey in Business

Intel’s paid AMD a truck load of money and Nvidia was served just a couple weeks ago. Now it is your turn. Intel said it is shipping its flawed Sandy Bridge 6-series chipset to PC manufacturers again. Buy a flawed PC and sue.

You wonder what is going on behind closed doors sometimes. The company confirmed that it has resumed shipments of broken 6-series chipsets again that may cause the performance of SATA-connected devices to decrease or entirely fail. According to Intel, this will be the case in 5-15% of all chipsets shipped and about 8 million have been shipped to motherboard builders so far.

Apparently, the company has given a green light to use those chipsets and even confirmed that it is shipping flawed chipsets again, due to demand – and only for PCs that are not affected by the issue, which means that certain SATA ports cannot be used. We are scratching our heads over this one as the recall appeared to be designed to avoid a later recall logistics mess and especially a nasty lawsuit, which we all know will be coming as a matter of legal tradition in this country.

We aren’t exactly clear how this chipset will be sold to end users – with a warning label that there is a known problem, but Intel and a PC manufacturer is selling it anyway? And even if the company does, buyers may be eligible for free replacements down the road and lawsuits for the inconvenience. Perhaps Intel could preempt a class-action lawsuit and sue itself. It could set up a fund for all those people who are buying Sandy Bridge PCs right away?

This is just silly. Those who know about the problem will stay away from Sandy Bridge for a few weeks or months and those who have no idea about the problem are the ones that may be affected down the road. It’s just bad business and a lawsuit may be very well be deserved.

Intel Asks For A Lawsuit | ConceivablyTech

 

I never heard such bull in my entire life, the dude who wrote that article doesnt know what he's talking about.

Intel is selling the faulty chipset, the bare chip, these will end up in:
notebooks whit 2 of fewer SATA ports (thin & lights, netbooks, 15" notebooks without eSATA).
Cheap desktops to end-customers, like the medion brand, these desktop will have desoldered SATA2 ports.
Retail motherboards whit added SATA3 chips.

As a customer, you have absolutely _no_ chance of getting faulty SATA2 ports, the worst that can happen is paying $1 for an extra SATA chip on every motherboard.

 

That article is indeed wrong, this is straight from the Intel press release;

Intel is resuming shipments of the Intel® 6 Series Chipset for use only in PC system configurations that are not impacted by the design issue.​

That would mean, like Darkstone said, only in a system config where they use 2 or less SATA ports.

The XPS 8300, the Vostro 460, the Alienware M17x R3 and the Alienware Aurora R3 have already been pulled due to SB - and the l502x will be safe - it only uses 2 SATA ports.

The l702x uses 3.

 

Latest "twist and turn" in the Intel SB story.

Seems Intel is already producing corrected SB support chips.
According to story below,
........ they will begin shipping in Feb, and not April as originally thought!
Not clear if shipping in quantity.

Good news for L702x and, hopefully soon thereafter, L502x buyers.

Who is going to step up and be one of the early L702x or L502x buyers?

I am considering it, provided the "introductory" L502x pricing is "attractive."



-----------------------
Corrected Intel Chips Will Ship Sooner Than Expected

Corrected Intel Chips Will Ship Sooner Than Expected By Jennifer LeClaire
February 8, 2011 1:59PM

Corrected second-generation Core processors from Intel will ship sooner than expected. The flawed support chip in the Intel 6 series, code-named Cougar Point, will be shipped for use in PC configurations not impacted by the design issue. The corrected support chips will ship this month instead of in April, Intel said.

Chips & Processors - Corrected Intel Chips Will Ship Sooner Than Expected

 

Could anyone confirm this?

I plan to get the L502x but of course was waiting till its released with the fixed SB boards, but i also plan to add a second hard drive in the optical drive bay. So if Dell was to release it with the defective boards, would this no longer be an option?

 

Doesn't the L501x use 3 SATA ports: hard drive, optical drive, and external eSATA/USB2 combo port? That is why I thought the L502x could not use the defective SB chip sets.

Hopefully this concern is moot... if the above story is correct. Namely, Intel is supposedly shipping corrected SB chip sets in Feb, 2 months ahead of earlier estimates. This presupposes, of course, that Intel will be shipping corrected SB chip sets (a) in quantity to Dell, and (b) Dell decides to allocate a portion of the corrected SB chip sets to the L502x production ASAP.

 

PLZ do more research before you post these things. They had said from the very beginning that they would begin shipping corrected units in February. April was only when they would reach their full production capacity.


From the official press release:
The company expects to begin delivering the updated version of the chipset to customers in late February and expects full volume recovery in April.

 

Misinformation overload...system failure...

 

Hmm, do you guys suppose Intel "announced" the problem only because someone else found them out?

I heard at first the second version of XPS 15 would be released in April/May. Now I'm told it'll be in March, which is probably not that soon anyway (end March = April = early May).

It'll be almost identical to the current XPS 15 (as the 2nd XPS 17 is to the original) with a newer Nvidia card I suppose.

Good bye slot loading drives, available 1080p screens, and backlit keyboards (because they are not supplied or grossly undersupplied).

 

um, no. the $700m that this will cost them is a drop in a bucket compared to how much it would cost if, a year later, it was found that they didn't announce the problem. They already went through this with the Pentium math flaw where they knew about the issue for months before taking any action (only because they were pressured by the media) since it wouldn't affect most users.

 

It is always best to do as much research as possible before posting.
But it is also important to post the "latest updates or facts" as soon as known... on important issues to readers of this forum.

So... 2 questions for you:
1. If you knew about the Intel announcement (they would begin production of corrected SB chip sets in Feb.) weeks ago, why didn't you post then? Or didn't you believe this was information readers would be interested in knowing?

2. Is it possible that many people - those that knew about the earlier Intel comments - did not place much weight in them. They sounded like the usual "corporate damage control" comments routinely issued by companies in trouble.


My source on the other hand was posted yesterday, hours before I posted. And by a third party interested in getting out the latest news on this issue.

Several readers - including myself - are planning purchases based on the availability of the L502x and L702x systems. This was important information worth sharing once known.

 

Check this link out guys, about the SB flaw workaround and all.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20030936-1.html