New Intel B3 Chipset! Now Being Shipped!

nightmare99 · 25 Feb 2011 at 14:08

The facts are quite simple. If you use the Intel SATA2 ports on a Sandybridge motherboard it WILL fail on you.

Where are you getting this information? Serious question.

modez · 25 Feb 2011 at 14:28

nightmare99 said:
Where are you getting this information? Serious question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcrLbzcscqY

Durzel · 25 Feb 2011 at 14:37

JBod said:
Every single one is faulty, it is a "Design Fault" as confirmed and announced by Intel themselves. Their %age failure rate is simply "back of a fag packet" statistics based on how many people will be use the faulty SATA ports and computer uptime.

Needs repeating.

The 5-15% figure is based on usage patterns of customers which includes (or rather excludes in the calculation) those people who aren't statistically likely to use the ports at all - e.g. OEM boxes with just a single HDD and CDROM, etc. It does not mean that only 5-15% of motherboards are affected.

The ports are fundamentally faulty, the fault exists in every motherboard produced with that chipset version.

nightmare99 · 25 Feb 2011 at 14:39

That does not say the ports WILL fail and besides thats just a bloke from tigerdirect.

From Anandtech

If you have a desktop system with six SATA ports driven off of P67/H67 chipset, there’s a chance (at least 5%) that during normal use some of the 3Gbps ports will stop working over the course of 3 years.

Intel maintains that Sandy Bridge CPUs are not affected, and current users are highly unlikely to encounter the issue even under heavy loads. So far Intel has only been able to document the issue after running extended testing at high temperatures (in a thermal chamber) and voltages. My recommendation is to try to only use ports 0 & 1 (the 6Gbps ports) on your 6-series motherboard until you get a replacement in place.

From Intel

As part of on-going quality assurance Intel Corporation has discovered a design issue in a recently released support chip, the Intel® 6 series chipset. Under normal operation, the chipset has an issue that may impact functionality over time.

Shetlander · 25 Feb 2011 at 15:34

If it is a "design issue", are not all the chips identical ie - of the same design.

Also you seem to be hung up on the use of the word "may" taking it to mean it "may" impact funcionality in time. My reading of it is that they are trying to understate the impact as writing "will impact" has a far greater negative impression than "may impact".
The use of "may" gives the impression that there is plenty of time to sort out any problems. If they had writen "will" can you imagine the uproar and flood of returns and damage to their reputation.

redrooster303 · 25 Feb 2011 at 15:42

nightmare99 said:
That does not say the ports WILL fail and besides thats just a bloke from tigerdirect.

From Anandtech

From Intel

Either way all boards have to go back as you can't tell which ones are the damaged ones and which are not (by that I mean which ones will fail as they're all damaged) so mines faulty until proven otherwise.
Since the place where I bought it can't prove if its gonna fail/a faulty one or not then I get a refund.

Oh and the shop/etailer shouldn't mind giving me a refund because I'll probably be spending it with them on a new z68 board anyway.

melmac · 25 Feb 2011 at 18:41

Didn't I read somewhere that there are only a certain number of boards with bad chipsets, but, they don't know which ones which is the reason for the recall and it's also how they work out their estimate of 5 to 15% failure rate.

Puppetmaster · 25 Feb 2011 at 18:58

Shetlander said:
So I take it you wont be swapping yours then.

Why would i not swap mine? Ofcouse i will swap mine ,if only for the extra few months warranty.

Im not arguing about people swapping them, im arguing about all the people going on about refunds, which i find it hard to believe they will get based on the fact that the majorty of boards are currently unaffected by this.

I've even seem people demanding full refunds on a pc based on the idea that the motherboards MIGHT develop a fault within their life. From the DSR someone else posted in favour of getting a refund (lol) it states that they are entitled to a full refund if the product DEVELOPS a fault within the first 6 months. No where have I seen Intel saying that 100% of all boards will definatly 100% have the issue and will be present within the warranty / lifetime of the motherboard. If someone will kindly show me where they have, then I will eat my words.

Unfortunatly, unless Intel have been hiding what they write, I have not once seen them say this. As far as I'm concerned, Intel are doing the recall to catch things early, before there were a lot more motherboards / pc's / laptops in circulation with a potential fault.

melmac · 25 Feb 2011 at 20:59

This ^^ Actually if you use all 6 SATA ports in your PC there is probably more chance of a hard drive failure than the SATA port failing.

mmj_uk · 26 Feb 2011 at 12:15

nightmare99 said:
That does not say the ports WILL fail and besides thats just a bloke from tigerdirect.

From Anandtech

If you have a desktop system with six SATA ports driven off of P67/H67 chipset, there’s a chance (at least 5%) that during normal use some of the 3Gbps ports will stop working over the course of 3 years.

Come on, do you honestly think they would do a full product recall if the rate was so low? not to mention the damage to their reputation? if the problem was so small they could have done all this without the public even knowing and just took the RMA's as they came no-one would have been any wiser.

This problem needs a "silicon fix" (ie. new revision) without a doubt it is a design or manufacturing flaw, so in other words all of the products are inherently faulty under the DSR because the flaw existed at the point of sale.

Even Asus say it a design error:
http://event.asus.com/2011/SandyBridge/notice/

Taipei, Taiwan (February 1, 2011) — Intel® on January 31, 2011 announced the detection of a design error in the new Sandy Bridge-based Intel® 6 Series support chip, also known as Cougar Point. The shipment of existing Sandy Bridge products has been suspended by Intel®, and the production of an updated support chip has commenced.