*****SANDYBRIDGE MOTHERBOARD CHIPSET ISSUE*****

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Durzel said:
The issue that was reported to Intel in the first place by OEMs?

Intel merely confirmed the fault by artificially accelerating the speed at which it manifests (increased voltage, increased heat, increased load). The defect by definition will cause gradual degradation simply from voltage being applied to the circuit - which means every consumer with a B2 revision chip would eventually end up with malfunctioning or dead SATA 2 ports.

To be brutally honest I think people are bringing up this "5-15% affected within 3 years" quote and putting their own spin on it to suit whichever agenda or misconception they have. "5-15% affected" is an estimate based on usage patterns of SATA ports, people who never use more than 2 drives will never see the problem, and people who use all of them heavily (video processing, etc) will see the problem much sooner. What is unequivocal in my mind is that anyone who has a B2 board will see the problem eventually.

I'm not an electrical engineer but I can understand that fundamentally a circuit that receives a voltage during normal operation that is higher than it can handle, resulting in leakage, is going to result eventually in component damage. This "excessive voltage" is received during normal operation - i.e. just using the ports. Eventually it will degrade leading to error-correction going mad (and degraded performance), and then finally stop working completely. Intel have said this unequivocally.

No disrespect but "will not cause an issue" is plainly wrong unless you simply never use (and disable, to ensure no voltage is passed through circuit) the SATA 2 ports at all.
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how can i tell if my board will need a recall i use all my ports for work
 
MikeHiow said:
To be fair, there must have been a fair few failures for them to investigate it in the first place, therefore boards are failing in customer's hands.

How is OcUK dealing with Asus' recall?
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Early discussions are Asus shall be dealing with customers directly, once its finalised full instructions shall be posted and it will probably go ahead end of March. :)
 
[TW]Fox;18372316 said:
As an Asus owner that sounds encouraging though I will be hugely annoyed if Asus do not offer an advance replacement scheme.
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So far they aren't, they are offering a refund though:
However, we’re also offering you the option of returning any possibly affected motherboard for a swap or sales return. All warranties for affected motherboards will be reset to give you enough time to carry out any exchanges.
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Assuming they don't put a ridiculous time limit on that then you're best bet is to wait until there's a solid motherboard to replace the current one, then send the original back for a refund, that way your only downtime will be swapping over.
 
stevewah said:
how can i tell if my board will need a recall i use all my ports for work
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Did you buy it from a shop? If so it needs a recall.

How soon you need to swap it depends entirely on how long you're prepared to wait for a replacement, if indeed a replacement is available (they won't be until April at the earliest - likely late April I would've thought as OEMs will get priority). In the meantime you should based on expected failure times be fine just to carry on using it.
 
Any Gigabyte 6-series B2 motherboards that have already been sold will be accepted back for replacement with a B3 board"

“The replacement program will happen at the dealer/distributor level. You will have to exchange your board at the location you purchased it from.”

Great news and well done Gigabyte it’s like you read my mind on the perfect way to handle this

This means I have no faffing about shipping and receiving anything, I’ll just be on the phone to my local independent PC store that build my rig and arrange to have it replaced in my PC around April/May
 
Durzel said:
Did you buy it from a shop? If so it needs a recall.

How soon you need to swap it depends entirely on how long you're prepared to wait for a replacement, if indeed a replacement is available (they won't be until April at the earliest - likely late April I would've thought as OEMs will get priority). In the meantime you should based on expected failure times be fine just to carry on using it.
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yes i got from ocuk about a week ago i am happy to wait for new board as would not have a pc lol. am going to work round my hard drives so i dont have to use all ports
 
Slight update from Asus

Today, Asus will tell its partners to stop selling PCs with the affected motherboards, and to return all stock they currently hold.

For machines already shipped to customers, Asus said it will accept returns, but suggests manufacturers "guide the customers to keep using their computer until such time Asus offers a new motherboard to swap."

"This suggestion will enable the end users to have uninterrupted computer experience until the swap out is available," Asus added in an email to resellers, saying the full process and timeline for swapping motherboards will be revealed after the Chinese New Year.
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http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/364930/asus-tells-pc-makers-to-stop-shipping-sandy-bridge-pcs
 
Durzel said:
Did you buy it from a shop? If so it needs a recall.

How soon you need to swap it depends entirely on how long you're prepared to wait for a replacement, if indeed a replacement is available (they won't be until April at the earliest - likely late April I would've thought as OEMs will get priority). In the meantime you should based on expected failure times be fine just to carry on using it.
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If the board goes wrong he can RMA it as normal. Replacements won't be available till April so there is not point rushing a return as you will be without a board!
 
[TW]Fox;18372316 said:
As an Asus owner that sounds encouraging though I will be hugely annoyed if Asus do not offer an advance replacement scheme.
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And me and id rather deal with the retailler and take the board back for a direct swap rather than wait days for my board to get to asus and the replacement to come back. :)
 
NathWraith said:
If the board goes wrong he can RMA it as normal. Replacements won't be available till April so there is not point rushing a return as you will be without a board!
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Yeah of course, sorry if I wasn't clear about that in my post. :) Obviously not worth returning anything until there's something to replace it with.
 
MikeHiow said:
I would expect ASUS to offer a simultaneous delivery and collection. This is likely to be the cheapest option for them.
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On the contrary I would presume it would be cheaper for them to arrange collection of units in bulk from retailers/distributors rather than organising pickups from individual peoples houses, etc. As to how they get from customer to retailer/distributor - who knows.

We'll see I guess.
 
duncanm said:
So far they aren't, they are offering a refund though:

Assuming they don't put a ridiculous time limit on that then you're best bet is to wait until there's a solid motherboard to replace the current one, then send the original back for a refund, that way your only downtime will be swapping over.
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I'd be happy with that as well, as long as the refund was guaranteed by Asus. That way we could simply purchase a new X58 board and return the previous board for a full refund - we'd not be out of pocket and downtime would be the time it takes to swap the board out.

The ability to upgrade to X58 would go some way towards compensating us for the hassle and time.
 
Reminds me rather of the Intel CC820 motherboard. That too had a theoretical fault (in the memory controller) and that too ended up with Intel offering a motherboard swap (and free RAM as the swapped board needed different memory). Mine seemed unaffected, but I swapped it anyway.

It's a shame that some people think they have to resort to insults to get noticed. This will get sorted when a solution is available. "All good things come to those who wait" :)
 
Don't know why so many folk are throwing their dummies out, I have two SandyBridge systems, both run great, its not like they are going to fall over and die tomorrow, I am quite happy to wait for a solution.
 
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