What was the 'B3 Stepping error'?

Akagi

Akagi

Akagi

Caporegime
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The B3 Stepping Error problem occurred and was resolved just before i built my PC so it didn't really concern me, but I never quite caught what it was, and how it was resolved.

When my PC boots, the motherboard splash screen says 'B3 Stepping Error fixed!' in the corner as well, so I often wonder what it was and what caused it, so now i have finally got around to asking.

Can someone shed some light on this for me please? :)

Thanks all :D
 
The first P67 chipset (may have been the H67 also?) had a issue on some of the SATA ports (think it was the SATAII ports?) where they could degrade over time and cause data loss.

The "B3" revision chipset fixed this.
 
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The problem was with the B2 P67 chipset and it affected the Intel SATA II ports as explained above.

It was resolved by:

a) Introducing the B3 chipset

b) Offering to replace all B2 revision motherboards with a B3 revision
 
Ahh, so it was the SATA ports. Thanks guys :)
That's quite interesting actually... I didn't think that the motherboard connectors could affect data loss.
 
It also didn't affect other 3rd party sata connectors - only the Intel ones. Most P67 boards had 2 sets of SATA connectors. The Intel ones COULD degrade with time.

In fact, I think it only affected the SATA 3 ports, not the SATA 2 ones...
 
I wonder how many people are using the old boards still and dont realise what's going on... :/ I'll bet a lot of pre-built high-street machines are still suffering from this.
 
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