Intel Finds Flaw In New 6-Series 'Sandy Bridge' Motherboards

According to a press release released this morning by Intel the company has identified a flaw in the design of a chipset that controls the Serial ATA ports on the newest 6 Series "Cougar Point" motherboards.

The chipset is utilized in PCs with Intel's latest Second Generation Intel Core processors only and does not affect any of the previous generation chips or boards. This is for the new recently released 'Sandy Bridge' chips and the new 6-series boards not the older Core-i5/i7 and 5-series boards.

Intel has said it has stopped shipment of the affected support chip from its factories and corrected the design issue. The Sandy Bridge microprocessor itself is unaffected and no other products are affected by this issue. The systems with the affected support chips have only been shipping since January 9^th and the company believes that relatively few consumers are impacted by this issue. The only systems sold to an end customer potentially impacted are Second Generation Core i5 and Core i7 quad core based systems. Intel believes that consumers can continue to use their systems with confidence, while working with their computer manufacturer for a permanent solution. For further information consumers should contact Intel at www.intel.com on the support page or contact their OEM manufacturer.

What It Means for You

If you are currently running one of the new boards and a Sandy Bridge chip then there really is no need to worry. Intel doesn't believe you'll see any ill effects from the flawed chip anytime soon. It just means that there may be a recall of your board sometime down the road and you may be entitled to a new board at that time.

For now manufactures really have not yet determined what to do. There are no replacement boards ready and they don't expect them to be ready for several months. So for now there is no official recall however it is very likely there will be one once the boards are in place. The suggestion is to hold off on buying a new Sandy Bridge setup until the issue has been worked out, which according to several sources won't be until April or May.