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Asus tells PC makers to stop shipping Sandy Bridge PCs

By Nicole Kobie

Posted on 2 Feb 2011 at 09:07

Asus is set to reveal its plans for dealing with the Sandy Bridge chipset recall today, after telling PC makers to stop shipping affected motherboards.

On Monday, Intel revealed a flaw in the SATA ports in the latest generation of its Series 6 chipsets, which support the Sandy Bridge processors.

When we spoke to several UK manufacturers yesterday, they had still not been told how component suppliers would be responding to the recall, leaving them in the dark over what to do next.

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.

"Whether the customer chooses to swap or return, we will honor and take the responsibility," the firm said. Asus added in an open letter to customers that all warranties would be "reset" when they receive the new motherboard.

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User comments

Basically the advice is to avoid using the SATA II ports until replacement boards are available.

By CyberpowersystemUK on 2 Feb 2011

Deep Joy!

Oh I'm so pleased I chose this board! So after 3-4 hours of lovingly mounting the heatsink, and cabling everything, it looks like it will be going back!

That said, the article doesn't say whether it impacts P67 or H67 boards. Or whether it is just one particular implementation.

By sexyjw on 3 Feb 2011

Returns

When Asus say they would swap it out, is this by courier who once you give them your board, and will give you the replacement in return to minimise delay?

By champmanfan2 on 3 Feb 2011

Surely better PR to (at least) offer to ship new boards directly to (especially) registered/known users; or offer to cover courier costing for those OEM affected who offer swapout.

By jaghine on 3 Feb 2011

Sandy Bridge?

Think carefully before panicking on this. It's not "per-se" an i5 or i7 problem.
It only affects SATA-II ports. My HDD's are connected to my SATA-III ports at 6Gbps. (No issue).
My DVD/Blue-Ray is connected to a SATA-II at 3Gbps (Low usage, Low temperature). If I notice a reduction in performance on the DVD, it's pretty easy to buy a cable to convert SATA to USB and plug the DVD into a USB 3 port (which runs at 5Gbps). No degradation in performance! - even if your machine IS afected by the SATA-II issue.
OK - if you have a RAID 5 or 10 (or more complex) setup you might have concerns. Or maybe your new laptop is not as easy to re-configure as a desktop.
But let's not over-state the issue here!

By EamonnP on 5 Feb 2011

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