14 DAY TRIAL // HP has joined all the other major computer builders and Intel board partners in confirming that it will replace the faulty Sandy Bridge motherboards found inside their systems and has stopped manufacturing such products until the problem is resolved.
According to the company, the SATA bug found inside the Cougar Point motherboards affected only a limited number of consumer devices, no commercial notebooks, ProLiant servers or workstations suffering from this issue.
“On 31 January 2011 HP stopped manufacturing products with the affected Intel technology and initiated a shipment hold on products in HP and channel inventory,” the company told V3.co.uk in an email.
“Customers can return their affected HP product and choose a comparable product or receive a refund,” concluded the e-mail.
The announcement came after Dell promised to do the same for the systems affected by the bug, namely the PS 8300, the Vostro 460, the Alienware M17x R3 and the Alienware Aurora R3.
Intel has informed customers and partners alike of the bug present in the recent version of the Cougar Point chipset on January 31.
As a response, major motherboard manufacturers like Asus, ECS, Gigabyte and MSI have withdrawn their products from the market and started replacement programs.
As we have previously reported, the bug affects the four 3Gbps SATA ports that are run by Intel's 6-series PCH and is caused by a single transistor in the 3Gbps PLL clocking tree.
The affected transistor is provided with too high of a voltage, resulting a leakage current which, over time, can cause decreased performance and, eventually, the failure of the 3Gbps ports.
To correct this problem, Intel has started fabrication of a new version of the chipset, which will carry the B3 stepping and is expected to become available in April.
An article detailing how you see if your Sandy Bridge motherboard, desktop or notebook is affected by the issue is available here.