Intel will continue shipping flawed Sandy Bridge chipsets

CHIPMAKER Intel will continue to ship Sandy Bridge chipsets carrying a flawed chip, after discussions with PC makers.

Chipzilla said it will resume shipments of products using the Cougar Point chips, but only for PCs that are not impacted by the design issue. Obviously the agreement suits all concerned, as it means Intel should suffer less financially, while the computer makers won't have to delay bringing out their 2011 lines of PCs.

While this was decided, Intel has been busy building a new version of the support chip, which should arrive in mid-February. According to Reuters, five per cent of the PCs using the flawed chipsets would have failed over a three-year period.

But there are laptops with components that aren't affected by the flaw. This means that PC makers can get away with bringing out hardware using the chipsets that have the problem.

It sounds like a fair move, as long as it's true that the flawed chipsets won't cause problems for the PCs that use them. So far Intel has been transparent throughout the whole situation, so we are confident this will be the case.

Companies like HP, Dell and Lenovo can breathe a little sigh of relief, as this means they won't have to delay shipments of PCs in a weak market affected by smartphones and tablets. µ