My notebook and the Sandy Bridge recall

[xplatinum]

Last sunday I went to BestBuy and bought myself a very nice Samsung RF711 notebook. Came as a shock this morning when I learned about this flaw in the Cougar Point chipset.

No official statement has came from Samsung as to which models are affected. I will post my specs so you guys can tell me if it's affected or not...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Notebook-i7-2630QM-Windows-Premium/dp/B004ISKZFK

From Device Manager - Intel® HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC Interface Controller - 1C49

Also, they say that the first two 6gps SATA ports (sata0, sata1) are not affected. But how do I know what's connected and where on a notebook ? Bios states that SATA1 is HDD1, SATA2 is HDD2 and SATA3 is the BluRay drive. If I understand correctly, both unaffected ports are used by my HDDs. What if I replace both HDDs with a single one, how do I connect the ODD to SATA2 ? Notebooks are not as easy as Desktops to tinkle with.

Any info is greatly appreciated.

thanks !

[spike21]

Intel 6 Series Chipset Bug

1 February 2011

I don't usually report hardware issues, but this one affects general performance. Intel has announced that it has identified a chipset design error which affects its latest P67/H67 chipset motherboards. Any SATA drives connected to such motherboards can decrease in performance over time, eventually failing to be detected. This issue only occurs on the 3Gbps SATA ports, not the 6Gbps ports (Ports 0 & 1). Intel has issued a recall - contact your retailer or Intel to get a replacement motherboard. If shopping for a new Sandy Bridge-based system, wait for the new replacement motherboards to reach the market starting in late February. http://www.tweakguides.com/

[omganinja]

Last sunday I went to BestBuy and bought myself a very nice Samsung RF711 notebook. Came as a shock this morning when I learned about this flaw in the Cougar Point chipset.

No official statement has came from Samsung as to which models are affected. I will post my specs so you guys can tell me if it's affected or not...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Notebook-i7-2630QM-Windows-Premium/dp/B004ISKZFK

From Device Manager - Intel® HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC Interface Controller - 1C49

Also, they say that the first two 6gps SATA ports (sata0, sata1) are not affected. But how do I know what's connected and where on a notebook ? Bios states that SATA1 is HDD1, SATA2 is HDD2 and SATA3 is the BluRay drive. If I understand correctly, both unaffected ports are used by my HDDs. What if I replace both HDDs with a single one, how do I connect the ODD to SATA2 ? Notebooks are not as easy as Desktops to tinkle with.

Any info is greatly appreciated.

thanks !

Pretty sure it only affects the P67 chipset.

[philcruicks]

"Users of computers containing the 6 Series chipset can continue to use their computer with confidence whilst Intel works on a more permanent fix."

So you should be fine whatever though I'm not sure if its your chipset, yours is an HM65 and it says 6 series... so I'm not sure if that is the same.

Either way it shouldn't break any time soon (hopefully by then Intel will be more definite about a return system and)...but maybe use the 30 day return policy on it to be safe.

[Southern Patriot]

Sort of off topic, but this really couldn't have happened at a worse time for Intel, at least in the US. Many people who do their taxes early are just starting to get tax refund checks back (mine is due friday) and I'm sure that lots of people were holding off purchases of new systems waiting on Sandy Bridge systems to start shipping. Since they only started shipping the second week of January, people who didn't buy older systems for Christmas were (like me) probably waiting on their tax checks to spend on a nice new Sandy Bridge based system. With this recall happening right as people were starting to get tax money back, and Intel not even shipping the chipsets out to OEMs until at least the end of this month, people like me who have been holding off getting a new system are likely to either go with a system based on older Intel chips or go with AMD based systems.

Personally, I'm going with an older Intel chip (a first gen i5 or i7, not sure yet), mainly because I don't absolutely need the latest and greatest. Any i-series quad core chip is going to be worlds faster than my current system, which is pretty much maxxed out on upgrades without a complete replacement.

[xplatinum]

I read a bunch of different sites since this morning regarding this. I gathered tid-bits of information here and there.

This page from the Intel site states that HM65 chipset is part of the Cougar Point batch.

Taken from my device manager.

Intel® 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 - 1C10

2nd generation Intel® Core processor family DRAM Controller - 0104

Intel® HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC Interface Controller - 1C49

Intel® Core i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz

[philcruicks]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/01/samsung-offering-refunds-for-pcs-affected-by-sandy-bridge-glitch/

Looks like Samsung are going to offer refunds....though it doesn't say which model.

[Teebor]

I wouldn't worry too much about it right now as it is meant to be a slow degradation and its only your Blu-ray drive.

Just get in contact with Samsung as per the paperwork you would have received in the laptop box

As for connecting the drive to another sata connecter if the HDD and Blu-ray are the same size, shape and can be interchanged you could do this otherwise I suspect there is probably nothing you can do.

[An_upset_samsung_customer]

Sorry to bring back such an old post but... the problems have not gone away from this issue

I purchased a rf711-s04UK from samsung, it's only 18 months old (no longer under warranty) and guess what... it's now no longer working, samsung denyed over the phone that there was an issue with these when there clearly is and because not under warranty they refuse to help, PC world have sid the same... I have yet to contact intel to see if they will help but i doubt that will happen too.

I could post all my rants but whats the point, I want this topic brought back into the public spotlight so we can guage how many units avoided the recall.

?400 to replace the motherboard !!!! I will never buy anything from samsung again EVER

[An_upset_samsung_customer]

Another rant...Am I the first to suffer the effects of the faulty rf711 recall? mine started with the occational clicking and has now got to the point where it keeps switching off even after 3 seconds of booting up. For those who dont know, the SATA problem is wider than originaly thought.

PC world sold me this in aug 2011 so how the hell did I end up with a laptop that should have been recalled? My laptop was regged with samsung so why wasn't I told by them too!

My very old 286 still runs to this day so when I spend almost a grand on a laptop I expect it to last i bit longer than 18 months, I am so mad right now with samsung AND pc world.

My question here is, how many other people have been stung as the chip breaks down just out of warranty? (Intel say it could take up to 3 years before it starts happening for normal end users)