Intel has confirmed that a design flaw caused serious problems with some Toshiba notebook PCs using 400MHz Celeron and Pentium II mobile chips.

The problem, first reported by Toshiba Satellite 4100-series and Tecra 8000-series laptop users last month, was narrowed down to a component on the chip's daughtercards that trips the over-voltage protection and disables the CPU.

Officials say the problem affected only a small percentage of all 400MHz mobile processors produced between December 1999 and February 2000, and that corrected chips began shipping this month.

More details are available at www.zdnn.com.