Sandy Bridge Debacle: What It Means for You

Hot on the heels of Intel's recall of its series-6 chipset known to everyone as "Sandy Bridge," we spoke to several motherboard and system manufacturers about what's going to happen for them, and their customers.

The error lies in Sandy Bridge's SATA controller, which at this time, is identified to degrade performance over time. But, what does this mean for motherboard and system manufacturers:

According to several major manufacturers that we spoke to, customers are calling asking to return stock. Since mass quantities of boards and systems have already been sold into the channel, systems builds are at a lock-down of what to do. Surprisingly, top management at companies like Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, etc., did not even hear about this issue until this morning -- when everyone else found out.

- If you've bought a Sandy Bridge system, you may be entitled to a free replacement.

 Manufacturers told us that new motherboard builds are unlikely to appear until at least April of this year, and Intel probably won't be supplying new chipset revisions until early to mid-March. However, replacements are unclear as manufacturers are informing us that details need to be worked out with Intel on how customers will be handled.

Intel claims that only 5-percent of Sandy Bridge owners will experience the flaw. But speaking with manufacturers, we were told that numbers appear to be far greater than that. Some companies told us that this is definitely a "panic-mode" situation for them.

Motherboards that you already have today, will still work, but you may see performance drop over time.

- If you're thinking about a Sandy Bridge system, you will have to wait until at least April.

Clearly, buying a Sandy Bridge system isn't what anyone should be doing at this moment.

- Desktops, notebooks, servers are all affected.

This is a widespread problem affecting all products that are based on Sandy Bridge. Notebooks and servers may take longer than motherboards to see replacements become widely available.

- Expect delays in new availability.

Some companies told us that there is some shortage of copper and other materials from the manufacturing side. This could further introduce delays beyond an April time frame.

- Sandy Bridge updates.

Intel is expected to hold several conference calls with major manufacturers today and let them know how the situation will be handled. We'll have more details for you later this afternoon.