On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Jonathan Link <jonathan.l...@gmail.com> wrote: > If you're an early adopter of Sandy Bridge, be aware that there is a flaw in > the chipsets that will degrade SATA performance on 3Gbps SATA ports, > ultimately resulting in complete device disconnect.
More details are emerging: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4143/the-source-of-intels-cougar-point-sata-bug The problem is in "Cougar Point" chipsets -- AKA "6-series". Specifically, it affects the four 3Gb/s SATA ports. The chipset also offers two 6Gb/s ports, which are unaffected. Apparently the problem is due to one (1) improperly designed transistor, which is connected to the clocking logic. The "bias voltage" is slightly too high, causing the transistor to degrade over time. Some interesting Murphy factors here: (1) The problem only exists in the "B" stepping (revision). The "A" stepping is fine. Unfortunately, the B stepping is what's shipping to production customers. I'd be willing to bet most of the in-depth testing was done on the A stepping. (2) The bad transistor is not actually used. It's a leftover from a previous design. Apparently, Intel based a lot of the "Cougar Point" chipset design off previous designs, and so there are some "dead circuits" (my term) the way software can have "dead code". Intel's current party line is that this i\s not a "recall". The author of the article supposes that's because many of the chips will end up in laptops where the 3Gb/s ports aren't used. Another article I've read (and lost track of) mentioned that some motherboards use third-party SATA controllers and don't use the Cougar Point 3Gb/s ports, either. In such, the fault won't hurt anything, and doesn't need to be recalled. So it will be up to system builders to handle any recall operations. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to listmana...@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
