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| Gigabyte 6 Series |
Because of the nature of the problem Intel has set aside $700M to deal with the replacement (ahem, not recall) of up to 8 million impacted 6-series chipsets. After stopping shipments and production of the 6-series chipsets, Intel began talking to its partners about how to proceed yesterday.
The fix for the problematic transistor requires a hardware change. The 6-series chipset design doesn’t have to be redone, but there’s a metal layer change that must be made. The result is a new stepping of the 6-series chipsets. Intel shipped with stepping B2, and the fixed version will carry a B3 stepping.
Just half an hour ago, Gigabyte sent its replacement strategy for all of its own motherboards.
The key messages are as follows:
1) Gigabyte has stopped shipment to and recalled any unsold 6-series B2 motherboards from distributors and dealers.
2) Any Gigabyte 6-series B2 motherboards that have already been sold will be accepted back for replacement with a B3 board, regardless of condition. I asked Gigabyte if this meant that non-working boards could also be returned, Gigabyte said yes - all eligible 6-series models with B2 stepping chipsets will be accepted back.
Elligible Gigabyte 6-series Motherboards
GA-P67A-UD3
GA-P67A-UD3P
GA-P67A-UD4
GA-P67A-UD5
GA-P67A-UD7
GA-H67MA-D2H
GA-H67MA-UD2H
GA-H67A-UD3H
GA-H67M-D2
GA-H67M-UD2H
3) Gigabyte says that it should have 6-series B3 chipsets in April.
4) The replacement program will happen at the dealer/distributor level. You will have to exchange your board at the location you purchased it from.
5) Customers can either exchange their board (you'll have to wait until April for this to happen) or you can get a full refund sooner (immediately?). Gigabyte recommends going the refund route as that gives you more flexibility for what you want to do next.
6) The replacement board you get will be a brand new motherboard based on the B3 chipset. Gigabyte isn’t ready to disclose if there will be any new design features to these boards as well.
7) The cost of the product exchange will be handled by Intel and Gigabyte (presumably Intel is footing the entire bill).
April is two months away, that’s later than the end of February. I’m guessing the first recipients of B3 stepping chipsets will be large OEMs and notebook manufacturers. The component guys will likely come second. Getting replacement motherboards won’t happen on April 1st if that’s when Gigabyte gets chipsets either. This could end up being an April/May thing instead of March/April.
The new B3 version GIGABYTE 6 Series motherboards have been totally redesignedand renamedso that they can easily be distinguished from the older B2 versions through the signature "B3" at the end of the model name. For example, the GA-P67A-UD7 has been replaced by the GA-P67A-UD7-B3and the GA-H67A-UD3H has been replaced by the GA-H67A-UD3H-B3. The new model name is highly visible on the retail box, PCB, in the BIOS at start upand on applications such as the GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check utilityand CPU-Z.
I'm glad Gigabyte will be providing brand new motherboards for users who opt to exchange and that Gigabyte is accepting boards regardless of condition. Gigabyte hasn't yet decided what it's going to do with all of the returned boards.
GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check Utility
Immediately after learning about the B2 stepping Intel® 6 Series chipset design error, GIGABYTE released the easy to use GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check utility that helps to optimize SATA performance by identifying the white SATA 6Gbps that can be used, while advising users not to use the affected Intel® PCH SATA ports. As the new B3 versions on 6 Series motherboards start to ship, GIGABYTE just released an updated 6 Series SATA Check utility that also identifies the chipset and its stepping (either B2 or B3).
Until April rolls around, the best you can do is use the 6Gbps SATA ports on your Sandy Bridge board. We’ll keep you posted as we get more of these notices from manufacturers.
