Following the announcement by Intel of a design issue in the Sandy Bridge mainboard chipset, Packard Bell, part of Acer Group, confirms that it is working with Intel on this issue and is taking all necessary steps to minimize any inconvenience customers might experience.
Packard Bell has already stopped shipping the products impacted by this issue and has instituted a program to assist customers who purchased affected units. At the same time, Packard Bell is working in close collaboration with Intel to coordinate the next steps.
On January 31st, Intel announced the discovery of a design issue in one of the support chips to the 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processors, code named “Sandy Bridge.” The issue is hardware related and required a silicon fix. Intel advised that, in some cases, the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the affected chipset may degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD drives. The issue affects SATA 3 Gb/s ports, while not affecting the SATA 6 Gb/s ports.
The issue is related to connectivity, meaning that the machine may not identify the hard disk or DVD. Since the effect of this issue will materialize over a rather long period of time, Intel has advised that users of affected PCs will not necessarily see an immediate effect and they can keep using their PC with confidence while permanent solution options are made available.
Packard Bell is proud to offer products that are free from defects of materials or workmanship and wishes to minimize any impact of this issue on its customers. In order to do so, Packard Bell is in the process of setting up a web site where customers will be able to find out whether their product could be affected by the problem. In the interim, customers can go to the Intel page which has specific instructions to determine if their PC is affected. This page is located at:
http://www.intel.com/consumer/products/processors/chipset.htm?iid=en_US_01_chipset+gg_headline.
Customers who purchased one of the affected units may elect to allow Packard Bell to service the unit under the terms of the applicable limited warranty once fixed chipsets are available from Intel. Alternatively, affected customers may contact their retailer to take advantage of the applicable return policy and select a different Packard Bell model.
