Official MAINGEAR Response on Intel 6-Series Chipset Recall

[Apoptosis]

Official MAINGEAR response:

Today we were made aware of an issue with Intel’s Sandy Bridge platform, Cougar Point. This issue relates to the chips used in all P67 and H67 motherboards compatible with Sandy Bridge processors, but it does NOT affect the Sandy Bridge processor itself.

It should be emphasized that MAINGEAR has over one man year of testing and validation invested in Sandy Bridge and we have not see one instance of this issue in any test platform or customer system. Furthermore, we were just made aware of this issue this morning by Intel, and NOBODY, not a single motherboard partner, OEM, or integrator has had any information on this prior to today.

The issue resides specifically with the hard drive controller in the chips for controllers ports 2-5, the SATA 3G ports. It does NOT affect the SATA 6G ports, or ports 0 and 1. It’s an aging issue, not a critical hardware failure, and as such will not be seen by the majority of our customers. It is also not an issue where the customer’s data will be at risk. It is merely a performance degradation over time issue.

Customers who have a system today should not worry and may continue to use their system. When we have our replacement motherboards in March, we will pay shipping back and forth and of course cover the labor costs associated with swapping out the motherboard. All current Sandy Bridge customers will have their motherboard warranty extended to 3 years from the date of purchase as well, covering the new motherboard.

Alternatively, customers who have a Sandy Bridge system but do not want to send it back in, and customers who have yet to have their system ship but want it to ship immediately are eligible to receive, at no charge, a SATA 3G discrete hard drive controller so they may be able to expand their storage as needed without utilizing the affected SATA ports 2-5.

Customers who have yet to receive their system may alternatively call in to have their order halted until we get replacement motherboards in March.

MAINGEAR will have more information as the situation develops

[Apoptosis]

Also looks like Maingear claims the new chipset will be available to them by March 17th, 2011