HP, Dell, MSI Offer Details For Systems Affected By Intel Cougar Point Error
HP, Dell, and MSI on Wednesday said the design error in Intel's series 6 "Cougar Point" chipset will delay the presentation and launch of their notebook products running Intel's Sandy Bridge platform.
HP says it will delay a press event for an enterprise-oriented HP notebook, originally scheduled for next week in San Francisco ahead of the official public unveiling on Feb. 23.
’We are postponing the business notebooks briefing on Feb. 10 as the availability of HP products will be impacted," HP said in a statement, referring to the Cougar Point issue.
Dell on Wednesday said the flaw in Cougar Point -- a dual-core chipset based on older Intel technology that operates exclusively with the new quad-core Sandy Bridge processors -- will affect products in its XPS, Vostro and Alienware product lines.
"Dell and Intel are in communication regarding the design issue in the recently released Intel 6 Series support chip set, code-name Cougar Point," Dell said in a statement. "This affects four currently-available Dell products, the XPS 8300, the Vostro 460, the Alienware M17x R.3 and the Alienware Aurora R.3 as well as several other planned products including XPS 17 with 3D."
Dell also said it will offer support to customers currently facing issues with Sandy Bridge-powered Dell systems. Dell earlier this month launched its Sandy Bridge-powered Dell Vostro 460 desktop for the SMB market and refreshed its Alienware Aurora and XPS 8300 PCs with Sandy Bridge chips.
"Customers experiencing issues will be supported under the warranty and service terms," Dell said. "Once we have new chip sets from Intel in early April, we will provide a motherboard replacement that corrects the design issue at no cost to our customers."
Dell said it will offer the replacements to the customer at their location and convenience through authorized service providers.
"We will provide further details as they become available." Dell said.
MSI on Wednesday said it has stopped selling Sandy Bridge products, and asked its partners and retailers to do the same.
"MSI is working closely with Intel to minimize the inconvenience to customers and retail stores with regard to related issues." Furthermore, "MSI encourages end users who want to return their MSI Intel P67 and H67 motherboards, or their notebook, to contact the original place of purchase for more detail."
Earlier this month at CES, MSI launched the GT780, GT680, GE620 and GR620 notebooks, each of which includes a Core i7 Sandy Bridge processor. MSI said its 15.6-inch GT680 notebook will be available later this month for a starting price of $1,499, while the 17.3-inch GT780 is scheduled to ship in the second quarter of this year.
NEXT: Apple Macbooks With Sandy Bridge
Meanwhile, Apple has declined to comment on the impact the recall of Sandy Bridge on its long-awaited refresh of the Macbook Pro line, which has featured Intel's Core 2 duo technology since 2006. However, some Apple resellers believe Intel's Cougar Point error could Intel on Monday said it had identified and fixed a circuit design error in its Intel Cougar Point chipset. Intel said it expects the recall to cause a revenue shortfall of approximately $300 million in its first quarter, as well as approximately $700 million in production costs for the fixed chipset, bringing the total cost of the Cougar Point error to $1 billion.
Intel said it will contact the system builders and customers in order to replace or correct systems, offer the fixed chipset to customers in late February, and recover the entire volume of sales from the chipset by April.