Following on from the first post regarding Sandy Bridge chipsets here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?3749-Defective-Sandy-Bridge-Chipset we have been investigating the problem further with a view to finding a suitable solution for our customers.
As I mentioned in my previous post, please refrain from contacting us where possible, once we are in a position to offer a suitable resolution we will contact you. If you have received your computer, it will continue to function as normal for many months and long before a problem could occur we will have resolved the issue.
The issue only affects SATA 3GB/s ports 2 - 5 on H67/P67 chipset motherboards. Any hard drives or optical drives connected to SATA ports 0 or 1 will not be affected, and neither will any drives connected to the SATA 6GB/s ports.
Therefore, if your computer contains 1 hard drive and one optical drive, you will never experience a problem relating to this issue. Similarly, if your computer contains SATA 6GB/s hard drives, and no more than two optical drives, you will also not be affected by this issue.
If you have already received your computer:
The only customers affected by this issue are customers who have ordered multiple hard drives and/or multiple optical drives, and we will contact you with a solution in due course. At present there are two possible solutions:
1. We collect the computer from you and replace the motherboard at our facility, then return the computer to you. This process should take less than 1 week, perhaps even 3-4 days in some circumstances. No computers will be collected until we have stock of replacement motherboards, which at present is estimated to be at some point in March, perhaps even April, once Intel and ASUS have manufactured and delivered stock.
2. We send you a PCI/PCI-E SATA card that will have 4 SATA ports. Any hard drives or optical drives connected to ports 2 - 5 on your motherboard can then be connected to this instead of the ports on the motherboard.
If you have not yet received your computer:
The only customers affected by this issue are customers who have ordered multiple hard drives and/or multiple optical drives. Irrespective of this, we will be contacting you shortly by email or telephone to discuss if/how you may be affected, and what solutions are available. The current proposals are:
1. If you are unaffected, we will dispatch your order to you at your request. Your computer will still have full warranty cover but you will forfeit the right to have your motherboard replaced because of this issue. Any other problems will of course be covered under warranty.
2. We can put your order on hold for when the new motherboards are delivered to us, and assemble your computer then. Current estimations of delivery dates for the new stock are towards the end of March/start of April.
3. You can cancel your order and receive a full refund, or alternatively order a different computer, for example an i7-950 based system or an AMD based system.
4. We can install (free of charge) a 2 port SATA 3GB/s PCI/PCI-E card which you can use to connect your optical drives and/or hard drives to. Only customers who have ordered or wish to connect more than two drives (more if you have ordered SATA 6) will be affected. The only downside to this is the loss of a free PCI/PCI-E slot.
What next?
We may possibly have to stop selling Sandy bridge based systems until March/April, when the new motherboards are delivered. We have plenty of stock at our facility, but ASUS may request that we return all un-used stock to them. If you have not yet placed an order, you may not be able to order this particular system again until March/April. For any orders that have already been placed, we will endeavour to honour your order where possible.
Again, we apologise for any inconvenience caused. Whilst the issues are beyond our control, it is PC Specialist that will be rectifying the problems and we will do this as quickly as possible.
As I mentioned in my previous post, please refrain from contacting us where possible, once we are in a position to offer a suitable resolution we will contact you. If you have received your computer, it will continue to function as normal for many months and long before a problem could occur we will have resolved the issue.
The issue only affects SATA 3GB/s ports 2 - 5 on H67/P67 chipset motherboards. Any hard drives or optical drives connected to SATA ports 0 or 1 will not be affected, and neither will any drives connected to the SATA 6GB/s ports.
Therefore, if your computer contains 1 hard drive and one optical drive, you will never experience a problem relating to this issue. Similarly, if your computer contains SATA 6GB/s hard drives, and no more than two optical drives, you will also not be affected by this issue.
If you have already received your computer:
The only customers affected by this issue are customers who have ordered multiple hard drives and/or multiple optical drives, and we will contact you with a solution in due course. At present there are two possible solutions:
1. We collect the computer from you and replace the motherboard at our facility, then return the computer to you. This process should take less than 1 week, perhaps even 3-4 days in some circumstances. No computers will be collected until we have stock of replacement motherboards, which at present is estimated to be at some point in March, perhaps even April, once Intel and ASUS have manufactured and delivered stock.
2. We send you a PCI/PCI-E SATA card that will have 4 SATA ports. Any hard drives or optical drives connected to ports 2 - 5 on your motherboard can then be connected to this instead of the ports on the motherboard.
If you have not yet received your computer:
The only customers affected by this issue are customers who have ordered multiple hard drives and/or multiple optical drives. Irrespective of this, we will be contacting you shortly by email or telephone to discuss if/how you may be affected, and what solutions are available. The current proposals are:
1. If you are unaffected, we will dispatch your order to you at your request. Your computer will still have full warranty cover but you will forfeit the right to have your motherboard replaced because of this issue. Any other problems will of course be covered under warranty.
2. We can put your order on hold for when the new motherboards are delivered to us, and assemble your computer then. Current estimations of delivery dates for the new stock are towards the end of March/start of April.
3. You can cancel your order and receive a full refund, or alternatively order a different computer, for example an i7-950 based system or an AMD based system.
4. We can install (free of charge) a 2 port SATA 3GB/s PCI/PCI-E card which you can use to connect your optical drives and/or hard drives to. Only customers who have ordered or wish to connect more than two drives (more if you have ordered SATA 6) will be affected. The only downside to this is the loss of a free PCI/PCI-E slot.
What next?
We may possibly have to stop selling Sandy bridge based systems until March/April, when the new motherboards are delivered. We have plenty of stock at our facility, but ASUS may request that we return all un-used stock to them. If you have not yet placed an order, you may not be able to order this particular system again until March/April. For any orders that have already been placed, we will endeavour to honour your order where possible.
Again, we apologise for any inconvenience caused. Whilst the issues are beyond our control, it is PC Specialist that will be rectifying the problems and we will do this as quickly as possible.
Last edited:
.