2630qm

Intel chip flaw whacks Best Buy rollout

Intel's Sandy Bridge chipset flaw is bringing some Best Buy new product rollouts to a screeching halt, according to representatives contacted at Best Buy stores.

Intel said Monday that it had stopped shipments of the chipset that accompanies its second-generation Intel Core ("Sandy Bridge") processor owing to a flaw that can affect access to a hard-disk drive, optical drive, or other device that connects to a computer using SATA technology.

As a result, PC makers including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Toshiba have pulled systems from online sales as well as suspending sales at retailers like Best Buy.

Though … Read more

HP: PCs can be returned with faulty Intel chip

Hewlett-Packard announced today that customers can return products that use Intel's faulty Sandy Bridge chipset, following a similar announcement yesterday from Dell.

Intel said Monday that it had stopped shipments of the chipset that accompanies its Second-Generation Intel Core ("Sandy Bridge") processor due to a flaw that can affect access to a hard-disk drive, optical drive, or other device that connects to a computer using SATA technology.

Customers can "return their affected product and choose a comparable product or receive a refund," HP said today in a statement. The world's largest PC maker repeated … Read more

Reality check on Intel Sandy Bridge laptops

Intel's perplexing "innovation" endeavors notwithstanding, it does make, lest we forget, the world's fastest PC processors. Namely, Sandy Bridge. Systems using the freshly-minted chip are now widely available from top-tier vendors--but they're at the very high end of the pricing spectrum.

Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba serve as arguably the best examples of Sandy Bridge systems. Let's start with Toshiba's Qosmio X500-Q930S, which uses the Sandy Bridge i7-2630QM quad-core processor. That chip is rated at 2GHz but can automatically overclock--what Intel calls "Turbo Boost"--to 2.9GHz.

If Intel's most advanced quad-core … Read more

HP lists future laptops with Intel next-gen chip

Hewlett-Packard has posted detailed specifications of two upcoming Pavilion dv7 laptops furnished with Intel's next-gen Sandy Bridge processor.

Though some details have been leaked already based on an Engadget report, HP's U.S. product support pages (PDF) now list future models in all of their spec'd out glory (see graphic below).

Intel is already shipping the processor to PC makers, which means when the chip technology is formally announced at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 5, systems will be in the pipeline.

One model will sport the Core i7-2820QM 2.3GHz processor, listed with an "… Read more