And Intel is screwing up the intro. of Coppermine
PC makers review Coppermine bug
By John G. Spooner, ZDNN
December 1, 1999 2:54 PM PT
URL: zdnet.com
A bug in the high-end Pentium III chip has forced Dell Computer Corp. to stop shipping its Optiplex GX110 corporate desktop.
A newly discovered erratum affecting Intel Corp.'s desktop Pentium III "Coppermine" processors, which have been shipping since Oct. 25, can cause a PC to not boot every time its power button is pressed. The bug has not been found in mobile Pentium III chips, according to Intel.
"We've implemented a stop ship, which is a due diligence move to screen for the erratum," Dell spokesman Ken Bissell said Wednesday. "To my knowledge we've had no problems with systems we've shipped out with Coppermine."
That means Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) won't build Optiplex 110 PCs while it runs some of the systems through tests to ensure there isn't a problem. Once test results are in and the company is satisfied with the systems' performance, Dell will resume shipment of the desktop. The delay isn't expected to be longer than a few days.
Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), meanwhile, said the glitch is found in only a few Pentium III chips and no such problems have been reported yet by end users -- the bug was discovered in lab
testing. The erratum, which could crop up at any point, could cause a PC's owner to have to push its power button a second time before it would boot.
Intel says that it has stepped up its testing procedures in order to weed out chips that exhibit the symptoms of the erratum before they ship to PC makers.
If the owner of a Coppermine-powered PC experiences booting trouble, Intel says that person should seek the assistance of the PC maker it was purchased from.
Root cause at 'wafer level'Intel would not say exactly what the cause of the erratum is. "The root cause is something we'll fix at the wafer level," said Intel spokesman George Alfs.
The fix should be present in the next stepping of the chip. That means Intel will implement a fix for the problem in a new version of the current chip.
Other PC makers did not immediately return calls from ZDNN. |
