Dell is to finally begin repairing faulty
laptops and
desktops affected by the serious fault in Intel's next-generation
Sandy Bridge processor.
Over the coming weeks, the
PC maker will offer replacement
motherboards to customers who purchased the new XPS 8300, Vostro 460,
Alienware Aurora
computer or Alienware M17x R3
laptop before 1 March.
Dell stopped selling the affected machines back at the start of February due to a problem with an
Intel 6-series support chip on the motherboard that sits alongside the Sandy Bridge processor, called Cougar Point.
At the time, Intel said that the SATA ports within its Cougar Point chipsets "may degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as
hard disk drives and
DVD drives".
The problems, which affected other manufacturers including
Asus,
Samsung,
HP and
Lenovo, is expected to cost Intel around $1 billion.