HP notebooks recalled

R

RusH

Yousuf Khan said:
HP says it is recalling some of its Intel mobile chipset (model
845, 852, and 855) machines. Says that there may be a flaw which
causes corrupt results when paired with certain brands and models
of RAM.
Click to expand...

Apple does those things a lot latelly, 2-4 times a year :).


Pozdrawiam.
 
Y

Yousuf Khan

Skip said:
Well, to be fair, the HP recall is >memory modules< and not the
notebooks themselves.
Click to expand...

Actually to be fair, I really doubt that it was the memory modules
themselves which were a problem (something like five major DRAM
manufacturers all produced bad ram?). It's more likely that the problem lay
in the Intel chipset, specifically in its memory controller circuitry.
Doesn't look like any of the AMD-based notebooks were affected by this bad
ram.

Yousuf Khan
 
B

B. Peg

.....and they throw in a (smallish) thumbdrive for your troubles. Not bad
C.S.

fwiw, my HP Pavilion wasn't on the list but I ran the software anyway. It
says "Model not affected." <wipes brow>

B~
 
J

Judd

Yousuf Khan said:
Actually to be fair, I really doubt that it was the memory modules
themselves which were a problem (something like five major DRAM
manufacturers all produced bad ram?). It's more likely that the problem lay
in the Intel chipset, specifically in its memory controller circuitry.
Doesn't look like any of the AMD-based notebooks were affected by this bad
ram.
Click to expand...

then shouldn't the other notebook vendors be reporting the same problem?
 
Y

Yousuf Khan

Judd said:
then shouldn't the other notebook vendors be reporting the same
problem?
Click to expand...

Well, according to HP, the others should also be following its example, but
so far no one else seems to be budging.

Yousuf Khan
 
M

Mike Ching

Well, according to HP, the others should also be following its example, but
so far no one else seems to be budging.
Click to expand...

One article that I read said that IBM had found the problem with one of the
vendors and had disqualified them but they declined to name which one.
 
C

ClevelandTech

Mike Ching said:
One article that I read said that IBM had found the problem with one of the
vendors and had disqualified them but they declined to name which one.
Click to expand...

At the company I work for, we had IBM T40's (about a year ago) that had bad
memory - but only from a certain manufacturer. They were all replaced (not
recalled per se) - the Nanya memory was taken out, and "good" memory was
installed.
 
T

Tony Hill

HP says it is recalling some of its Intel mobile chipset (model 845, 852,
and 855) machines. Says that there may be a flaw which causes corrupt
results when paired with certain brands and models of RAM.

http://tinyurl.com/263wc

or long form,

http://www.crn.com/sections/breakin...id=2DMJQHCBXUOP4QSNDBCCKHY?articleId=22102166
Click to expand...

As others mentioned it's not the notebooks themselves but the memory
modules. My understanding is that it's due to a broken power-saving
feature on the Intel chipset and the "solution" is to swap out the
memory modules for ones that don't try to make use of this feature.
 
J

Jason Cothran

| On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 21:37:02 GMT, "Yousuf Khan" <[email protected]>
| wrote:
| >HP says it is recalling some of its Intel mobile chipset (model 845, 852,
| >and 855) machines. Says that there may be a flaw which causes corrupt
| >results when paired with certain brands and models of RAM.
| >
| >http://tinyurl.com/263wc
| >
| >or long form,
| >
|
http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml;jsessionid=2DMJ
Click to expand...
QHCBXUOP4QSNDBCCKHY?articleId=22102166
|
| As others mentioned it's not the notebooks themselves but the memory
| modules. My understanding is that it's due to a broken power-saving
| feature on the Intel chipset and the "solution" is to swap out the
| memory modules for ones that don't try to make use of this feature.
|

Whichmeans it is not the memory that is faulty, it is the Intel chipset. The
are putting a bandage on the problem instead of fixing it.
 
R

RusH

Jason Cothran said:
Whichmeans it is not the memory that is faulty, it is the Intel
chipset. The are putting a bandage on the problem instead of
fixing it.
Click to expand...

everybody does, Microsoft hunting for virus writers instead of
releasing reasonable security model and all ..


Pozdrawiam.
 
T

Tony Hill

| As others mentioned it's not the notebooks themselves but the memory
| modules. My understanding is that it's due to a broken power-saving
| feature on the Intel chipset and the "solution" is to swap out the
| memory modules for ones that don't try to make use of this feature.
|

Whichmeans it is not the memory that is faulty, it is the Intel chipset. The
are putting a bandage on the problem instead of fixing it.
Click to expand...

Assuming I'm getting the store correctly, yes. The trick is that
memory is an easy thing to swap out, chipsets are very difficult to
swap. This is a $20 bandage vs. a $200+ solution.
 
J

Jason Cothran

| On Mon, 28 Jun 2004 21:46:22 -0400, "Jason Cothran"
| >
| >| As others mentioned it's not the notebooks themselves but the memory
| >| modules. My understanding is that it's due to a broken power-saving
| >| feature on the Intel chipset and the "solution" is to swap out the
| >| memory modules for ones that don't try to make use of this feature.
| >|
| >
| >Whichmeans it is not the memory that is faulty, it is the Intel chipset.
The
| >are putting a bandage on the problem instead of fixing it.
|
| Assuming I'm getting the store correctly, yes. The trick is that
| memory is an easy thing to swap out, chipsets are very difficult to
| swap. This is a $20 bandage vs. a $200+ solution.
|

Exactly. Just like a big company to put a bandage on a sore that needs
stitches. They aren't fixing anything, they are just covering it up. It's
about like buying a brand new car as new with bondo in it because it was
wrecked on a test drive.
 
T

Tony Hill

| Assuming I'm getting the store correctly, yes. The trick is that
| memory is an easy thing to swap out, chipsets are very difficult to
| swap. This is a $20 bandage vs. a $200+ solution.
|

Exactly. Just like a big company to put a bandage on a sore that needs
stitches. They aren't fixing anything, they are just covering it up. It's
about like buying a brand new car as new with bondo in it because it was
wrecked on a test drive.
Click to expand...

Well, I've done a bit more looking and it seems like I may have been
too quick to judge Intel, it looks like it could well be that it's a
"flaw" in the modules themselves, or perhaps more to the point, the
way that Intel chipsets expects the memory modules to handle the
"self-refresh" feature is somewhat different to how the memory modules
implement self-refresh. Unfortunately finding exact details is
somewhat tricky.

To be fair to HP, they seem to be doing the right thing here. This
exact same flaw will almost certainly also affect Dell laptops (since
HP and Dell laptops are mostly produced by the same Taiwanese
companies, just with different badges thrown on the front), and most
likely Toshiba, IBM and others. It seems like a flat out
incompatibility with Intel chipsets and memory modules from Samsung,
Infineon and Winbond. A separate but similar issue was also found
with Micron modules. Considering that those companies probably
account for 75%+ of the OEM memory module market and ALL the major
OEMs have products using the Intel mobile chipsets in question, this
is a pretty much industry-wide issue.
 
A

Angry American

I wonder if this might be the cause of the mysterious memory errors I
encounter randomly on my Gateway 450rog. Not that it matters, I am in the
middle of a dispute with Gateway, I want my money back, and they want to fix
this thing for the 4th time since last October when it was new. I will never
purchase Gateway again, the customer service is a joke, and their service is
even worse.

Dan
 

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