Saturday, April 6th 2013
Intel Fixes 8-series Chipset USB 3.0 Erratum
Intel issued a product-change notification (PCN) to partners in the motherboard industry, informing them of a new C2 stepping of the 8-series "Lynx Point" chipset. The stepping introduces a metal layers change that fixes the USB 3.0 remuneration erratum, which causes devices plugged in to USB 3.0 ports to fail to reinitialize after waking up from sleep states such as S3, requiring uses to unplug and replug them, which could get particularly irritating for people with external RAID devices that rely on USB 3.0 for host connectivity.
According to the PCN, the first socket LGA1150 motherboards in the market may not feature C2-stepping chipset. It predicts samples to be available to motherboard manufacturers by April 19, 2013; availability of qualification data (when Intel has finalized design after taking feedback from partners), by July 1 2013; customers should be ready to receive C2-stepping chips by July 31. These dates indicate that the very first batches of socket LGA1150 motherboards will still feature C1-stepping chipset that are affected by the erratum, and if you can't live with it, you should ideally wait until late-August or mid-September for the first motherboards with C2-stepping chipset to make it to the markets. Intel expects to launch its 4th generation Core "Haswell" processors and compatible LGA1150 motherboards by mid-June.
According to the PCN, the first socket LGA1150 motherboards in the market may not feature C2-stepping chipset. It predicts samples to be available to motherboard manufacturers by April 19, 2013; availability of qualification data (when Intel has finalized design after taking feedback from partners), by July 1 2013; customers should be ready to receive C2-stepping chips by July 31. These dates indicate that the very first batches of socket LGA1150 motherboards will still feature C1-stepping chipset that are affected by the erratum, and if you can't live with it, you should ideally wait until late-August or mid-September for the first motherboards with C2-stepping chipset to make it to the markets. Intel expects to launch its 4th generation Core "Haswell" processors and compatible LGA1150 motherboards by mid-June.
40 Comments on Intel Fixes 8-series Chipset USB 3.0 Erratum
Which Intel has.
By the way, I ONLY have high-end CPUs....FX-8350, i5 3750K, i7 3770k, i7 3960X. One of those has no warranty for OC, the other three do.Yes, I would like real OC to take some skill, and not cost money only. Because that's what it is right now, and has been for many years. I STILL solder shit up...because I like to push further than the average folks.
Errata isn't that big of a deal, but with P67, it was drive controller that might die, now it's USB that doesn't work with some drives. This is far more minor than it was with P67, so no, I'm not really that concerned about it. And you shouldn't be either.3770k and 3960x/3970x are NOT equal in single-threaded workloads. IVB has faster cache, which makes for most of the performance difference between SNB and IVB.
What portion of the populace is going to be aware of whether or not they're buying a C1 or C2 chip? Probably close to 0%?
Also, what portion of the populace is going to connect the dots when (if...?) they have USB 3.0 stuff plugged in after it sleeps? Again, probably close to 0%? They're going to blame Dell or Windows for a while, and eventually they're just going to disable sleep mode or leave their USB 3.0 stuff unplugged much of the time.
These chips are going to sell fine. Intel has already invested money in producing the first batch, and they're going to make a bundle selling them. Good call Intel! $$
PS. That's some clean looking soldering! Props. What exactly does it do in the case of the picture above?
That's an ASUS HD 7970 Direct CUII. It comes with spots to attach the wires to already, for vCORE, vPLL, and vMEM. One wire for each(colored), plus one for measure. I also added the VRM control wires and used an alternate point for the vCORE mod.
I love soldering, not sure why. Ended up removing all of that, then soldering this on:
Look at console revisions for example. None of those revisions made your console any better than anyone elses, just yours may run a bit cooler due to a CPU or GPU shrink, or an added heatsink, etc. Performance-wise there was no difference, so what's major about that?
Also, I got a B3 revision Intel P67 chipset motherboard... does that mean mine runs any better than a B2, or is mine just less likely to fail?
Nothing "major" about any of the above scenarios.
However, word was with P67 that EVERY chipset would fail within warranty periods and make the system unusable, hence the recall.
But you are right, usually errata are minor, every part has some, but P67 B2's issue was hardly minor. They do not offer world-wide recalls from every brand for minor issues.
LMAO@word was. How about you do some actual research. It's not hard. Maybe if you stop fiddling with posting graphics card mod pics under an article about motherboard chipsets, you'd be able to actually contribute with more than, "word was" in your replies on the subject.
B2 was minor. It would take a few YEARS and a lot of disk activity for those Sata III controllers to degrade.
Even an always on enthusiast is going to be annoyed when they have to resell their stuff for 70-85% the price of a C2 version.
Do I know of people that had B2 boards die? Do I have a dead one here on my shelf?
YUUP!
:roll:
Research. :p :laugh: I leave that to the pros.:roll:
Speaking of USB 3.0, I avoid the shitty Etron USB 3.0 controller on my mobo whenever I can -- half the time, it does not recognise the most common devices, which aren't even USB 3.0. Even had a BSOD thanks to this turd once. The ones I've seen on AM3 motherboards are just as bad, if not worse. I really can't see the point in USB 3.0 anyway -- if you have a device that needs that sort of bandwidth, go with eSATA or Thunderbolt/Lightning instead of wasting your CPU cycles on shitty USB 3.0 controllers.
Of course, the platform hasn't launched yet.
But, OEMs need to build boards and test products (qualification testing), so the revised edition of the boards will take some time before they hit the market. You can find out how long qualification testing takes pretty easily.
I wouldnt be surprised if we saw half of these C1 boards get sold without USB 3.0 headers/ports on them, as the basic range of motherboards. If there's no connectivity options, there's no problem. And plenty of domestic users arent gonna care about a blue USB port on their computer. Half of the household computers i see today are barely past the Core2Duo stage.
They probably wont even mention the issue on most shopping sites anyway, they will "expect" buyers to check the C1 or C2 revision for themselves and be wise enough to choose accordingly. Otherwise its their own fault for buying a motherboard that has a fault.