It has been a bad week for Intel Corp on the bug front. After the 820 ‘Camino’ chipset debacle, the company has now admitted that it has found a problem with some versions of the Pentium III Xeon when used with Intel’s Saber eight-way motherboard – one of the crucial new elements of Intel’s high-end server CPU strategy.
The problem occurs with the 550MHz Pentium Xeon III chips, with 512kb or 1Mb of level one cache, used in conjunction with the Saber motherboard. An irregular voltage problem can cause system crashes. The problem doesn’t occur with versions of that chip that have 2Mb of cache. Intel spokesperson, Otto Pijpker, said that the company is looking at a workaround that will be implemented in two to three weeks. The bug only occurs with the Intel board, not with other eight-way motherboards from companies such as Compaq.
Pijpker tried to put a brave face on the situation by saying that the Saber had only been shipping since August 23, there are relatively few systems on the market, and the problem only occurs with two versions of the Xeon processor. It’s a little bit overblown in the sense that there are always problems with processors, he said, doubting that the situation will knock OEM vendors’ confidence in Intel. However, the timing of the problem – coming hard on the heels of the Camino fiasco – is significant. Other eight-way infrastructure manufacturers are likely to profit from Intel’s misfortune.
