Posted on Tuesday, February 08 2011 @ 12:14 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
KitGuru
reports PC vendors have started shipping Intel 6-series computers with a PCI Express expansion card for the the SATA 3Gbps ports. This workaround has been approved by Intel, but these vendors have been told to remove the onboard SATA II motherboard headers so customers can't accidentally use the faulty ports.
As KitGuru said last week, there are potential workarounds to this problem. System vendors can simple use the SATA III inputs. Most desktop systems have at least two SATA III ports, controlled by an uneffected controller chip, outside the Intel issue. Most laptop systems, have two working SATA III inputs, which means a vendor could ship with a hard drive and optical drive without risk to the customer.
Many vendors are considering (and some already are) shipping with a PCI express expansion card for the onboard SATA II inputs, in a similar fashion as to how you would upgrade an integrated graphics chip with a discrete graphics card. Intel says that they will ensure desktop vendors ship any Sandybridge system with the PCI Express workaround. These vendors have been told to remove the onboard Sata II input headers, meaning that customers won’t accidentally use the headers later if they add more drives to the system.
