The four largest manufacturers of mainboards in the world said that they would take actions to ensure that the flaw discovered this week in Intel Corp.’s latest 6-series chipsets will not affect end-users. As a result, the companies will stop selling mainboards for Intel’s new Core i-series “Sandy Bridge” microprocessors and will either refund the motherboards or will replace/repair them when the error-free chipsets become available.

Firstly, all mainboards makers claim that Serial ATA ports 0 and 1 are not affected by the flaw of the Cougar Point design and should work just fine in Serial ATA-600 mode. The ports which performance can degrade over time are SATA ports 2, 3, 4 and 5. Secondly, all Serial ATA ports that are powered by a third-party controller will also work absolutely fine. Thirdly, despite of the fact that the SATA-related issues are not going to occur shortly, makers of mainboards are planning to either exchange, repair or refund their mainboards for LGA 1155 processors with P67 and H67 chipsets.

From Asus

“We will provide total warranty services to maximize computing and usability, as each Asus product is delivered with an uncompromising quality pledge,” wrote Asus on an open letter to customers.

What I can say right now, as an early adopter, is that I am thoroughly impressed with Sandy Bridge and the new Core i5 and i7 processors. The fact that only SATA ports are affected, I can safely continue to run my Asus P8P67 Deluxe Mainboard until April and enjoy all that is Sandy Bridge.

-NS