June 30th, 2011
Published by: VR-Zone
VR-Zone.com | Stuff for the Geeks! VR-Zone | Stuff for the Geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks.
Sandy Bridge-E delayed until January 2012 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/sandy-bridge-e-delayed-untiljanuary-2012/12816.html June 30th, 2011
Wow, what's going on at Intel? It seems like the company has decided to delay its entire consumer desktop roadmap, as we've now heard from a very reliable source that Intel has pushed back the Sandy Bridge-E launch from Q4 this year to January 2012.
Too Hot to Handle: Sony issues BIOS update for 535,000 VAIO notebooks at risk of overheating Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/too-hot-to-handle-sony-issues-biosupdate-for-535-000-vaio-notebooks-at-risk-of-overheating/12815.html June 30th, 2011
Sony has just issued an urgent BIOS update for certain F and C series VAIO notebooks. The affected models were sold in the first half of 2010 and are at risk of overheating due to a faulty thermal management system. According to Sony, the BIOS update should fix the issue. More than half a million units worldwide are affected, of which 120,000 are in Southeast Asia.
Wow, what's going on at Intel? It seems like the company has decided to delay its entire consumer desktop roadmap, as we've now heard from a very reliable source that Intel has pushed back the Sandy Bridge-E launch from Q4 this year to January 2012. We have a feeling that Intel is doing an AMD and what we mean by that is that Intel is focusing on its server CPU business instead of on consumers. AMD delayed its consumer Bulldozer launch in favour of its Opteron CPUs and it's possible that this is part of what made Intel change its strategy. The Sandy Bridge-E CPUs are based on the same core as Intel's upcoming LGA-2011 and LGA-1356 Xeon processors and these are big chips which mean fewer chips per wafer. As such it's entirely plausible that Intel is trying to stock up on chips for its Xeon platforms, but this is only speculation from our side at this point in time. As the Sandy Bridge-E CPUs are set to replace Intel's aging LGA-1366 Core i platform it looks like the enthusiast end of the market is going to have to wait another quarter before they can get their hands on the new platform. This is going to disappoint quite a few people out there, but this is still a very tiny market for Intel and it's unlikely that it will affect Intel's profits much, if at all. Hopefully there won't be any further delays, although it's also entirely possible that this is a calculated move by Intel, as the company launched a new LGA-1366 CPU only this week, but it's believed to be the last of a dying breed.
More than half a million VAIO notebooks are at risk of overheating due to a faulty thermal management system, according to Sony. A product recall was previously issued but Sony now says that a BIOS update will fix the problem. The affected parts have serial numbers starting with VPCF11 or VPCCW2 and were sold in the first half of 2010. 535,000 notebooks are affected worldwide, about half of which are in the US. Of the remainder, 103,000 are in Europe, 120,000 are in Southeast Asia and 52,000 are in Japan. The number of overheating cases reported so far is said to be between 30 and 40. No injuries have occured, but the notebooks can get hot enough to warp the plastic casing and cause burns. To check if your Sony notebook is affected, refer to Sony's support website. Sony advises owners of affected notebooks to cease all usage until the fix has been applied.
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