Intel Sandy Bridge chipset flaw identified as a rogue transistor affecting SATA ports

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Intel raised quite a few eyebrows yesterday by disclosing that its
Cougar Point chipsets suffer from an incurable design issue that would
potentially degrade Serial ATA transfers over time. AnandTech has gone
to the trouble of getting in touch with Intel to seek more information
and the problem, as it turns out, is a single transistor that's prone
to a higher current leakage than tolerable. This can not only diminish
performance over the 3Gbps SATA ports, it can actually make them fail
altogether. There is more comforting news, however, in that the pair
of 6Gbps SATA ports on the chipset are untroubled by this ailment, so
devices and users that never plug into the 3Gbps connections can just
carry on as if nothing's ever happened. For everyone else, a repair
and replacement service is taking place now, with Intel's budget for
dealing with this problem said to be a generous $700 million.