Introduction
You might have heard it already; Intel reported another problem in combination with the cursed i820 ‘Camino’ chipset two days ago. This time it’s serious. Motherboard based on Intel’s i820 chipset that are equipped with the optional component called ‘MTH’ = ‘Memory Translator Hub’ have been found to operate unreliably; possibly causing system crashes or hangs. This problem may ‘only‘ affect i820-systems that are equipped with the cheaper SDRAM instead of the very expensive and questionably performing RDRAM. The ‘MTH’ enables i820 to work with SDRAM and because systems equipped with i820 plus MTH are much more price attractive than i820 systems that are using RDRAM, MTH-systems used to be rather popular.
The Official Replacement for i820 plus MTH and SDRAM is i820 plus RDRAM
Intel has now put the production of the ‘MTH’ chip as well as boards and systems equipped with this chip on hold. A new ‘MTH’, most likely called ‘MTH2’ that could replace the current ‘MTH’ chip will not be available until Q3/2000. Therefore Intel decided to replace motherboards equipped with an MTH chip with i820-motherboards that don’t carry this chip. Those i820-motherboards will not be able to run SDRAM, which is why Intel will also replace the SDRAM of the MTH-motherboard owners with the much more expensive RDRAM.
Nobody Knows What’s Going On
As found out yesterday, many people at Intel and a large number of Intel’s customers like OEMs/Distributors/VARs/Resellers/System Integrators don’t really know much about the general situation with MTH-motherboards and almost nobody has established a clear replacement policy yet.
540 Tons of High Tech Crap
Intel knows that there are about 900,000 motherboards out there that are equipped with MTH chips. All those motherboard would HAVE TO BE replaced if the customers should demand it. 900,000 motherboards all brought to Intel’s headquarter in Satan Clara would just about fit into 50 sea containers!!! We are talking of 540 tons of high-tech crap! Now obviously Intel does not want to be involved in a replacement situation of this magnitude. Therefore Intel and its OEM/distributors/… customers are trying to state, “not every board with MTH is affected“. However, at the same time nobody can guarantee that an MTH-motherboard will not suffer from sudden crashes or hangs at some stage in time. All the parties involved hope that not every MTH-motherboard owner will return her or his board, but the situation is similar to a recall of a car model. The car manufacturer informs you that it’s rather unlikely that your brakes will fail, but they cannot guarantee flawless brakes unless you put your car in for a brake replacement. What would you do? Hope that your brakes will work fine, or make sure that your brakes will get replaced? I guess it’s a simple question and why should anybody feel fine with a system that might fail and crash or hang any time?
Intel Is Not in Trouble – Intel’s ‘Partners’ Are
Now most of you might think “Phew! Bad luck for Intel! They’ve got quite a bit to worry about and it will cost them a lot of money.” Only few people will realize that those who suffer most from this issue right now are the poor companies that are between Intel and the end customer! Intel has huge resources and will easily recuperate from this issue, however the smaller companies involved are in serious trouble. Let me give you a perfect example.
We have found out which motherboard maker has sold the majority of MTH-chips. You might think that this was Intel, but while Intel delivered only 10% of the MTHs in their CC820-family motherboards, another board maker has produced and shipped far more than half of all MTH-motherboards. This highly respected, most successful and now rather doomed company is the Taiwanese motherboard maker Asus. Our informants state that the vast majority of their shipped i820-motherboards was the P3C-2000 or CUC2000 family, which comes with SDRAM support and thus with the faulty MTH chip. Now Asus is supposed to either reimburse their customers or supply them with MTH-less i820 boards and RDRAM. One of the results of Intel’s homemade MTH-Caminogate2 is the drop of Asus’ stock price by about 10% on May 10. But this is only the tip of the iceberg.
- Problem 1:
Asus can reimburse customers who want to return their i820 w/MTH motherboards and will get the money back from Intel later on. However, it isn’t quite as easy to define the amount. - Problem 2:
Many people bought their Asus-motherboard unknowingly with their system. You cannot quite expect that every owner of a computer system is able to take out his motherboard, bring it back and put in a new one. Thus those people need support. Either the OEM/system integrator is taking back the whole system and replaces it with a i820 w/RDRAM or somebody has to go to the customer and replace the board for him. This is costing HUGE amounts of money. - Problem 3:
Asus sold only few i820 motherboards that did not come with MTH, because most of their customers did not want to pay the ridiculous premium for RDRAM. Thus the production of those boards is very low. Now exactly these boards are required as the replacement for the MTH-motherboards. If thousands of people are contacting Asus right now, which certainly is the case, then how is Asus supposed to have those hundred thousands of MTH-free i820 motherboards available for the replacement? - Problem 4:
As you know from my initial article, the replacement includes an i820 board without MTH and the required RDRAM as well. Currently there is hardly enough RDRAM available to fill the demand for the replacements. Intel has assured Asus that it will supply the RDRAM for the replacement procedure, but right now Asus doesn’t have several hundred thousand RDRAM RIMMs available.You can see that it’s not exactly a fancy thing to be in the shoes of Asus’ CEO Jonney Shih right now. Rumor has it that he was in an emergency meeting with Intel all day on May 10, because Intel hadn’t even informed him of this upcoming issue. Business may be tough, but it’s not exactly Asus’ fault that Intel is producing chips that don’t work. Now Intel can lay back, uninformed, arrogant and obviously uninterested Intel-folks give concerned customers the wrong information and companies like Asus or any other company involved are suffering from Intel’s mistakes.
I have already said it before, but it becomes clearer every day: Intel is not the reliable business partner it used to be anymore. Dealing with Intel today is like playing with fire. Asus had to learn this lesson the hard way. In some way one might think that it is the payback for not standing up for AMD when Asus covered up their own Athlon motherboard K7M in fall last year.
Let’s not Forget One More Problem With MTH-Caminogate2 – FRAUD
You may think that four listed problems are already enough, but there’s one more problem, if you want to call it that way.
Yesterday I learned from several readers that their place of purchase decided to replace an MTH-motherboard with motherboards that are equipped with VIA’s Apollo Pro 133A chipset and SDRAM. There is certainly nothing wrong with Apollo Pro133A, it’s actually a good product, but we should not forget two things. Intel is not advising to replace their board with one that’s equipped with a competitor’s chipset and motherboards with Apollo Pro 133A chipset plus PC133 SDRAM are significantly cheaper than i820 plus RDRAM. Thus a dealer could give his customer the cheaper VIA solution and get i820 plus RDRAM or the money for it reimbursed from Intel. In this case, the dealer would obviously cheat upon his customer.
I doubt that the majority of dealers who should offer a replacement board with VIA-chip are trying to cheat. Most of them will simply not have any i820-motherboard and RDRAM available. Still I would recommend that you as an affected customer should make sure that you get what you deserve. Following Intel’s guidelines, that means you are entitled to a i820-motherboard wo/ MTH and RDRAM to replace your SDRAM.
Don’t Let Them Give You the Wrong RDRAM!
One last thing I’d like to note as well. You might remember that there are three different flavors of RDRAM. PC800 is the fastest and by far most expensive, PC700 is medium and PC600 RDRAM is the cheapest and slowest. Please don’t forget to have a look at my article “Showdown at 133 MHz FSB – Part2, The Real McCoy“. In there you will find the performance difference between i820 w/MTH and PC100 SDRAM vs. i820 w/RDRAM of PC800, PC700 and PC600 specification. Don’t let them give you PC600 RDRAM, because your system will then be even slower than your original configuration with PC100 SDRAM. Here’s an excerpt from the article: “Once i820 is using PC700, PC600 or SDRAM with the MTH it is the slowest chipset in the comparison!”
Be aware of that too!
Follow-up by reading the article ‘Tom’s Blurb – MTH – The Story Isn’t Over Yet …‘.
