The notebook memory-module flaw that Hewlett-Packard
identified last week as having the potential to cause problems for
all notebook manufacturers has thus far shown up only in HP
notebooks, according to PC suppliers, memory manufacturers, and
industry analysts.
Last Friday, HP announced it would offer a replacement for
certain notebook memory chips found in about 900,000 of its
notebooks. Users of those systems can download a utility from HP's
website to determine if they have a flawed memory chip. The
affected HP notebooks cut across several product lines and were
shipped over the past two years.
The flaw occurs when a PC attempts to re-enter an active mode
from a sleep mode. Under certain conditions, the memory module can
hang and cause the system to crash, resulting in the loss of
data.
The sleep mode that must be enabled to induce the flaw is known
as C3. It is the deepest level of sleep that a processor can
enter to save power, according to documentation for the Advanced
Configuration and Power Interface standard used by PC and processor
suppliers to manage power consumption. Some notebook suppliers put
the processor into this state when the user presses the sleep
button, or when the notebook is left idle for an extended period of
time.
Some notebook suppliers also use the C3 sleep mode to actively
manage power consumption by putting the processor into C3 mode
thousands of times a second during gaps in application activity.
The likelihood of the system crashing is much greater when the C3
mode is entered and exited so frequently, said Ronald Kasic,
director of customer engineering and sustaining marketing for
HP.
For those crashes to occur, the C3 sleep mode must be used in
conjunction with the 845, 852, or 855 mobile chipsets from Intel,
processors that support the C3 state, and certain memory chips from
Micron Technology, Samsung Electronics, Winbond Electronics, and
Infineon Technologies, HP said.
The Infineon chips affected by the flaw were a limited number of
256Mbyte dual inline memory modules (Dimms) shipped in the first
part of 2003, Infineon said. The chips made up a very small portion
of the notebook Dimms shipped by Infineon during that period and no
other memory modules have been discovered with the flaws since
then, the company said.
Samsung has not received any reports of problems or flaws from
customers other than HP. Micron and Winbond were not available for
comment.
IBM discovered the issue while testing memory chips in its
Thinkpad notebooks. "At this point in time, we haven't detected any
problems with qualified memory sources consistent with HP's
reported problems. We did detect problems previously, and we
disqualified those memory parts," said IBM.
Gateway, Dell and Toshiba said they had not received any reports
of problems to their notebooks.
Most PC suppliers do not use the C3 sleep state because the
lighter power-saving states provide the greatest overall benefits,
said Roger Kay, vice-president of client computing with analyst
IDC. For example, the C3 state requires the operating system to
manage certain parts of the chip while in that state, while the
lighter states do not require any intervention on the part of
software, according to the ACPI documentation.
However, HP described the combination of the C3 sleep state and
the Intel chipsets as a "very prevalent architecture used in the
industry" on its list of frequently asked questions about the
memory issue on its website.
But the fact that no other suppliers have reported problems and
that two suppliers discovered similar problems in testing raises
questions as to whether HP simply missed the issue in its own
testing, and attempted to portray the flaw as an industry issue to
avoid that perception.
HP did not discover the flaw during preliminary testing because
the probability of the issue occurring is extremely low and
dependent on the user's configuration, it said on its memory recall
web page.
"We stand 100% behind the claim that this is an industry-wide
problem. If you are using those core components, you have the
potential to be impacted by this," said Mike Hockey, an HP
spokesman.
HP notebook users can visit an HP web page
(h30090.www3.hp.com/mmrp/)
for more information.
Tom Krazit writes for IDG News
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