Intel Design Flaw to Delay MacBooks by Just Two Weeks?

A design flaw in Intel's 6 Series Cougar Point chipsets will only delay some MacBooks by less than two weeks, according to an AppleInsider report.

One person familiar with the matter tells AppleInsider that some -- not all -- of the company's upcoming MacBook Pros were affected by the situation. According to this person, the Mac maker elected to make minor tweaks to the logic boards of those models, but that those changes would translate to a delay of less than two weeks.

Intel says the problem with the chips was the potential for four of the SATA ports -- 2 through 5 -- to "degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD-drives."


The problem does not affect SATA ports 0 or 1, and since MacBook Pros only make use of two SATA ports, Apple would only have to make minor changes to avoid any issues.

"There are two connections on the board -- one for optical drive, and one for HDD," said iFixit's Kyle Wiens. "The other internal devices (trackpad, keyboard, SD card reader, etc.) use USB."

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