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How to Check Your Mac does Not Have The Defected Sandy Bridge Cougar Chip In It
- Thread starter FOX160
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This is ridiculous. They statement doesn't apply to laptops made after a certain date. You are assuming guilty until proven innocent. Their statement is official and there isn't going to be something else. If that's not good enough for you then you should go buy a Dell. I'm sure they would never lie about defective parts.
A big +1 on that guy buying a Dell and joining their site - more FUD for sure.
CPU-Z in Windows *should* tell you the chipset revision. On the mainboard tab.
Side note: Even though you are spending the money and it did turn out that Apple was using the faulty chipsets it'd still be totally irrelevant since it would result in immediate mass replacement of the motherboards and a class action suit. I get why you want to know but at the same time it doesn't really matter that much.
That's a very good thought. Hypothetically speaking, I think they would not hold up a major marketing spash event over an component issue *if* their engineeering analysis indicated it wouldn't affect more than a few units within a couple of years with little risk of serious consequences. I got the impression from Intel that it wasn't likely show up until after years of normal HD use, and I'm under the impression that DVD drives get very little use compared to HD's, and risk of data loss might be very low when a DVD drive fails (since one's important data remains safely on the HD if the DVD stops working). You really could be right, but I personally can't be 100% sure.
In any case, can we get back to the OP's question? It's a legimate technical how-to question even if you believe no MBP2011 should have slipped out with a bad chip. Is it possible to detect the chip version without dissasembly? It looks like Gigabyte may have been able to do it for their motherboards: http://gigabytedaily.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-gigabyte-6-series-sata-check.html but that might use something proprietary on their motherboard.
Doesn't cause any data loss.
Causes the port to become excessively slow (for ODD, down to the point where you wouldn't be able to play a DVD from the drive because the transfer rate would be so low).
Not to mention manufacturers were only allowed to use the faulty chipsets IF THE EXPLICITLY AGREED TO USE ONLY THE UNAFFECTED SATA3 PORTS.
So basically there's either no problem...or no problem. Take your pick.
>_>
Hmmm .... No risk of data loss, only for the DVD drive, no degradation for years, and Apple would certainly make good with any repairs if a problem showed up? Sounds like Intel could easily have given Apple that much slack on their normal terms if Apple had enough clout with them and wanted to, . . . as I speculated about back in https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/12057451/ . Of course, it's probably more likely they used their considerable clout to get first in line for all the new chips they could use, assuming they had time to use them.
Sorry to stray back to that. I really would rather talk about the OP's how-to question:
Your CPU-Z utility idea looks like an excellent answer under a bootcamp to Windows, which I'll have. I see their 2/18/2011 1.57 update now reports the P67/H67 stepping: http://www.cpuid.com/
PS - Some of the responses on this thread seemed unnecessarily intolerant of other perspectives, making the Mac universe look not so appealing. On the other hand, the constructive contributions to the discussion were very much appreciated, especially that CPU-Z lead. Thanks!
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1108989/
I understand why people would be concerned, but at some point you just have to let it go and accept that Apple isn't going to try to shaft you on purpose and if they did, a fix would be made available. Also, I think the usage figures for ODD degradation on the faulty chipsets was like 3+ years of use IF the HDD was also on the faulty ports. Which makes it sound like you'd have to constantly be playing movies in your ODD for 2 years straight to ever run into the problem.
Why would anyone even care? The defect in that chip only affects SATA devices beyond two. Since all MBP's only support a maximum of two devices, the defect is irrelevant. Please explain why you think something would be "unwanted" if there is zero impact to the user?
Here's a screenshot from my 2011 17" MBP.
Rev 05 in CPU-Z must correspond to Rev B3.
That's correct, the problem chipset is Rev 04.
xxJudgementxx and Melterx 12 How did you get to check your Sata?
Let me know so I can go in the store in London and check.
And if all is well pick up my first Mac Book Pro
I used the programs in my screenshot, problem is they're Windows only.
I ordered my 17" the day they were released. There's no way any of these have defective chipsets. End of story. Go buy your MacBook Pro, you're going to love it.
It affects SATA3 ports 0 and 1.
ALL SATA2 ports were affected in the affected chipsets.
It's not dependent on the number of devices, it's where they're attached.
Just to reiterate for the 100th time. None of the MacBook Pros are affected by the defective Cougar Point chipsets.