Intel Atom processors dying hard & permanent

fencepost

fencepost

Well-Known Member
Reaction score
2,314
Location
Schaumburg, IL
Apparently there's a little problem with a whole bunch of processors in the Intel Atom C2000 product line, B0 stepping which apparently started shipping in 2013. The clock circuitry dies. Brick. Do not pass go, because there are no clock ticks to get you moving.

Not sure if these were used in any cheap laptops (if so, time for a replacement) but they were used in Cisco switches, Synology NAS units, and probably a bunch of other places. If you end up with a mysteriously nonresponsive unit of any type, check whether it's got a C2xxx in it.

El Reg says
Other vendors using Atom C2000 chips include Aaeon, HP, Infortrend, Lanner, NEC, Newisys, Netgate, Netgear, Quanta, Supermicro, and ZNYX Networks. The chipset is aimed at networking devices, storage systems, and microserver workloads. If you know of any affected or failed gear, please let us know.​

And a Hacker News thread about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13585048 - apparently if you have Cisco equipment not purchased directly from them and still under warranty you may not be getting any nice news on that front, though there may be conflicting information on that point.
 
Last edited:
Wow, good to know. I know we have "Lanner" network hardware at many clients....they are the hardware platform that NexGenAppliances uses which we use for Untangle firewalls.
A quick lookey-loo and it seems the C2000 models are quad core, the smaller units from NexGen we use usually have the older dual core (like the D510 or D525 models). And then the larger ones the full desktop CPUs. But I'll keep an eye out for quad core Atoms of that family just to be sure....
 
An update with a few more manufacturers, including Seagate (NAS Pro) and Sophos firewalls (UTM firewall SG 125).
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/07/intel_atom_failures_go_back_18_months/

"Companies that appear to be affected by the Atom C2000 flaw include not only those mentioned in our previous report – Aaeon, Dell, HP, Infortrend, Lanner, NEC, Newisys, Netgate, Netgear, Quanta, Supermicro, Synology, and ZNYX Networks – but also ASRock Rack (C2550D4I and C2750D4I), iXsystems (FreeNAS Mini), Seagate (NAS Pro), and Sophos (UTM firewall SG 125).

Our industry source suggested that non-disclosure agreements with Intel prevent companies from releasing or discussing information about technical issues related to Intel products."​

And one of these days I'll go get a new eye exam and some bifocals or progressives.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top