Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy

https://uk.pcmag.com/processors/153676/intel-faces-potential-class-action-lawsuit-over-chip-bug-controversy

by croes • 2 years ago

45 29 2 years ago

uk.pcmag.com

Dalewyn3• 2 years ago

Oklahoma-based Abington Cole + Ellery, which specializes in class-action litigation, is asking affected Intel customers to contact the law firm about participating in a potential lawsuit.
caught the attention of attorneys looking to capitalize on it.

Yes, I will gladly contact some suave gentlemen in business suits so I can make 10 cents while they make bank if I register with so-and-so entity after a dozen years of wasting the judiciary's time, all the while crapping on a company I like.

Not.

kennethrc• 2 years ago

Seriously. Fuck those vultures

janalsncm3• 2 years ago

What is the alternative? Intel gets to ship defective products with no consequences?

I don’t like lawyers but I guarantee there are equally if not more suave Intel lawyers who would tell customers to shove it if they could.

Dalewyn3• 2 years ago

You file warranty RMAs with Intel if you are adversely affected and they make you whole.

Alupis7• 2 years ago

With Intel continuing to flounder, and given all of the issues with their CPU products over the past handful of years - one has to wonder if Intel ever was actually good at designing and manufacturing CPU's.

Think back to the Pentium 4 and Athlon days... think about all the anti-competitive, illegal and/or unsavory business practices Intel employed during that era to gain dominance. They literally shut out AMD via illegal behavior - and received a slap on the wrist many years later. Their illegal behavior led to AMD being forced (via unfairly reduced revenue by way of anti-competitive Intel practices) to spin off Global Foundries, and forced to employ only second-tier engineers, managers, executives, etc.

Where would we be if Intel and AMD had actually competed freely during that era. It seems likely Intel would not have been the darling of so many PC enthusiasts, and would not be dominant in business computing either.

Here we are today, with Intel seemingly unable to find their way out of a paper bag...

tssge3• 2 years ago

You have to look more far back than just the Pentium 4 days. Intel absolutely were some of the greatest innovators on the industry if you look at 70s, 80s and 90s. I would say they simply were the best, but dropped the ball at least when AMD64 became a thing. How the mighty have fallen...

It's hard to overstate Intel's importance in regards to the modern CPU: they invented the microprocessor itself. (Though I'd like to state it's a bit controversial whether they only were the first to come up with a commercially available one or whether they actually invented the concept itself)

Also, there are many things outside the CPU that we take for granted today that were of Intel's innovation. A great example would be PCIe that Intel invented and essentially standardized. More recent example would be USB4.

Regarding CPUs they have some truly legendary chips, like the Intel 8086. This chip from the 70s is still in use today in your everyday products (as a clone though). It can be found TODAY in common products like computer mice, keyboards, AC, TV remotes and so on. Anything that is a commodity and needs some simple processing power has usually some derivative of 8086 inside it, granted ESP32 and such are taking over nowadays.

Of course the x86 instruction set comes from that very chip. I guess the name speaks for itself how big of a thing that was.

There's too much to fit inside one comment about how innovative Intel truly used to be, but they have a pretty good page for their history here: https://timeline.intel.com/

Alupis7• 2 years ago

I guess it was innovation until competition got tough, then it was squash-mode, no matter how illegal or unsavory. During that era, can we honestly say Intel was still innovating in the CPU line? Have they innovated in CPU's recently? It seems not so much...

Look at the Core series - moderately incremental improvements for nearly two decades now? Many of which have significant, unfixable design flaws. AMD got their act together, and with significantly fewer resources ended up totally leap-frogging Intel in nearly all CPU metrics. How did this not happen at Intel after all these years?

AMD had some objectively better CPU's during the Athlon era - until they ran out of money mostly due to Intel's anti-competitive behavior.

The "what-if" scenario is interesting to ponder...

RiverCrochet• 2 years ago

Intel developed and released the first single chip microprocessor, the 4-bit MCS 4004.

You had CPUs before that, but they were not single chips.

like the Intel 8086.

You mean the 8051? It is a nice embedded chip, mostly because it has a lot of bit-level instructions and has separate execution and data address spaces if I'm remembering the details right.

Of course the x86 instruction set comes from that very chip

It does come from the 8086, which I do believe was at least somewhat based on the even earlier 8080. I could be wrong though.

But yeah Intel did a lot. In the 70's though you had lots of semiconductor companies: Fairchild, Signetics, Motorola, MOS/CSG branching off of them. I really wonder what Intel would be if IBM selected a 68000 for the 5150 though.

ethbr14• 2 years ago

Intel's golden eras were the 8086, 2/3/486, Pentium I/Pro/II era (1978-1998) and the Core era (aka son of Pentium M) before they ran into process issues (2006-2015).

Current execution stumbles do not diminish historical triumphs -- Pentium II and Nehalem were and are amazing.

nubinetwork• 2 years ago

The Pentium Pro was a turd if you weren't executing purely 32bit code.

segasaturn• 2 years ago

I remember back when the choice was between Athlon 64 X2 and Core 2 Duo and it felt like with either choice you couldn't go wrong.

FMecha• 2 years ago

Current execution stumbles do not diminish historical triumphs

Not for those who have "$THING was never good" mindset after repeated, multiple stumbles in a row. You see this with anything that closed/died in disgrace.

I imagine there are people out there who think that Intel might file for bankruptcy/insolvency if they can't right themselves from this issue.

gjsman-1000• 2 years ago

Intel’s probably not worried. The very term “patent troll” was invented by their legal office to describe the people suing on a daily basis. And while patents has nothing to do with this case, their legal department is used to being sued…

baal80spam• 2 years ago

INTC 15% down today, they are probably worried.

Intel Faces Potential Class-Action Lawsuit over Chip Bug Controversy

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