topic Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us? in Archive

" Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:15:55 GMT

It's been a week since the problems began and basically no word from Intel. This is really a lame response to a major problem.

Why doesn't someone from the "task team", who are supposedly working on this issue, join this forum? Start a thread, let us know what's going on and, most importantly, seek some feedback. There are alot of smart folks on this forum, and maybe if you let us know whats going on and ask some questions, you might get some helpful answers.

Or, are you just too big and important that it would be too low for you to stoop?

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

PCoup1 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:19:39 GMT

well said.

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:25:01 GMT

Thats a good question

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:05:38 GMT

Support team can not comment because they don't have information, manufacturing or developing team just don't read this forum or can not comment it (housekeeping information).

The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and there is the problem.

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:10:21 GMT

Undoubtedly there's a lot of internal organizational pressure on the Intel SSD team to fix this problem. And, undoubtedly the team is qualified for the task at hand.

Given those two facts, I think it's safe to assume that the Intel engineers are working hard to fix the problem. In fact, given the wide-spread nature, visibility & severity of this problem, I bet that there's a lot of extra hours into the late night being put in.)

Although I personally know of no such cases, I'd expect that if they need data from drives in the field, they've already contacted some of us privately and are now able to reproduce the problem sufficiently for their needs.

I've been in their shoes and in my opinion, the engineers are behaving entirely appropriately. Don't forget that this is a huge, huge, publicly-traded company. That means that there are layers and layers of marketing, legal, management, and bureaucracy scrutinizing them at their end.

As much as we all are anxious to hear the status of their work, it's generally not considered good business practice (for a variety of reasons, mostly valid!) for engineering groups to post progress reports and detailed discussions.

Ironically, I remain glad I purchased my SSD from Intel. We can be sure that Intel has the skills, resources, and desire to fix this problem ASAP. And, frankly, that can't be said for many other vendors in this marketplace.

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

PCoup1 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:48:12 GMT

What a load of waffle.

After all is said and done, it would not take much for someone from whichever department is appropriate to do a bit of PR on their own forum.

We don't doubt for one minute that Intel aren't working on this full throttle but giving people a bit of reassurance or even an indication, if known of time scales involved would be a wise move.

Being cold shouldered by a generic statement just leaves the rumor mill to take over and in the long run, as we've seen here, starts to get peoples backs up.

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:05:12 GMT

Personally I do not really care about detailed discussons, progress reports or anything but one simple question:

Should I RMA my SSD, which takes like 8-10 weeks, or will it be fixed by another firmware/tool? 8-10 weeks is a very long time.

And that piece of information should get released as soon as possible, I guess that is what most people really want to know about, furthermore I do not see any damage Intel could recieve by doing this.

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:34:58 GMT

tfield98 wrote:

Undoubtedly there's a lot of internal organizational pressure on the Intel SSD team to fix this problem. And, undoubtedly the team is qualified for the task at hand.

I sure hope so, and trust it is so, but we don't have any evidence of it, do we? On the contrary, if you are a tad cinical, the utter silence and long time this is taking would make you think that they are not giving it high priority.

tfield98 wrote:

Since we don't have any evidence, I would certainly not call them facts!

tfield98 wrote:

I fully disagree with you there! It is generally not good business practice to ignore requests for information from your customers or to communicate without being exact. If you are afraid your engineering groups would communicate something they shouldn't, run it by your PR department first, but don't hold the info back!

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:13:09 GMT

Well said. I have a server to build and a deadline to meet and I am waiting for the firmware release without even roughly knowing any date!

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:00:52 GMT

If a solution is not going to be forthcoming anytime soon why can't we have an interim solution like being able to revert back to the old firmware, which is currently not possible?

Right now I've got 2 G2 drives. One I can use for a door stop and the other for a paper weight. I've submitted a support ticket to ask if I should RMA or wait for a firmware update, but no reply. I can't send them back for a refund either so that it not an option, however appealing that is right now.

After spending over $1K on 2 Intel drives I will now have to go out and buy a hard drive whilst this fiasco gets sorted out so I can continue to use my pc.

What is going on Intel? Clearly pre launch testing was woefully inadequate. There is no direction in this forum or from official support channels about what we are supposed to do.

I'm seriously regretting selling my G1 drives and getting G2 drives. I did it because I knew the G1's would not get TRIM, which is another staid point of contention that is only made worse by this situation.

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:54:36 GMT

Well said. I personally don't need Intel engineer to discuss all technical details, but I definitely AT LEAST need som sort of feedback from Intel. There are people who already "RMA"ed their drives, but there are many others who are awaiting Intel response as how to act (RMA or not etc.). There are others who just WAIT in their bussineses (which they make their money in) whether to use G2 drives or not (at the moment and even in general). I also agree that it is absolutely not a good bussines practice to shut the door and keep the silence. Aside the technical part, this is the other sad side of this story And I am also concerned, why IT media has not ring the bell yet. Strange.

For my part, I used Intel SSD just beacuse I thought if anything happens, there is a strong company to solve the problem. I am deeply dissapointed by Intel's lack of response and information at the moment. And I am sad that I was THAT wrong

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:08:19 GMT

For those posters who are upset about the lack of response from Intel, you have made ONE FALSE assumption/conclusion. YOU ASSUME that it is Intel's fault. I said in one thread you better hope that it is an issue that they can correct. There are folks that upgraded to the new frimware and experienced NO PROBLEMS. Check the POLL thread. Therefore, it is false assumption to assume that the bricked drives are the result of the "firmware" not working. If the Intel engineers conclude that the bricked drives are the result of some factor out of their control, then they have every right to say that they cannot fix it and plz contact your motherboard vendor and/or Microsoft. I guarantee that you will be doubly pissed if this is the case.

They are probably trying to device a solution that will at least keep the data contents of your drive in tact.

I work with software/hardware and anybody that has experienced this type of problem will tell you that this is a tough nut to crack.

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:09:57 GMT

I seriously agree with Redux. I have sent several emails to Intel support (one which was before the whole firmware fiasco) and I never received a response. Now a week after their latest firmware f*7!k up, no updates, no news, nothing! I seriously doubt I will purchase any more Intel products whether they be CPU's or SSD's and will advise people against them due to the HORRIBLE/non existent customer support.

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:27:26 GMT

Undoubtedly there's a lot of internal organizational pressure on the Intel SSD team to fix this problem. And, undoubtedly the team is qualified for the task at hand.

If it is the same team as the one that was responsible for the firmware update, then I wouldn't be so sure.

I don't need or expect to know what the value of a certain memory register was. However, some general information, such as: Have you narrowed it down to a particular operating system? or, "We're looking at the time of day in combo with the alignment of the planets", etc.

But, saying nothing for over a week is just bad business.

By the way, there are quite a few manufacturers that monitor and reply to the user comments and ratings about their products, on Newegg.com. I kinda like that.

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:35:54 GMT

I just thought I'd throw this in here. My drive was bricked, I phoned the support number and was speaking to a live person within 5 minutes, and paid $25 to have a drive cross-shipped air mail, which arrived 2 days after the phone call. Still the old firmware, and I'm still waiting to hear what is going to happen with a new firmware, but I have a brand new drive running and it only cost $25. I don't know about this 8-10 week RMA...

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:46:19 GMT

I did the same thing. It only cost me $25 to get a brand new drive (bought the day before) replaced with a brand new drive. Now thats a bargain!

I have no issues with the support phone call or the RMA process. However, this is one issue that Intel is clearly responsible for. They should have bitten the bullet and covered the $25 themselves. There are alot of people sitting on the fence waiting for some direction from the giant.

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:57:42 GMT

retiredfields wrote:

I did the same thing. It only cost me $25 to get a brand new drive (bought the day before) replaced with a brand new drive. Now thats a bargain!

That's awesome if you are in the US, if you're not though you'll find you can't really do that. Not all the world has a supply of replacement spares ready to send out like this.

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:09:08 GMT

I'm not in the U.S., actually. I'm in Fort McMurray, AB, Canada... and shipping here, especially airmail, is not cheap. I would imagine that Intel lost money on shipping it to me.

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:41:27 GMT

I heard that this is the second time Intel had an issue with the firmware. How long did it take Intel to fix the first firmware problem?

Re: " Intel has a task team in place " Why don't they join us?

idata — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:11:53 GMT

I think from April to August... not sure, but I think that was the reason the G2 drives weren't shipping for so long.

Also, I spoke with the Intel tech support rep about the firmware and the BIOS password issue. I used HDDerase 3.3 to blank my drive, but I unwittingly used the enhanced secure erase option, which apparently sets a password on the drive (thus bricking it). However, I could get it to work a little after that, and the support rep said that if the firmware could update, then the new firmware was supposed to fix this issue as well and all would be good. The firmware update worked, but the drive didn't, at least not for long. Maybe this 'fix' might be at the root of the problem, and not just enabling TRIM