By Andy Patrizio,
Intel has finally fixed bugs in its Pentium II Xeon line that delayed the appearance of four-way servers using the 450-MHz Xeon, letting original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) crank up their own production plans.
The bugs first surfaced shortly after the Xeon line was introduced last June and occurred only in the 450-MHz Xeon chip when used in a four-way server configuration. The four chips were unable to communicate properly, causing freeze-ups, and error-correction code for memory didn't work properly.
Server OEMs were able to ship four-way systems, but had to spend extra time validating every CPU and server to make sure they were not subject to lockups. Earlier this month, Intel did a new build of the Xeon silicon design, the process called "stepping," and found it had fixed all of the errors.
Compaq, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM are already beginning to deliver four-way servers using the 400-MHz Xeon, according to Manny Vara, a spokesman for Intel. The servers should begin to reach customers around January.
The bug was a modest one, said Fred Zieber, president of Pathfinder Research. "It certainly isn't comparable to some of the bugs they've had before."
Also Monday, Sequent unveiled a server that uses 64 450-MHz Xeon processors in parallel.
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