Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs | Hacker News Reader

Newegg sold counterfeit Intel Core i7 CPUs

blogs.zdnet.com

13 pointsMykalMorton21 comments

According to Tom Merrit of CNET & Buzz out Loud, the complete package was fake - foam fan, plastic heatsink, plastic processor, misspelled packaging, etc... It seems like a case or two (nearly 300 processors) of i7 processors were switched for fakes somewhere down the line, before making it to Newegg.

EDIT - Apparently, the processors were pieces of scrap metal.

Somewhere, Tony Soprano is happy.

How on earth do you counterfeit a CPU of that grade without a trail a mile wide ?

I'm sure plenty of consumers would never notice if you swapped an i5 for an i7 but to counterfeit an entire CPU is next to unbelievable.

My guess is that if they follow these to the source they'll end up at an intel fab where they were discarded as rejects for some reason or other.

I think the only way to do it, is to somehow package an old and cheap chip in the i7 package. It still won't be cheap but it is doable.

An old chip would at a minimum have to be socket compatible, otherwise the system won't even boot.

Simpler to just take a rejected chip and package it in a retail box.

Note that the chip itself seems genuine enough but all the bits around it (hologram, manual) are of such low quality that they might as well not be there.

Late stage rejects are supposed to be destroyed in the factory, given the number of those rejects and the fact that the street price of these chips is as high as it is there should be little cause for wonder that maybe someone figured out a way to make some money on the side?

Blank pages in a manual vs packaging an old chip in a 'new' case is a bit of a difference in grade of accomplishment.

edit: turns out the chips are not 'counterfeits' but simply clumps of metal

The "counterfeits" don't work at all; the "processor" is just a piece of metal and the "heatsink" is made of plastic.

That makes more sense, if they actually managed to counterfeit a CPU they ought to be given a medal or something ;)

It's a far cry from real counterfeiting, but in the past Intel had problems with "remarking" processors; people would buy low-bin parts, sand off the markings and re-etch them with a higher speed. This was fixed with multiplier locking and (to a lesser extent) CPUID.

From the reports I've seen, the CPU was entirely fake -- it was an inert chunk of molded metal.

Counterfeit to me suggests 'functional', just like counterfeit money is not 'real' but it functions just like real money until you test it thoroughly.

more here:

http://hardocp.com/news/2010/03/07/intel_comment_on_fake_cpu...

Video of a pseudo unboxing of the fake i7 box / demo unit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54tDqM5-6RU

...and a little bit of commentary from another customer who received a fake/demo i7: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmEgSg9m89U

More (full-res) pictures: http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1035412736&postc...

Do these photos support the claim that the boxes were just demos shipped mistakenly, or that they were indeed counterfeits that were inserted into the supply chain? Thoughts?

I think the evidence is pretty convincing that they were counterfeits created by people with no connection to Intel.

Putting the CPU/heatsink aside - If you wanted to ship a demo unit, wouldn't you just use the exact same box that you're already producing thousands of in the factory and slap a "demo" sticker on it? Even if you made a separate demo box, there's no reason that the boilerplate text wouldn't just be a copy/paste. It's obvious that someone not familiar with English and French manually copied the text (the French text is even worse than the English; the accents are missing pointing in the wrong direction).

I was thinking the same thing. The poor English, and the even worse translations, seem like a dead giveaway that these are definitely the worst of the worst: FAKE DEMO UNITS! The world will implode in 5.4.3.2.1...

the news is that newegg is aware of a shipping error that occurred with certain recent orders of the Intel Core i7-920 CPU. After investigating the issue internally it appears one of our long term partners mistakenly shipped a small number of demo boxes instead of functional units.

Demo boxes? That would explain a lot

Have a look here:

http://hardocp.com/news/2010/03/07/intel_comment_on_fake_cpu...

That makes the newegg spin definitely less believable.

It doesn't make sense. If it were a demo, wouldn't Intel stamp "DEMO" on it all over, so it wouldn't be mistaken for the real thing? Also, as the article points out, why would there be a blank manual in a demo chip, and why would Intel make it look nearly identical to the shipping version, modulo typos?

This is a quote from the article which was rebuffed. Restating it here for no particular reason / without additional commentary is unnecessary clutter.

Edit: Sigh, I'm pretty sure this is a bot account.

This is kinda scary, there should be seal wrap , like asprin, to ensure that the product is correct.

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