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    Available OS2 Drivers for RZ1000 Problem Motherboard, Version 1.9

    
    

    OS/2 DRIVERS AVAILABLE FOR RZ1000 PROBLEM MOTHERBOARD, VER 1.9--DOC 8452

    
       We have largely completed our investigation of various operating systems
    
       to determine if they were affected by this problem.  We have found no
    
       new OSs that are affected.
    
    
    
       IBM has completed work on the OS/2 patch and it is now available.
    
    
    
       We have developed a diagnostic utility which detects the presence of the
    
       RZ1000 chip. Further details are available in this message or at
    
       /procs/support/rz1000/ .
    
    
    
       There have been reports, on several usenet newsgroups of a problem with
    
       PCI computers that use the RZ1000 IDE controller. Motherboards that use
    
       this chip include Intel motherboards commonly known as Premiere or
    
       Plato, as well as non-Intel motherboards. The latest Intel motherboards
    
       which use the 82430FX PCI chipset do not use the RZ1000 chip and do not
    
       have this problem.
    
    
    
       This problem presents the potential for data corruption which could
    
       manifest itself as a misspelled word in a document, incorrect values or
    
       account balances in accounting software, unexplained GP faults when
    
       program execution reaches a corrupted instruction in the executable
    
       code, destruction of directory trees, or even corruption of an entire
    
       partition or drive.
    
    
    
       Most users of early PCI motherboard-based systems are unaffected by this
    
       problem because it is also dependent on the Operating System (OS), BIOS
    
       and the IDE hard disk driver and certain operations (e.g. simultaneous
    
       floppy and IDE hard drive accesses.) 
    
    
    
       Operating systems which are unaffected by this problem when run on Intel
    
       motherboards include:
    
    
    
            --  Win 95
    
    
    
            --  Win NT ver 3.5 and later  
    
    
    
            --  Win 2.x 
    
    
    
            --  DOS
    
    
    
            --  Win 3.x is unaffected when using 16-bit disk accesses.
    
    
    
            --  Win 3.x is unaffected when using any of the major 32-bit
    
    
    
       IDE Disk Drivers (Microsoft, Western Digital, OnTrack, MicoHouse):
    
    
    
            --  NetWare
    
    
    
            --  Unixware 2.01
    
    
    
            --  NEXTSTEP
    
    
    
            --  Banyan
    
    
    
            --  Solaris 2.4+
    
    
    
            --  SCO Unix 3.1+ 
    
    
    
       Affected operating systems included:
    
    
    
            --  OS/2 and WARP
    
    
    
            --  Win NT 3.1 and earlier versions
    
    
    
            --  LINUX 
    
    
    
       Operating systems affected by this problem can be worked around by
    
       updating the IDE hard disk device driver.  In the case of Win NT 3.1 a
    
       patch is available from Microsoft via the world wide web at:
    
       http://www.microsoft.com/KB/softlib.  The patch is called
    
       "PCIATDSK.EXE".
    
    
    
       IBM has completed its  work on an updated OS/2 driver. This patch is
    
       called APAR PJ19409 and is available via a number of IBM on-line
    
       services, including http://www.ibm.com.
    
    
    
       Intel is committed to ensuring that users of our products are satisfied.
    
       We have therefore taken the following steps to address the concerns we
    
       have seen on the various usenet groups:
    
    
    
            --  Fully characterize the problem.
    
    
    
            --  Frequently update the user community on our progress.
    
    
    
            --  Work with OS vendors to develop and distribute patches, as
    
       required.
    
    
    
            --  Develop a utility program to identify which systems are
    
       susceptible to this problem.
    
    
    
       The DOS detection utility program is now available and can downloaded
    
       from the Intel Web site, at /.  This detection
    
       program will verify the presence of RZ1000 chips.
    
    
    
       Intel Corp.
    
    

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