All indies want for Christmas is chips

CHIP SHORTAGE

A shortage of PC components is squeezing independent retailers in the run-up to Christmas as multiples and bigger off-the-page vendors suck up all available CPUs and hard drives.

A drought of Intel 133MHz CPUs is the latest chip shortage to blight the trade forcing indies to spend u129 more on the 166MHz processors, which carry a trade price of u267.

It follows a chronic shortage of Intel's 120MHz CPUs (CRN 7 October).

Hugh Baker Smith, PC divisional manager at Frontline said: "Intel was determined that 133MHz would be the entry spec this Christmas. Most of those machines have now been built and the industry is moving relentlessly on to an entry-level 166MHz."

"There is a short-term shortage on both 120s and 133s," said an Intel spokeswoman. She failed to confirm availability by the middle of December.

Frontline's Baker Smith also confirmed widescale shortages of IDE hard drives from Seagate, Quantum, Western Digital and Maxtor. "It will be next quarter before the situation is alleviated," he said.

Richard Gandy, (pictured) owner of Computer Cavern, said Trust-branded PCs from Aashima were temporarily unavailable owing to a lack of hard drives. "I've been waiting for 10 days now," he said.