HP and Dell take a stand on Sandy Bridge

PC duo follow in footsteps of Lenovo by announcing replace and refund services for affected customers

Dell and HP have become the latest A-brands to join Lenovo in rolling out trade-in schemes for PCs featuring Intel's defective Sandy Bridge chip.

Intel halted shipments of the chip, used in the firm's Second Generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, earlier this week following the discovery of a design fault.

As reported by ChannelWeb today, Lenovo has responded by offering full-price refunds or free replacement hardware for affected customers.

Since then HP has released a statement confirming that it halted shipments of products containing the chip on the same day Intel announced the fault.

It also confirms that HP has rolled out a similar trade-in initiative aimed at buyers of certain product lines, including a select type of SMB-specific desktop, which is sold only in EMEA.

It states: "For HP, the issue is primarily limited to certain consumer notebooks and certain consumer desktops. One commercial desktop PC marketed to small business customers in the EMEA region is also affected.

"Customers can return their affected product and choose a comparable product or receive a refund," it continued.

Additionally, Dell has informed customers via a corporate blog post that it plans to provide free motherboard replacements via its service provider partners from April.

It states: "Once we have the new chipsets from Intel in early April, we will provide a motherboard replacement that corrects the design issue at no cost to customers.

"Affected customers may also take advantage of the applicable return policy, which may vary by region."