Acer latest to launch Sandy Bridge jetty

Taiwanese vendor offers customers choice of swapping or servicing defective units

Acer has become the last of the top-four PC manufacturers to announce its strategy for customers hit by the Intel Sandy Bridge recall.

Following on from announcements first from Lenovo, then HP and Dell, the Taiwanese vendor last night said that it has issued a recall of the machines that might be affected from all distribution and retail channels.

Acer's statement comes after Intel issued a recall on all P67 and H67 motherboards found in its new Sandy Bridge architecture. The flaw could potentially affect the performance of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD drives, Acer said.

The vendor is offering two options.

The first is to service defective units, which it says will minimise any inconvenience associated with the need to back up and restore user data and re-install applications. It stressed the timing of the service will depend on the supply of the fixed chipset from Intel.

The second option is that customers can request to swap their affected PC with another Acer product of comparable performance.

Both options are free of charge.

"Acer is in the process of setting up a web site where customers will be able to find out whether their product could be affected by the problem," the vendor added.