Distributors have now confirmed the problems with the K7 MicroStar 6167 motherboard we reported last week. (Story: Athlon mobos recalled) Shipments of the 6167 were recalled last week, but supplies to make up the shortfall are not now expected until the end of September. According to further reports, the Asus motherboard has also been plagued by incompatibility problems, including VGA and overheating issues. Again, those problems are likely to be fixed at the end of September, with prices around $150. These reports were denied by Luke Ireland, operations director of Evesham Micro, a UK company. He said his company had all their mobos replaced two weeks ago. Further, he said, 25 per cent of worldwide Athlon mobo shipments go to the UK. Evesham has lots of motherboards, said Ireland. He also expected Chaintech to start shipping its AMD K7 Athlon mobos in volume in mid-October. Many American Web sites have complained they cannot get Athlons. Last week, a German distributor said that while he had many orders for the AMD Athlon since its launch date, mobo support was the problem. However, there may be better news on that front. According to Sharky Extreme, Via is close to completing its AMD Athlon chipset, which we exclusively reported when at Computex in June. That will likely make it easier for a number of other mobo makers to build K7 printed circuit boards. The same source reports confirmation that AMD is going to shift to socketed parts, as already reported here. ® Complete Computex 99 coverage