Just as Intel gets set to push out the new Xeon Extender, the company is issuing a recall for its Pentium 4 Express 915 and 925 chipsets.

Intel's PR staffers issued a notice today saying the company will have "enterprise" news next week. This is a barely coded way of saying Nocona - the x86-64-bit Xeon - will arrive as planned, likely at 3.6GHz. And so the war with AMD's Opteron processor begins.

Away from this excitement, Intel outed itself on the Grantsdale chipset front, saying a bad controller has affected a few thousand motherboard shipments. The problem specifically harms the ICH6 (Integrated Controller Hub 6) and can cause systems to lock up or not to boot. Intel launched the product this week.

Intel believes it told manufacturers of the problem before any troubled systems were able to reach end users. New boards free of the defect have started shipping, and Intel will replace any faulty gear at no charge. ®

Related stories

Intel Wi-Fi module trims Centrino prices
Intel i915P, G and i925X chipsets
Intel EOLs 3.06GHz Pentium 4
Intel 'delays' Centrino 2 chipset