Chip giant Intel has proffered an explanation for shutting its motherboard forum, as it emerged that it will also be shutting up shop elsewhere.

If you go to this Intel URL, there is an extensive list of forums closing between now and the middle of August.

An Intel representative said that it was the firm's experience that support enquiries could be better answered by responding to customers by email rather than using the forum method.

In practice, he explained, engineers were responding to individual questions posted on the message boards, which seemed to work better.

He said that those engineers would now work on other tools to better support Intel's differing range of products.

What he didn't say was that it also meant you didn't get a heap of nutters posting stuff such as Intel Sucks, AMD is Great in green ink. We have one or two nutters (hi Protologic) on our forum too... all in all, it just adds to the rich tapas tree of life. ®

Intel slams door on mobo support