Lynx Point (Haswell) USB 3.0 Controller Issue Needs new Hardware to Fix

Last month it was revealed that Intel was dealing with a number of problems regarding the USB 3.0 implementation on the Haswell, socket LGA 1150, platform. This fourth generation of Intel Core processors, succeeding Ivy Bridge, has been expected to get released in June this year. However, that hasn’t stopped Intel encountering irreconcilable problems with the new chipset hardware known as Lynx Point. The issue concerns when a Haswell based system is restored from the S3 sleep mode (suspend to RAM). After put in to sleep and woken, the system disconnects all USB 3.0 devices and then you have the reconnect them.

This problem, although not significant in itself, becomes significant when Intel says that they cannot fix the problem using the current hardware. In essence it means the first batch of Lynx Point chipsets will have this unfix-able problem as Intel doesn’t feel this one problem alone is enough to delay the release of the whole platform. Intel has described it as a nuisance and has said a new future hardware chipset revision will eventually fix the issue.

This problem is yet another embarrassment for Intel who also had SATA II problems on the Cougar Chipset (Sandy Bridge) with the whole SATA port degradation issue. For those who remember that triggered an entire recall of all first revision Sandy Bridge motherboards and resulted in the release of the new B3 revision.

For many this USB 3.0 issue is less critical because it doesn’t result data loss or any kind of performance degradation, but if you’re working off a USB 3.0 device you’d definitely corrupt your work session when resuming from sleep as it would break the connection so it would be vitally important to save all work before entering sleep mode.

Is this enough to stop you upgrading to Haswell immediately? Will you wait for the second revision? Or is it just a minor problem? Let us know what you think.

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