News Synology denies abnormal Atom C2000 failure rates

Could well be the case. The C2000 failure is in a specific bit of the timing hardware. If that hardware (two LPC clock output lines) is not being used (e.g. booting from SPI), then any failure would have no effect on the system. Vendors are also reporting very low failure rates (to the point they did not notice any elevated failures above the norm). It could be a multicomponent bug: rapid LPC clock failure only when certain other components interact with the LPC clock lines (e.g. not an issue if just booting from LPC, but an issue if actively using the LPC-ISA bridge).

 

Also of note that the failure rates are supposed to be rising right about now. It took Intel a while to notice because they don't start failing immediately. They go and they go and they go, and then they start stopping. From what I've heard of this fault, I wouldn't EXPECT Synology to have seen "abnormal error rates" yet.

Synology may well be extending the warranty because a lot of people are about to see their NAS boxes crap the bed, and putting the positive spin on things because Intel has been placing pressure on them to explicitly not blame Intel for product failures.