Hewlett-Packard released the following news item Wednesday, April 26, 1995. HP TO REPAIR WORKSTATIONS AND SERVERS AFFECTED BY MANUFACTURING-PROCESS FLAW Problem Has Been Corrected; Impact on Small Percentage of Certain Systems PALO ALTO, Calif., April 26, 1995 -- Hewlett-Packard Company today announced that it has discovered and corrected a manufacturing-process flaw that affects the behavior of a small percentage of HP 9000 workstation models currently installed at customer sites. The same flaw may affect a small percentage of HP 9000 and HP 3000 servers as well. The vast majority of HP's workstations and servers are not affected by this manufacturing-process flaw. The flaw can result in inconsistent system behavior, that is, with a "system machine check" message or data corruption in fewer than 20,000 HP systems worldwide. HP is advising customers of potentially affected systems to immediately contact the HP Response Center or their local sales office for further information and direction. If it's determined that a system is affected, HP will incur the costs associated with repair or replacement. HP said it does not expect this issue to have a significant financial impact on the company. From customer reports and HP's own testing, the company said a limited number of individual units of HP 9000 Model 735/125 and 755/125 workstations -- including cluster configurations -- were found to be affected. Certain other HP workstations and servers also use parts manufactured by this process, although to date, there have been no reports of problems from customers of the following systems: o HP 9000 Model 735/99, 755/99, 747i/100 and 745i/100 workstations shipped or processor boards replaced since November 1994; o HP 9000 G/H/I model 50, 60 and 70 servers shipped or processor boards replaced since October 1994; and o HP 3000 987/RX/SX, 987/150/RX/SX and 987/200/RX/SX servers shipped or processor boards replaced since October 1994. Still, HP will test systems that it believes could be affected and which already have been shipped to customers. In affected systems, the inconsistent system behavior noted is triggered by a particular instruction sequence contained in some software and executed by some PA-7100 and PA-7150 microprocessors using specific data patterns. "We have determined the root cause of the problem and are once again manufacturing and shipping systems that meet HP's high quality standards," said Willem P. Roelandts, senior vice president and general manager of HP's Computer Systems Organization. "As always, customer satisfaction is our absolute highest priority, and our teams are working extremely hard to ensure that those customers who have an affected system are satisfied by our corrective actions." Customers in the United States and Canada with potentially affected systems should contact the HP Response Center by calling 1-800-500-1176. Hewlett-Packard Company is a leading global manufacturer of computing, communications and measurement products and services recognized for excellence in quality and support. HP has 98,200 employees and had revenue of $25 billion in its 1994 fiscal year. # # #