Ask ISN Your Questions!

By Gina Bovara (Intel) (14 posts) on April 10, 2008 at 9:11 am

Don 

Do you have a burning question you've always wondered about and wanted to ask someone at Intel? 
Well now is your chance! 

I'm opening up this blog to gather customer questions about the Intel Software Network, Intel Software Products, or general Intel questions that I will try and answer for you.  No technical questions please - these can be answered in our ISN forums or through our Intel Software Products customer support pages or at our Intel Hardware Support form.  I'm looking for your questions about Intel that might be hard to find or that are general questions you found yourself wondering about. 

Just imagine that I'm your next door neighbor who works for Intel that you just ran into on the sidewalk for a casual chat - what would you ask me?  What are you curious about?

Post your questions in the 'What do you think?' comments section below and I will edit the post to add the questions that I've received.

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ISN Customer Support Q&A:

What was your first experience with an Intel processor?

My first experience with Intel was with the Intel 386™ processor when I was 9 years old in my IBM PS/1 model 2121.  It had a 20MB hard drive and ran Windows 3.11 for Workgroups.  :)  It is a fond memory!  Prior to that, I had an Atari 800XL, which was super cool in it's day.

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Why doesn't Intel allow software developers access to its processor BIOS Writer's Guides
 
BIOS Writer's Guides (BWG) are Intel restricted access documents.  They are available for approved BIOS vendors and OEMs developing BIOS under NDA (non-disclosure agreements) through Intel.  Publicly available documents that may help you are our Software Developer's Guides and our processor documentation guides (choose a processor, then click its 'Technical Documents' tab).

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Why does Intel charge money for software development products?

This answer comes from James Reinders, Intel Software Products Director of Business Development and Marketing:
"Intel produces software in many forms, some are sold for a price, some are free and/or open source, some are available to non-commercial users for free and to commercial users for a price.  While it is very important to support our processors, it is also not our desire to destroy the market for independent innovations.  In cases where we charge a price, we are asking a fair payment for our work at a competitive price. We battle to earn our business, and this makes us a better supplier.  Most important of all - this helps create an opportunity for others to compete with our tools and make a fair price. It would be unfortunate if we extinguished competition for supporting our processors by giving away all our software. Intel is fortunate to have the richest array of support for our processors of any processor vendor – we are not interested in destroying that."

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How can I find more information about the Intel-powered Classmate PC?

Please see our Classmate PC site at http://www.classmatepc.com for more information.

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Does Intel make a CPU that fits an AM2 socket?
Date answered:  June 24, 2008
 
This is an interesting question for those of you 'stuck' with AM2 motherboards.  I'm sorry to say that the answer is no, and there are no socket adapters available for this type of configuration - the number of pins are different and so is the entire architecture of the motherboard.  No fear, though - you can still go Intel!  The easiest thing to do would be to upgrade your motherboard to an Intel Socket 775 (or Socket T) configuration - you can get some as cheap as $50 these days!  See this Amazon.com search page for examples.
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Categories: Customer Support

Comments (12) Comments RSS Feed

By VoodooGuru on April 14th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Hi... what was your first experience with an Intel processor? Mine was the Intel Pentium processor in 1993 (telling you a little about my age, lol).

By Gina Bovara (Intel) on April 14th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Thanks for your question! My answer is above. :)

By srinivaschikkala on April 14th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
We have carried out some initial testing on iSCSI (iSCSI enterprise target) and
NFS at both OS level and Oracle 10g database level, interestingly at Oracle
database level NFS is giving better performance compared to iSCSI.

Can somebody please provide comments/suggestions to get better performance with
iSCSI.

Thanks
Srinivas Ch.

By Gina Bovara (Intel) on April 15th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Hi Srinivas - this is a technical question and not one that can be answered here. I suggest you browse our Intel Pro Server Adapter iSCSI pages at http://www.intel.com/network/connectivity/products/iscsiboot.htm. You'll find frequently asked questions there and white papers with specifications.

By Josh Bancroft (Intel) on April 15th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Why does Intel charge money for software development products? It seems it would make a lot more sense (and sell a LOT more Intel hardware - isn't that the goal?) if Intel's software tools were at least free, if not open source?

You didn't say I had to pull punches, so I didn't. ;-)

By KTE on April 16th, 2008 at 4:59 am
Hi Gina, why doesn't Intel allow us software devs access to it's processor BIOS Writers Guides as do other CPU MFGs, thus creating endles problems?
Will they ever in the coming future allow public access to such documentation on microprocessor architecture?

Thanks!

By Gina Bovara (Intel) on April 16th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Hi KTE - I've answered your question above. If you believe your company should have access to our BWGs, please contact me with your request through our ISN Contact Form at http://www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/eng/58987.htm.

By KTE on April 17th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Thanks for the reply Gina, much appreciated :)

Con - tact- ting already...

By Ron on May 24th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
I live on the island of St. Lucia in the Caribbean. As IT manager for the ministry of Education I have always sought innovative ideas for the continued educational development of students. I have continually read about and have interest in Intel's Classmate PC for classroom use, but had no idea how to access the people at Intel (since there isnt an English Caribbean location on their web page) until I came across your blog.
Anyhow this is the question, Is this possible to contact Intel with a view to obtaining evaulation Classmate PCs running Windows and Linux so that a control group of students can put them to the test for further review?
Thanks in advance

By Gina Bovara (Intel) on May 28th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Hello Ron - I have answered your question above and also asked the folks at our Classmate PC site to contact you. Thanks for writing!

By zeek666 on June 23rd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
ok... this may be a very stupid question, but i have to ask anyway:

dose intel make a cpu that fits an am2 socket?

i ask because i am stuck with a comp. that came with a sempron cpu, and well do i need to say more?

By Gina Bovara (Intel) on June 24th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Hi Zeek666 - thanks for the question - it was not stupid at all! :) I have answered above.


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