Processors Toolkit

Intel investigating Windows 7 iPhone sync flaw

David Meyer ZDNet UK

Published: 03 Nov 2009 16:43 GMT

Intel is investigating a flaw that affects people trying to sync their iPhone with a PC that has an Intel P55-based motherboard and the 64-bit version of Windows 7.

The inability to synchronise iTunes with iPhones on such configurations was first flagged up on an Apple support forum in mid-September. Some posters said they had been able to mitigate the issue by downgrading iTunes from version 9.0.2 to version 9.0.0.

According to Intel, the problem may lie in the P55 chipset's Basic Input Output Software (BIOS), the set of instructions that are run when a computer starts up. These instructions check that the PC's components are all present and in order, so the computer can run properly.

"Our leading theory is that this is a BIOS or system configuration issue, but we are still investigating," Intel told ZDNet UK on Tuesday.

The chipmaker has had several BIOS-related problems in recent months. In July, it said a slew of its desktop and server motherboards were vulnerable to privileged escalation attack.

In the same month, some of Intel's solid-state drives were temporarily pulled from stores due to a flaw that would make the drives inoperable if the user set a BIOS password.