Computer Chip Scam, Pentium Pirates - How Can They Get Away With It?
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I’ve already mentioned above how easy it is to make a Celeron pass for a Pentium. That’s certainly a contributing factor. It isn’t the only force involved, however.
China itself has been long known for having regions that are hotbeds of counterfeit electronic components and other criminal activity. The country does little to stop it, despite complaints from the United States and other countries. Without official sanctions with teeth, the activity flourishes.
Another problem is that many fraudsters don’t stay around long enough to get caught. According to one person whose firm was burned by electronic suppliers from the Shenzen area of China, “Many companies pop up just long enough to do a couple of shady deals and then vanish.”
But interestingly enough, the most likely reason that so many criminals get away with chip remarking is that users don’t notice the difference. Certainly an overclocking enthusiast will, but Joe User? One Slashdot reader, commenting on a related story, mentioned working with someone who only used his computer to surf the web with his dial-up connection. He bought a Pentium 4 at 1.5 GHz rather than a Celeron at 2.5 GHz because the “Pentium 4 is just way better.” He seemed perfectly happy with the chip’s performance.
Yes, they are that dumb.
It isn’t just Joe User who might not be able to spot the difference. An experienced systems administrator who has built his own computer commented that he never has time to deal with the hardware; other people handle that. “I wouldn’t notice the scam…unless I happen to glance at the messages during a system boot or notice the discrepancy while resolving some driver problem (non-Windows), or somehow notice that the system is way slower than it should be.”
This same person points out the obvious: “So…if an experienced person who just doesn’t deal with hardware wouldn’t spot this scam on the first glance, how would a layman get it?” How indeed. Let the buyer beware.
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