Intel reported today they have discovered an electrical problem that can cause computers using its flagship Itanium 2 processor to behave erratically or crash. The problem shouldn't affect a big percentage of users, after all they have been around for over a year and the glitch wasn't found until now.

Customers can sidestep the problem by setting the processor to run at a lower speed, said company spokeswoman Barbara Grimes, and Intel will replace the processor if customers want. The glitch only affects some chips, and then only in the case of "a specific set of operations in a specific sequence with specific data," according to Grimes.