Some dealers in China are selling relabeled Intel Pentium M central processing units (CPUs) that were shipped as engineering samples to them, Intel Corp. reportedly confirmed early this week. The problem is not claimed to be serious and widespread, though.

“The remarked Pentium M processors that have surfaced in China were distributed to computer makers as engineering samples and were not intended to be sold to end users,” said Jennifer Liu, an Intel spokesperson in Beijing, reports IDG News Services.

Usually engineering samples of Intel processors come without certain limitations that do not allow commercial versions of the chips to be overclocked. As a result of that, unfair traders may re-label them and sell at higher value the chips that are shipped to them for validation and testing purposes.

Given that Intel does not ship too many processors for validation, the amount of remarked CPUs should not be high. Nevertheless, sometimes fake chips from Asia reach European countries as well, the previous experience shows.

Remarked CPUs may work unstably, malfunction and probably lack any overclocking potential, a capability that is valued by computer enthusiasts.

AMD and Intel not only impose different measures to tackle the relabeled chips, but also advice end-users to buy boxed microprocessors and computers from authorized distributors.