Survey: Component Shortages On Rise

Five of the seven component categories in the survey--motherboards, memory, video/graphics cards, NICs and hard drives--showed growing shortages last month compared with June figures. Plus, respondents said shortages could get worse, at least for the short term.

Kenny Kremm, vice president of Proactive Technologies, a system builder in Carrollton, Texas, blamed the shortages on Intel's transition to the new Xeon chips for Nacona systems. He said he is having difficulty getting chassis, motherboards and other components associated with the new systems and is having trouble finding older 5250E chassis for older systems.

"They have retooled their factories and they are trying to force everybody to start buying the new stuff," he said. Kremm said he expects the shortages to ease in a few weeks as production ramps up.

Seven percent of respondents cited motherboards as being in severe shortage in July compared with only 1 percent in June. Likewise, the percentage of system builders reporting severe shortage numbers for memory doubled in July to 12 percent over June figures. Eight percent of system builders reported severe shortages in video card supplies vs. 4 percent in June.

LCDs are experiencing the highest level of shortages, though the level is diminishing. Microprocessors registered a slight improvement in availability.