Hewlett-Packard Co will offer a refund to customers who bought personal computers that use Intel Corp's flawed chips, though the company said only a small fraction of its PCs were affected.

HP, the world's largest PC vendor, said customers can return their PC and either choose a comparable product or receive a refund.

Intel said Monday it had found a defect in chips used with its new Sandy Bridge line of processors. The company said the defect was discovered after it shipped more than 100,000 of the chips to computer makers.

In a statement on Wednesday, HP said the chip flaw affects only a small fraction of PCs sold or ordered since January 9, when the Intel technology became available commercially.

HP said certain consumer desktops and laptops were affected, along with one commercial desktop PC model sold to small-business customers in the Europe-Middle East-Africa market.

HP said it stopped making PCs with the flawed Intel chips on Monday, and put a hold on product shipments.

Dell Inc, the No. 2 PC maker, said on Tuesday that four Dell products on the market were affected: XPS 8300, the Vostro 460, the Alienware M17x R.3 and the Alienware Aurora R.3.

We're committed to addressing this with customers who have already purchased one of the four products, the company said in a statement, without providing further details

(Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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