...Unit 5 analysis 1: Pentium flaw Aaron Mancias April 16 2016 Professor Amos The CPU is a central processing unit brains of the computer aka microprocessor or processor. It executes a sequence of stored instructions called a program containing millions of transistors interconnected by smell aluminum wires (busses). They carry various signals addresses and data (3 types of data bus, address bus), control bus. The flaw was discovered in 1994, a division error in the Pentium chip by Intel. only told to people who worked inside the company and nobody else .the same month a professor of mathematics at Lynchburg college , Virginia by the name of Dr. Thomas A nicely notices a small difference in the two sets of numbers , rechecking everything he comes to the conclusion ( Pentium chip) eliminating all other causes, 5 month in total . The flaw of the chip cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars and Intel appeared as it was hiding a sinister secret. Intel’s response was very unprofessional and that’s what lead there minor problem into beings so chaotic and costworthy. Basically. DR. Thomas nicely contacted them told them about their problem. Intel duplicates the error...
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...Unit 5 Analysis 1: Pentium Flaw The Intel Pentium microprocessor was introduced on March, 1993 that was hugely popular among consumers because of its cheap price and decent performance. Unfortunately, the early versions of these microprocessors had a flow within the floating point unit (also called a math coprocessor). This caused the Pentium's FPU to incorrectly divide certain floating-point numbers. Because only certain numbers divide incorrectly and Intel assumed that many users would never encounter the division error, the company decided to keep the issue quiet and fix the problem in updates to the chip. Thomas Nicely, a math professor at Lynchburg College, discovered the error however, and after sending his findings to Intel with no response, he posted his findings on the Internet, where others confirmed his theories. When Intel finally announced the bug, they originally said that they would only replace chips for users that require high-accuracy calculations, but when IBM publically refused to sell computers with faulty chips, Intel offered to replace all flawed Pentium processors. Because Intel chose to keep the flaw quiet, and because they originally refused to recall the product, they caused a great public outcry. Their mistakes also ended up costing them over $475 million and damaged their image. Intel now currently post all flaws and bugs that they find in their products in order to avoid another catastrophe like the Pentium Flaw. Other companies also take this...
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...Below is a free excerpt of "Nt1110 Unit 5 Analysis 1" from Anti Essays, your source for free research papers, essays, and term paper examples. NT1110 Unit 5 Analysis 1: Pentium Flaw The Pentium flaw began to be noticed on a public level in 1994. This was a huge flaw considering that the Pentium processor was used in 80% of the personal computers worldwide. The microprocessor is the heart of the computer and controls all of the operations and calculations that take place. “Flaws are not uncommon in complicated integrated circuits and most of them go unnoticed by the user” (Fleddermann, 2004). However, the Pentium flaw was very different. It caused incorrect answers when preforming double-precision arithmetic and was easily detected by the users. The first time that it was noticed, was by a university researcher. He noticed that the results of some of his calculations were incorrect. They began to do test on whether or not the microprocessor was flawed. “Using spreadsheet software, the user was able to take the number 4,195,835, multiply it by 3,145,727, and then divide that result by 3,145,727. As we all know from elementary math, when a number is multiplied and then divided by the same number, the result should be the original number. In this example, the result should be 4,195,835. However with the flaw, the result of the calculation was 4,195,579” (Crothers, 1994). Intel originally denied that there was even a flaw. Only after it become clear to the public that there...
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...Ariel Torrente NT1110 Unit 5 Analysis Pentium Flaw Ariel Torrente NT1110 Unit 5 Analysis 7/27/2013 Pentium Flaw The Pentium flaw also nicknamed the Pentium FDIV bug, was an identified error in the Intel P5 Pentium floating unit. The presence of the bug can be checked manually by performing the following application that uses native floating numbers, including Windows Calculator or Microsoft Excel in Windows 95/98 (Pentium FDIV bug). The Pentium flaw was discovered byProfessor Thomas R.Nicely at Lynchburg Collwge,Virginia USA (Emery, Vince). Dr.Thomas R Nicely is a mathematic professor, noticed a small difference in two sets of numbers, he always double-checks his work by computing everything twice, two different ways (Emery, Vince). Dr.Nicely spent months successively eliminating possible causes such as PCI bus errors and compiler artifacts (Emery, Vince). Intel wanted to keep to keep the Pentium flaw a secret, after Intel testers discovered a division error in the Pentium chip (Emery, Vince). Intel managers decided that the error wouldn’t affect many people, therefore no one outside of the company was not informed (Emery, Vince). The pandemonium over Intel’s Pentium chip cost the company millions of dollars and could have been prevented and became an uproar on the internet (Emery, Vince). This was Intel’s first mistake and the company was given a reputation that made Intel not a trustworthy company and not disclosing that information made them seem to be hiding a...
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...Research Paper Factory Join Search Browse Saved Papers Home Page » Computers and Technology Intel Pentium Microprocessor Flaw In: Computers and Technology Intel Pentium Microprocessor Flaw Pentium Microprocessor Flaw NT1110 Pentium Microprocessor Flaw Pentium microprocessor flaw was in the floating-point math subsection. The flaw was found where the division result returned by the Pentium microprocessor was off by approximately sixty-one parts per million. Once Intel pinpointed the flaw, their solution was to keep the information within the company and not disclose the information to the public. Regardless of the fact that the flaw did not affect all microprocessors, it actually only affected a very small number of customers, Intel should have openly acknowledged the problem. When customers would call into Intel with issues concerning the flaw, Intel would input a certain code into it in order to verify that was in fact the problem. Once the problem was identified, Intel then would implement a solution. However, if Intel had openly accepted and informed the clients about the issue, it most likely would have saved them not only money but also their reputation between the company and their existing clients. Needless to say, their decision resulted in some very unhappy customers. If this same type of flaw was to be found in a new CPU today, the company would surely fail. With a problem in the floating-point math subsection with an error...
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...“The Pentium Microprocessor Flaw” Jamaal Bonner April 25, 2014 NT1110/Computer Structure and Logic Professor Marcus Price The Pentium Microprocessor Flaw The Pentium microprocessor is the CPU (central processing unit) developed by Intel. Pentium chips include a floating-point unit (FPU) that has integrated instructions that tell the chip how to compute integer arithmetic, making them much faster [for heavy numerical calculations], more complex, and more expensive. The problem for Intel is that all Pentiums manufactured until sometime in fall of 1994 had errors in the on-chip FPU instructions for division. This caused the Pentium's FPU to incorrectly divide certain floating-point numbers. Many software packages don't actually use a computer's FPU. These packages don't show the error and only certain numbers divide incorrectly. Thomas Nicely, a math professor at Lynchburg College, discovered the flaw in the Pentium’s FPU in summer/fall 1994. He computed the sum of the reciprocals of a large collection of prime numbers on his Pentium-based computer and found the result differed largely from theoretical values. Nicely posted a general notice of the flaw on the Internet and asked others to confirm his findings after receiving no response from Intel, which ultimately led to magazine and television interviews. Intel publicly announced that the subtle error would only occur to an average spreadsheet user once in every 27,000 years of use. Critics noted that the Pentium’s...
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...Pentium Microprocessor Flaw NT1110 19 October, 2013 Pentium Microprocessor Flaw Pentium microprocessor flaw was in the floating-point math subsection. The flaw was found where the division result returned by the Pentium microprocessor was off by approximately sixty-one parts per million. Once Intel pinpointed the flaw, their solution was to keep the information within the company and not disclose the information to the public. Regardless of the fact that the flaw did not affect all microprocessors, it actually only affected a very small number of customers, Intel should have openly acknowledged the problem. When customers would call into Intel with issues concerning the flaw, Intel would input a certain code into it in order to verify that was in fact the problem. Once the problem was identified, Intel then would implement a solution. However, if Intel had openly accepted and informed the clients about the issue, it most likely would have saved them not only money but also their reputation between the company and their existing clients. Needless to say, their decision resulted in some very unhappy customers. If this same type of flaw was to be found in a new CPU today, the company would surely fail. With a problem in the floating-point math subsection with an error of approximately sixty-one parts per million, this would cause too many problems for the clients today. Especially considering that Intel declined the opportunity to inform their customers and supply a solution...
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...Unit 5 Analysis- Pentium Flaw NT1110 February 11, 2015 Instructor Sheila Pearson The Pentium flaw was when a segment among the Pentium CPU’s transistors performed division incorrectly. Engineers for Intel discovered the problem after the product was released in 1993 but they kept it hush hush and decided to fix the problem by using updates to the chip. A mathematician by the name of Thomas Nicely that worked for Lynchburg College in West Virginia also discovered the flaw. At first Grove, who was the CEO of Intel at the time, did not want to recall the product but when IBM got involved and made the announcement that they would not sell any computers that used that CPU chip, it forced Intel to do a recall that cost them about $475 million. In the beginning by keeping it quiet they were doing the wrong thing by trying to deceive the customer. By doing that they could have lost a lot of business from customers who might have felt that they were not trustworthy and were knowingly selling faulty products. But in the end they did the right thing and recalled the chips with the flaws in it which is the right thing to do. They decided to replace all flawed processors upon request and put aside a 420 million dollar budget to do so. They also hired hundreds of employees to specifically deal with customer requests. They placed four fulltime employees to read Internet newsgroups and respond to any and every question or remark about Intel’s products. If this same flaw was to happen today...
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...Tiffany M Shamlee Unit 5 Analysis 1 NT1110 Pentium Flaw The Pentium flaw was discovered where the division result returned by the Pentium microprocessor was off by about sixty-one parts per million. When Intel discovered the flaw, their solution was to keep the information within the company. They did not want to disclose any of the information to the public, because of the negative publicity it would bring to the company. The flaw did not affect all microprocessors, only a very small number of customers. I feel that Intel should have openly acknowledged the problem despite the small number of customers affected. Intel determined if customers were affected by the flaw when they called in to report a problem. They did this by inputting a certain code into their system. Once they identified the problem, Intel would then implement a solution. However, if feel if Intel had openly accepted and informed the clients about the issue, it would have most likely saved them money. Their reputation between the company and their existing clients would have also been protected. Intel’s decision and way of handling the flaw caused a lot of their customers to be very unhappy. If this type of flaw was to be found in a new CPU today, the company would surely fail. With a problem in the floating-point math subsection with an error of approximately sixty-one parts per million, this would cause too many problems for the clients today. Especially considering that Intel declined...
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...Mr. Valeras-NT1110 Friday, April 18, 2014 Unit 5 Analysis 1: Pentium Flaw Pentium purpose and functions was that it was a microprocessor in the CPU and the chip included a floating point unit FPU also known as a math coprocessor. Unlike the old Intel CPUs that did arithmetic using integers, this was a program that used floating point number. The Pentium chips have the instructions built into the chip which was in the FPUs. It made the Pentium must faster for intense numerical calculations. It’s was more complex and was more expensive than the others. Only to discover a problem with Pentium was that it was incorrectly dividing certain floating point numbers. Fall of 1994, Intel Pentium had a major flaw in there system and was discovered by a professor at Lynchburg College. Thomas Nicely, a math professor discovered a flaw on Intel’s Pentium when he was computing the sum of a reciprocal of a large collection of prime numbers. He checked his computations and discovered his results differ from his theoretical values. He then got correct answers when he ran the same program on a computer with a 486 CPU. There is when he realized an error in the Pentium. Thomas did not receive any responds from Intel only after he posted a general notice on the Internet asking for others to confirm his findings. That’s when Magazine and CNN interviewed him. Intel publicly announced and I Quote ‘’an error is only to likely occur about once in nine billion random floating point divides”, and...
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...Shawn Kersh NT1110 July 20, 2015 PENTIUM FLAW The Pentium Flaw occurred when Intel’s Pentium CPU’s 3.1 million transistors performed division incorrectly. The problem was not only realized by Intel’s engineers after the release of the product in 1993, but it was also discovered by a mathematician at Lynchburg College in West Virginia by the name of Thomas Nicely. When the problem was discovered and brought to the attention of then CEO, Andy Grove, he resisted ideas to recall the product. Instead, he wanted the problem resolved by sending out updates for the chip. Then when Intel came out and said it would not be shipping out the product it cost the company 475 million in recalls (Intel Corporation, 2015). Intel did not handle this problem correctly at all. First the company tried to hide the flaw, and say that it was common for a complex microprocessor to have a few bugs in it, and that this would affect hardly anybody. Once the flaw was also discovered and published by Nicely, the company’s secrecy began to look like a cover up and they were forced to acknowledge the flaw (Helm, 1994). The company took somewhat of a selfish approach when it came to satisfying the customers that were affected by the flaw. The company was only agreeing to replace the chips that were thought to cause problems, instead of replacing every single one no questions asked. This was more of a short tem solution to the crisis rather than looking at it on a long term...
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...Marcos Corpas 1/18/2016 NT1110 Unit 5 Analysis 1: Pentium Flaw The Pentium processor flaw was a flaw in the floating-point math subsection of the Pentium microprocessor. When certain conditions were met low order bits of the result of floating-point division operations would be incorrect, an error that can quickly compound in floating-point operations to much larger errors in subsequent calculations. Intel corrected the problem in a future revision, but they refused to disclose it. The mathematics professor at Lynchburg College who discovered the flaw was Dr. Thomas Nicely. Dr. Nicely then had an inquiry with Intel and upon not receiving any response from them he posted about the flaw on October 30th 1994 online. Word quickly spread of the flaw and Intel responded by saying that the bug was minor and “not even an erratum”. Since the bug was easy to replicate by the average user, Intel's response about the bug was not accepted by many computer users. When New York Times Journalist John Markoff ran a piece that spotlighted the error, Intel in response to the media coverage changed its position on the matter and offered to replace every faulty chip. Intel put in place a large end-user support organization. This resulted in a five hundred million dollar charge against Intel's 1994 revenue. Interestingly enough, the attention paid to the Intel Pentium Processor Flaw made Intel go from a seemingly unknown computer supplier to a regular household name. The incident is considered by...
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...In June, 1994 the media came out with a story that one of Intel’s Pentium microprocessors had a floating point unit flaw (FPU). This flaw had to do with a math calculation that gave out wrong number after you put in an equation. The story about this flaw came to light after Professor by the name of Thomas Nicely, who was a mathematics professor at Lynchburg collage. Nicely was trying to compute the sum of a reciprocal of a large group of prime numbers on his Pentium based computer. When he checked the results they were different by a large amount from the theoretical values. By running the same test program on a different computer with a 486CPU, he came up with the right numbers this lead him to be able to track down the error to the Pentium itself. After finding the problem Nicely send out an email to Intel describing the problem that he had come across in his test. The email stated that there was a flaw in the Pentium floating point unit (FPU). With no response back from Intel Nicely posted a general notice on the internet asking people to confirm his findings. When the media got wind of this story Nicely did some magazine and T.V interviews about what his test resolute showed him. The flaw in the Pentium flaw was not an isolated incident the flaw was quickly verified by other people around the world in the scientific community, which became referred to as the Pentium FDIV bug. When the story first broke Intel’s initial response was to deny that there was a kind of a problem...
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