...The Pentium floating-point unit flaw only occurred on some models of the original Pentium microprocessor chip. Professor Nicely, a professor of mathematics at Lynchburg College, had written code to enumerate primes, twin primes, prime triplets, and prime quadruplets. Prof. Nicely noticed some inconsistencies in the calculations in June, 1994, shortly after adding a Pentium system to his group of computers, but was unable to eliminate other possible factors until October, 1994. On October 24th, 1994 he reported the flaw he encountered to Intel. The person that he contacted at Intel later admitted being aware of the flaw since May 1994. The flaw was discovered by Intel during testing of the FPU for its new P6 core, which was first used in the Pentium Pro. An example of the flaw was found where the division result returned by the Pentium microprocessor was off by about 61 parts per million. In November, 1994 the story first broke in an article published in Electronic Engineering Times. In the story, Intel says it has corrected the glitch in subsequent runs of the chip, and Intel dismisses the importance of the flaw saying, "This doesn't even qualify as errata." The story was later picked up by other national and international media. On November 30, 1994 Intel released an in-house study of the flaw, "Statistical Analysis of Floating Point Flaw in the Pentium Processor" H.P. Sharangpani and M.L. Barton, Intel Corporation. The study on the processor minimized the potential impact of...
Words: 431 - Pages: 2
...Collin Pannell Warwick NT 1110 October 22, 2013 The Pentium Flaw During the year of 1994 one of Intel’s processors called the Pentium microprocessor chip had a small flaw inside the chip. These Pentium processors included something new called a floating-point unit, which is also know as a math coprocessor. These Pentium processors had this floating-point unit built into the processors, which makes them much faster. These chips that were made had errors on the floating-point unit that corrupted instructions for division. This cased the Floating-point unit to divide certain floating-point numbers incorrectly. This Pentium flaw was most know from an equation solved by Tim Coe of Vitesse Semiconductors. The number he tried to divide was 4195835 by 3145727. The value that was outputted by the computer was incorrect by 0.006%. Thomas Nicely, a math professor at Lynchburg College was computing the sum of the reciprocals of a large collection of prime numbers on one of Intel’s Pentium-based computers. He calculated the same equation on a different program and then traced the problem back to the Pentium itself. Nicely contacted Intel and didn’t get any real response to the problem. He then posted on the Internet asking others to confirm the problem he had found. Nicely was interviewed with a magazine and CNN aired a story about by his findings. After Nicely’s findings, Intel publicly announced “an error is only likely to occur [about] once in nine billion random floating...
Words: 462 - Pages: 2
...The Intel Pentium Chip Controversy (A) Immediate Issue: As Andrew Grove, during my meeting of December 17,1994 with my internal team, Should I approve replacing the defective Intel chips of all concerned users with no-question asked? Also, should we also pay for the labor and other incidental costs? How should we integrate our decision into our financial books? Basic Issues: • Negative Publicity: Since Oct 30th, we have encountered a self-propelled negative publicity campaign against Pentium brand and it doesn’t seem to fade away if we don’t do anything. • Business Ethics: We knew this problem since October, but tried to hide it with the hope that it will fade away. We will be scrutinized from an ethical perspective. • Cost of my decision: How much would it cost to replace the defective chips (fully or partially)? How much would it cost if I do nothing? • Risks and Liabilities: Some of our chips are being used by large engineering firms, financial industry, research firms and educational institutes. Is there a chance that we may be sued for damage to our users? What if our chips are used in a space program? • Role of the Internet: The pace at which it went from a simple technical report by Dr. Nicely to a full fledge all media campaign against Pentium within a short period of time emphasizes to me that I can’t underestimate the power of internet. • Major players in the market: Nothing hurt us more than IBM announcement to drop Pentium. Who else...
Words: 1710 - Pages: 7
...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...
Words: 252 - Pages: 2
...turns into a problem in a hurry. Such was the case with INTEL in 1994. Dr. Thomas R. Nicely, a professor of mathematics at Lynchburg collage in Lynchburg VA was the first person to find the flaw outside of INTEL. Dr. Nicely found this flaw in the floating point unit (numeric co-processor). While performing complicate math equations he found that after the eight digit the numbers are incorrect. At first INTEL tried to keep this a secret until Dr. Nicely sent an email to INTEL on October 30th 1994. He explain how he tested many CPU’s and got the same result. Since INTEL did not inform the general public of this flaw until Dr. Nicely made his email public. I believe INTEL should have let the public know of this flaw as soon as they found it so that the people using them could adjust their mathematical data. Since social media made it easy for everyone to share the information it spread very quickly. Once it spread INTEL’s stock closed at $59.50, down $3.25 for the week. I don’t think INTEL handled it correctly, they should of let the public know as soon as they found out about it. Then INTEL should have issued replacements. INTEL finally did apologize by saying it will replace all flawed Pentiums upon request. It set aside a reserve of $420 million to cover costs. INTEL hires hundreds of customer service employees to deal with customer requests. They also dedicated four fulltime employees to read Internet newsgroups and respond immediately to any postings about Intel...
Words: 446 - Pages: 2
...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...
Words: 356 - Pages: 2
...Pentium Flaw The Pentium flaw was a bug within the Pentium CPU’s 3.1 million transistors that caused the transistors to perform division incorrectly. Intel’s engineers discovered the flaw after the product’s release in 1993 but chose to keep silent and attempt to correct the flaw in future updates to the processor chip. The flaw was discovered in 1994 by American mathematician Thomas Nicely. Nicely was using a personal computer equipped with Intel’s Pentium chip when he discovered a flaw in the chip that was producing inconsistent results in his calculations of Brun’s constant. Nicely informed Intel of the flaw, but after receiving no response he posted his finding on the internet. News of the bug spread quickly on the internet and then to the industry press. Intel’s statement that the bug was minor was not accepted by many computer users. After a spotlight of the flaw ran by The New York Times, Intel changed its postion and offered to replace every chip. Only a fraction of Pentium users bothered to have their chips replaced. I believe Intel handled the situation in a professional manner and gave customers reasonable options to have their chips replaced. I do not think the flaw in the chip affected most customers and had little effect to the common user. If the flaw was a major problem more people would have had issues and more chips would have been replaced. Intel did everything necessary to satisfy their customers. I believe if the same situation was to occur today...
Words: 305 - Pages: 2
...Back in the day there was a thing called the Pentium processor flaw which like it states was a flaw in the floating-point math section of the Pentium microprocessor. When thing happened in a certain way the floating-point division operations would be incorrect, with this an error can quickly form in floating-point operations to much larger errors in other calculations. Intel did eventually fix the issue with patches and revisions but never stated the problem directly. At Lynchburg College A mathematics professor was the one who discovered the flaw goes by the name Dr. Thomas Nicely. Once he discover the problem he went to Intel to inform them but to no avail they never responded so he went public with the info in 1944 posting his findings online. Due to the power of the internet ears all over the world heard of the flaw and they responded by saying it wasn't a big deal and “not even an erratum”. To some people that was not except able since the error occurred quite easily the average Joe could reproduce it. Once the story was published by a New York time Journalist named John Markoff it really put the pressure on Intel. They did a good 180 flip and offer to replace every faulty chip in response to the media blowing it up in there face. As a result Intel was hit with a multi million dollar charge to there 1994 revenue after creating an organization to help their users. In the end even bad publicity is still good publicity. They became a household name and even with this mishap...
Words: 465 - Pages: 2
...Pentium Flaw The Pentium microprocessor flaw was basically that the CPU didn’t know how to do arithmetic or math calculations, so it failed at calculating any type of math. The Pentium flaw was found in the summer/fall of 1994 by Thomas Nicely according to Mark Janeba from the article I read. Mark Janeba stated that Thomas Nicely was a math professor at Lynchburg College and that Thomas was computing the sum of the reciprocals of a large collection of prime numbers on his Pentium-based computer. That’s when the problem started showing up, the CPU gave Thomas different results from his theoretical values so Thomas did the same problem on a different computer, the computer gave Thomas the same answer he got theoretically. He finally tracked the problem to the Pentium chip itself. According to the article by Mark Janeba, Intel admitted the problem publically around November of 1994. Intel was going to replace the Pentium chips but only for the people that could explain their need for complicated calculations. In the end of December Intel stated that a free replacement Pentium CPU would be given for anyone that asks for one. Basically Intel was going to do a total recall, replacement and they were going to destroy any of the flawed Pentium microprocessors. I honestly don’t think Intel handled the problem very well because at first they ignored it and said that it wasn’t happening to every Pentium CPU but people were saying that the Pentium CPU was not giving them the right answers...
Words: 452 - Pages: 2
...Pentium Flaw The Pentium Microprocessor is the widest selling personal computers on the market. Intel created the 486DX and the Pentium chip that included Floating point unit (FPU). This FPU was known as a math co-processor. The problem arose in the fall of 1994, all the new Pentium chips were manufactured with an error in the FPU system. This error was in the FPU instructions for the division. This caused the chip to divide certain numbers incorrectly. Intel engineers discovered a flaw in the floating-point math subsection of the Pentium processor. But instead of assessing this problem they simply ignored it and thought that the customers would not ever notice the flaw. Thomas Nicely discovered this problem also when he was computing the sum of large reciprocals of prime numbers on his Pentium base computer. Later on Thomas emailed Intel and told them that there was a flaw in the co-processor. Intel never responded back so he took it to his own hands and posted the flaw online, asking other people to check for the flaw also on other users computers. Many people responded back and the news got involved sooner or later Intel started receiving more and more emails about the flaw. A common Known error was 4195825/3145727 dividing those numbers gave an incorrect answer to the problem. Intel’s response to this flaw was to replace Pentium chip microprocessor to whoever could explain the flaw to them. This angered man of the customers so Intel responded by replacing them...
Words: 410 - Pages: 2
...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...
Words: 482 - Pages: 2
...In late 1994, Thomas Nicely, a mathematics professor at Lynchburg College discovered a flaw with the new Intel Pentium processor while he was trying to perform calculations. He had noticed that the answers to his calculations were coming back wrong. One example of the flaw was found where the division result returned by the Pentium was off by about 61 parts per million. He initially contacted Intel in which he would find out later that they were aware that there was a problem. At first Intel denied there being a problem but after several reports they said that there was a problem but it was so minor that most computer users wouldn’t notice it. Intel then told its customers that if they could prove that they received a defective chip then they would replace it for free. IBM, who used the Pentium in their computers, cancelled their sales of their computers that had the flawed chip. But finally after a lot of negative press and decreasing sales, Intel finally decided to replace all the flawed chips. It seems to me that at first Intel did a horrible job of addressing the issue. Ii seemed as if they wanted to hide the problem because they didn’t want it to affect their profit margins. It also seemed that they were worried about losing their customer base over the issue. But in the end they seemed to have admitted their fault and tried to do the right thing and replace the defective chips. I would hope and imagine that any company, including Intel, would try to be more proactive in...
Words: 302 - Pages: 2
...The Pentium bug was a bug in the Intel P5 Pentium floating point unit. Because of the bug, the processor would send the wrong results for many calculations used in math and science. Intel blamed the problem on a few missing entries in the lookup table used by the company. The error was discovered by Professor Thomas R. Nicely at Lynchburg College on October 24, 1994. The error was rarely encountered by users; however both the flaw and Intel's initial handling of the matter were heavily criticized. On December 20, 1994, Intel offered to replace all flawed Pentium processors on request, in response to mounting public pressure. Even though only a small fraction of Pentium owners bothered to get their chips replaced, the financial impact on the company was significant. How Intel handled this was important to keep their business going but at the same time they couldn’t shoot themselves in the foot. Offering to replace the chips that were affected was a big move but I feel like the majority of Intels costumers were grateful for the service. If they didn’t take responsibility for what they did and replace those messed up chips then they wouldn’t have the customer loyalty they have today. I think what they did was the right move and tough them a good lesson on paying attention to detail. If the same flaw happened today some of the effect could be drastic. We depend on computer now days way more than they did back in the 90’s. There response to a problem like this in today’s world really...
Words: 293 - Pages: 2
...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...
Words: 906 - Pages: 4
...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 sinister secret (Emery, Vince). After several tests on 486 and Pentium-Based computers, Dr.Nicely determined that the error...
Words: 597 - Pages: 3
