...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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...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 or its products. If the same problem happened today I think it would spread even faster. Social media now days connects so money people it’s insane. Also society today tend to believe all of what they...
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...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...
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...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...
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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...
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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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...Intel’s famed technical prowess was not without mishaps. Its greatest mistake was the so-called “Pentium flaw,” in which an obscure segment among the Pentium CPU’s 3.1 million transistors performed division incorrectly. Company engineers discovered the problem after the product’s release in 1993 but decided to keep quiet and fix the problem in updates to the chip. However, In 1994 American mathematician Thomas Nicely was using a personal computer equipped with the then new Pentium chip from the Intel Corporation when he discovered a flaw in the chip that was producing inconsistent results in his calculations of Brun’s constant. Negative publicity from the mathematics community led Intel to offer free replacement chips that cost them millions of dollars in revenue. My analysis of the way the Intel Corporation handled the Pentium flaw of the 90's was irresponsible. They seemed to basically dismiss that there would be noticeable problems that could affect the user with their computer. Although in most cases this assumption is correct, it still shows a great deal of dishonestly from the company because it seemed as if Intel tried to cover it up. I feel that Intel was lazy and simply not willing to fix the problem that they created due to cost concerns. If I were to sell a bicycle to someone knowing the breaks were faulty, causing occasional break failure, I think people would be pretty upset and I would most likely be sued for sub sequential harm caused. On December 20, 1994,...
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...The Flaw in the Intel Pentium Chip I In late 1994, the media began to report that there was a flaw in the new Pentium microprocessor produced by Intel. A flaw in the Pentium was especially significant since at that time it was the microprocessor used in 80% of the personal computers produced worldwide. Apparently, flaws in a complicated integrated circuit such as the Pentium are not uncommon. Most of these flaws cannot be detected by the user and do not affect the operation of the computer. The flaw that was discovered in 1994 was different. It caused incorrect answers when performing double-precision arithmetic, a very common computer operation. The flaw was easily detected by computer users. In fact, it first came to light when a university researcher noticed that the results of some calculations he was performing using his PC were incorrect. Many daily newspapers across the country carried stories about this problem. Intel’s initial response was that although there was indeed a defect in the chip, the defect was insignificant and the vast majority of users would never even notice it. The chip would be replaced for free only for users who could demonstrate that they needed an unflawed version. Of course, this approach did not satisfy most Pentium owners since no one can predict whether the flaw might be significant in a future application. IBM, a major Pentium user, canceled the sales of all IBM computers containing the flawed chip. Finally, after much negative publicity...
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...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...
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...TermPaperWarehouse.com - Free Term Papers, Essays and Research Documents The 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...
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...Pentium Microprocessor Flaw The Pentium Microprocessor Flaw was in the floating point math section. The most famous example is the case 4195835/3145727. The division results were off by approximately sixty-one parts per million. The way this issue was discovered was by a math professor at Lynchburg college by the name of, Thomas Nicely, this college was located in Virginia. He discovered this flaw in summer/fall of 1994. While he was computing the sum of the reciprocals of a large collection of prime numbers. Checking his computation, he found the result differed from theoretical values. So he decided to try the same program but on a different computer. He tired a computer with a 486 CPU, and came up with the correct results. So going bac onto a 486DX CPU he tracked the error himself on the Pentium itself. After not getting a straight forward response to his initial queries to Intel and after checking his facts multiple times, he nicely posted a general notice on the internet asking others to see if they came up with the same results as he did. After that post he got a couple magazine interviews and shortly after even CNN interviewed him. Intel publicly announced that, “an error is only likely to occur [about] once in nine billion random floating point divides,” and that, “an average spreadsheet user could encounter this subtle flaw once in every 27,00 years of use.” While critics stated that while hitting a pair of bad inputs was highly unlikely, the Pentiums output for those...
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...INTEL Knows Best? A Major Marketing Mistake Problem Statement When Thomas Nicely, a mathematician at Lynchburg College in Virginia, first went public with the fact that Intel's new Pentium chip was defective Intel admitted to the fact that it had sold millions of defective chips, and had known about the defective chips for over four months. Intel said its reasoning for not going public was that most people would never encounter any problems with the chip. Intel said that a spreadsheet user doing random calculations would only have a problem every 27,000 years, therefore they saw no reason to replace all of the defective chips. However if a user possessed a defective chip and could convince Intel that his or her calculations were particularly vulnerable to the flaw in the defective chip then Intel it would supply those people with a new chip. This attitude of 'father knows best' fostered by Intel created an uproar among users and owners of the defective chips. Six weeks after Mr. Nicely went public, IBM, a major purchaser of Pentium chips, stopped all shipments of computers containing the defective Pentium chips. Intel's stock dropped 5% following this bold move by IBM. IBM's main contention was that it puts its customers first, and Intel was failing to do this. Intel's handling of this defective chip situation gives rise to many questions. During the course of this paper I will address several of them. The first of which is how did a company with such a...
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...Date: Andrew Grove, PhD – President and CEO of Intel Corporation FT50812 Intel Pentium Chip Controversy December 17, 1994 Summary Intel’s reputation as a producer of quality microprocessors is being questioned. Public perception views Intel as insensitive to consumer concerns and overly profit driven. The investments Intel has made in the Pentium chip to secure a competitive advantage will be pointless if consumers lose trust in the Intel brand. Analysis of Issues Intel’s dilemma is whether to recall a product that is defective under certain conditions (p. 2).1 This decision requires consideration of the financial and operational issues, as well as the potential long-term impact to Intel’s competitive advantage in the computer industry and Intel’s relationships with companies that purchase microprocessors. These issues are further described below. Competitive Advantage The new Pentium chip is the embodiment of Intel’s advantage over other companies. Intel has the distinction of being first in the industry to engineer and produce microprocessors (p. 2). In addition, Intel has made significant investments in research and development to design the Pentium, has incurred significant expenditure in promotions, and has secured its investment with a name-based patent (p. 3). 1 All page numbers referenced herein are drawn from the following case study: Narayanan, V.C. (2002). The Intel Pentium Chip Controversy (A). Harvard Business School. 9-196-091. 1 Computer technology...
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...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...
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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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