...Unit 5 Analysis1: Pentium Flaw In June 1994, Intel discovered the floating-point unit flaw in the Pentium microprocessor. Professor Thomas Nicely, a professor of mathematics at the Lynchburg College, had written code to enumerate primes, twin primes, prime triplets, and prime quadruplets. Professor Thomas Nicely noticed some inconsistencies in the calculations on June 13th , 1994 shortly after adding a Pentium system to his group of computers, but was unable to eliminate other possible factors (such as programming errors, motherboard chipsets, etc.) until October 19, 1994. On October 24th, 1994 he reported the flaw he encountered to Intel. According to Professor Thomas Nicely, the person that he contacted at Intel later admitted to Intel 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. Professor Thomas Nicely sent an email describing the flaw that he had discovered in the Pentium floating point unit (FPU) to various contacts, requesting reports of testing for the flaw on the 486-DX4s, Pentium and the Pentium clones. The flaw in the Pentium FPU (floating-point unit) was quickly verified by other people around the Internet, and became known as the Pentium FDIV bug (FDIV is the x86 assembly language instruction for floating point division). An example of the flaw was found where the division result returned by the Pentium microprocessor was off by about 61 parts per million...
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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 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...
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...The Pentium flaw was discovered in June 1994. The Pentium floating point flaw occurred in some models of the original Pentium microprocessor chip. Pentium processors with a clock speed of 120 MHz or higher are not affected by the flaw. The Intel Processor Frequency ID Utility checks for the floating point flaw on the affected microprocessors. Professor Thomas Nicely discovered the Pentium floating point unit flaw and emailed various contacts describing the flaw. Professor Nicely requested testing for the flaw on the 486-DX4s, and the Pentium clones. The flaw in in the Pentium floating point unit was verified and became known as the FDIV bug. The issue was a mathematical problem in the Floating Point (FPU), the math coprocessor. The Pentium chip had glitches when calculation large divisions. Testing on the 486 pin pointed the error to the Pentium Chip. Intel confirmed the error but said they had no other reports of it. Intel the considered the flaw as a minor problem and did not let the industry know about the flaw. However word of the flaw got out through the internet and articles and Intel started getting negative publicly. Intel handled did not handle the problem with the flaw correctly. By considering the flaw minor to avoid fixing the problem and negative publicly, Intel showed poor judgment and integrity as a company. Intel only attempted to fix the flaw after receiving negative publicly. To satisfy customers concerned about the flaw Intel fix the problem...
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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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...Mike Jenkins Computer structure and logic Pentium Flaw In our society we make so many mistakes on a day to day basis. Let me start by saying nobody is perfect. We think computers will be perfect when will build them, but in reality the only way a computer is made is by humans because it’s a man-made device. That’s why we continuously make upgrades every year to system software and hardware. We realize that we can do a lot more things to make our lives easier, so we know that even our machines have flaws in them. That brings me to the idea of Pentium flaw. In my essay I will let you know what the Pentium flaw was and how it is effecting us till this day. In June 1994, while Intel was working on the microprocessor, and they found out there was unit flaw in the Pentium processor. Later on that month, when they were adding the Pentium system to the group of computers, they were unable to determine the other factors as in program errors and motherboard chipsets until October 19 of that year. Three days later he told Intel about the flaw. But Intel was aware of the flaw since May of that year, Professor Thomas Nicely was the one who admitted that they knew about the flaw. It was discovered by Intel during testing of the FPU for its new P6 core, which was first used in the Pentium Pro. 3. On November 7, of that year, the story made a published article in the Electronic Engineering times. The story pretty much said that the glitch was corrected inside of the chip. Steve Smith also...
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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 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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...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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...The microprocessor is the heart of a personal computer and controls all of the operations and calculations that take place. A flaw in the Pentium was especially important, 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 cant 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 wrong answers when performing double-precision arithmetic, a very common computer operation. The flaw was easily detected by computer users. In fact, it was first noticed when a university researcher noticed that the results of some calculations he was performing using his computer were incorrect. This particular flaw was in the floating point unit (FPU) and caused a wrong answer when double-precision arithmetic was performed. A standard test was widely published to determine whether a user’s 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. In basic 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 but with the flawed FPU, the result of the calculation was 4,195,579. Intel’s first response was that to deny that there was...
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...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...
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...Pentium Flaw Assignment Requirements 1. Search the Internet for information about the Pentium microprocessor flaw, using keywords such as “Pentium microprocessor flaw.” 2. Determine the nature of the Pentium flaw, how it was discovered, when it was discovered, and Intel’s response to the flaw. * How it was discovered: Thomas Nicely, a math professor, was computing the sum of the reciprocals of a large collection of prime numbers on his Pentium-based computer. * When it was discovered: Summer/Fall 1994 * Intel’s response to the flaw: Statement “an error is only likely to occur once in nine billion random floating point divides”, and that “an average spreadsheet user could not encounter this subtle flaw once in every 27,000 years of use.” 3. Write several paragraphs explaining what you think of Intel’s response to the Pentium flaw. Be sure to include answers to the following questions: * Did Intel handle the problem correctly? No, because of instead of fixing the problem, they gave excuses of why it was an error and how often that error would occur. * What did Intel do to satisfy customers concerned about the flaw? Since Intel got a lot of heat from the media and customers, they announced a free replacement Pentium for any owner who asked for one. * What would happen if the same type of flaw were found in a new CPU today? They wouldn’t ask to explain why you need a replacement. It’s a defect in the manufacture and they have to replace...
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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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... 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 was actually a flaw, did they acknowledge there was a flaw but it was a small and insignificant. They would only replace...
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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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