Dow Jones Interactive

PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY
PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY
By Walter Mossberg

12/15/1994
The Wall Street Journal
B1
(Copyright (c) 1994, Dow Jones & Co., Inc.)

Intel Isn't Serving

Millions Who Bought

Its Pentium Campaign

INTEL doesn't seem to want us nontechnical computer users, the computer-buying rabble, to get the idea that we might want to demand replacements for the Pentium chips in PCs millions of us have bought recently, even though the company admits they're defective. But you might want to demand a new chip anyway.

Intel has spent the past few years running a massive consumer advertising campaign designed to make its name and the name of its high-powered Pentium computer chip household words. But over the past month, when it was forced to disclose a defect in the Pentium chip that causes it to do some math calculations wrong, Intel has done virtually nothing to reach out directly to that same mass audience of garden-variety computer owners in homes and small businesses. It has directly contacted technical and scientific users, big companies, computer retailers. It has issued press releases and held telephone conferences with Wall Street analysts. But it hasn't run any mass-market print or TV ads explaining the situation or publicizing the toll-free phone number it has set up for concerned Pentium users.

Worse, Intel has taken the position that, for the kind of computing most of us plain folks do, a defective Pentium is good enough. Before Intel will routinely agree to replace the chip with one that does math right, the company has said you must prove you do work on your computer that's mathematically complex enough to meet Intel's self-defined rules about who needs accuracy. Intel defends this policy on grounds that the bug occurs so rarely it's only likely to affect people doing the most sophisticated math operations.

From my point of view, this is outrageous. Computers do math all the time behind the scenes, even in programs like graphics software where it isn't obvious to the average user. The kind of math the Pentium gets wrong, called "floating point" math, is relatively uncommon, and the Pentium only stumbles on certain combinations of numbers. But that's not the point. Why should an average user have to worry that some program he buys next year might -- just might -- be trying to divide, in the background, two numbers the Pentium can't divide correctly?

IF YOU HAVE a spreadsheet program, you can make a Pentium goof-up by entering a fairly simple calculation that has no decimal points, uses no complex math functions and is in fact easier than my teenagers' homework problems. Just enter this formula: 4,195,835-((4,195,835/3,145,727)*3,145,727). The correct answer is zero, because the formula amounts to subtracting a number from itself. My Apple Macintosh (which doesn't use Intel chips) gets it right, as does a PC using an older Intel chip. But my costly new Pentium machine generates a bogus answer of 256. It's a rare case, contrived by critics to highlight the defect, but it's not rocket science.

If you want a new, nondefective Pentium chip, you can get one by calling Intel's toll-free number (800-628-8686), even if you're not an MIT professor. Intel doesn't make it easy. But in a test I conducted over the past week, I managed to get Intel to agree to send me a new Pentium even though I refused to tell Intel what I did for a living or what software I used. The company said I'd have it within 30 days. "If you insist on a new chip, we'll supply a new chip," Intel Senior Vice President Carl Everett reluctantly conceded in an interview before I called the 800 number.

But it isn't a consumer-friendly process. I had to go through multiple conversations (it took me three phone calls over six days). When I was asked if I wanted to talk to an expert or receive a "white paper" about the nature of the defect in the chip, I said no thank you, that I just wanted a new chip.

THE INTEL person then wanted to know what software I used. I replied that it was none of his business, and I wanted a new chip, period. I had to give Intel a credit-card number and agree to a potential charge of $1,000 if I failed to return my old Pentium within 29 days after receiving my new one -- an ironic requirement from a company that delayed for months even disclosing the defect. Intel pays for shipping both the new chip to you and the old one back, but not for any labor costs you may incur in hiring somebody to swap the chips.

I'm not saying you should definitely get a new chip. I can't say how likely it is that the Pentium math defect will strike you. And it's no trivial matter to swap chips. Depending on your computer, the Pentium may be tough to pull out or hidden behind other components you'll have to remove. One Pentium machine I've seen even has a little fan stuck on top of the chip, to dissipate heat.

But if you want to feel confident that your Pentium can do math right every time, don't hesitate to demand a new chip, despite the hassles Intel throws in your path and the $50 or so it might cost to get a computer shop to do the job for you.

Just don't assume that junking a defective Pentium will solve all your math woes. It turns out that other math screw-ups lurk inside our IBM-compatible PCs, whether they use a Pentium chip or not. The calculator program that Microsoft includes with each copy of Windows makes math errors too, no matter what chip your computer uses. If you try to subtract 2.00 from 2.01, it gives an answer of 0.00. And it mishandles other numbers ending in .01. Microsoft knows of the problem, but doesn't plan to fix it until the next version of Windows ships next year (unless consumers raise a hue and cry).

Maybe you ought to consider a Macintosh this Christmas.