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Flawed AMD Chip Can Lead To Data Corruption

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the crunchy-mistakes dept.

Brandonski writes "Apparently AMD allowed some flawed chips to slip through their detection grid. The problem affects only a small number of chips and only single core 2.6 and 2.8 GHz CPUs." From the article: "It is believed that the glitch is triggered when the affected chip's FPU is made to loop through a series of memory-fetch, multiplication and addition operations without any condition checks on the result of the calculations. The loop has to run over and over again for long enough to cause localized heating which together with high ambient temperatures could combine to cause the result of the operation to be recorded incorrectly, leading to data corruption."

12 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. I dub thee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Fetch Div, son of Eff Div, Heir to Count Zero, and Lord of a new generation of digital serfs, soon to be labled as having "emotional problems."

  2. I Have an AMD CPU by ozmanjusri · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hey, I have an AMD 2.8Ghz. Maybe I should stop refresðN9'óI]öR9ù¥Î6ýPoe}+èa(ê{

    --
    "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    1. Re:I Have an AMD CPU by zaguar · · Score: 5, Funny
      ðN9'óI]öR9ù¥Î6ýPoe}+èa(ê{

      Interesting Perl script.

      --
      "Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
    2. Re:I Have an AMD CPU by Minwee · · Score: 4, Funny
      ðN9'óI]öR9ù¥Î6ýPoe}+èa(ê{

      Interesting Perl script.

      It's also rule number 26 in sendmail.cf.

    3. Re:I Have an AMD CPU by ozmanjusri · · Score: 2, Funny
      Don't you have someone to press the refresh button for you?

      Yeah, but unfortunately I hired a MCSE and it's turning out to be tougher than I thought training him.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  3. Uh oh.. by BigZaphod · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow! AMD has invented a way to crash an infinite loop! Awesome! Intel? I bet their solution will take twice as long to crash this loop:

    10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
    20 GOTO 10

    AMD is always innovating.

    --
    Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
  4. Re:An old problem by Alien+Being · · Score: 3, Funny

    I used to burn out a lot of abacus beads.

  5. Re:An old problem by Jerf · · Score: 4, Funny

    Do not meddle in the affairs of the Elder Gods, for you are crunchy, and good with ketchup.

  6. Could be worse by Khith · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just imagine if you had one of those Pinnacle chips and accidently pressed @[=g3,8d]\&fbb=-q]/hk%fg followed by delete..

  7. Uh oh by IAMTHEMEDIA · · Score: 1, Funny

    How about that, I was wondering why my computer was giving me the message "all your base belong to us". heh ok that was dumb but hey! its slashdot, i know one of you laughed. But seriously, I do have this chip and my computer is evil, therefore, it must be the chip! Not the fact I have 98 gigabytes of music porn and uhh porn.

  8. Re:Fearmongering? No, you misunderstand ... by larry+bagina · · Score: 2, Funny

    yeah, 1.0 + 1.0 = 3.0, for sufficiently large values of 1.0

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  9. Re:An old problem by myowntrueself · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Keep reversing the field fast enough and for a long enough period of time, and the core (or maybe the wires running through it?) will melt"

    Shit, so for once reversing the polarity does more harm than good?

    --
    In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.