Re: Divide error

[Maurice Barnhill <mvb@UDel.Edu>]

Jerome Epstein wrote:
> Jed Brewer wrote:
> > Hey i realize this is for physics..but does anyone know what a
> divide
> > error is on an ibm when it is in the process of booting? It flashes
> > during the boot process but i cant seem to find anything wrong when
> its
> > running.
> This is a guess. But the early Pentium chips had a bug in the integer
> divide instruction. It gave wrong results in certain cases. You should
> consult the manfacturer of your PC. If this is due to an early faulty
> chip, I would assume they will replace the processor for free.

I doubt the problem is *that* drastic.  The bug in the Pentium
floating-point divide caused a relatively small error that became
important only on some long numerical calculations.  My machine has one
of those chips and it has never given me a problem.  I just have to be
careful if I ever run an extremely long program.

Can you find out what is happening when the divide error occurs? If the
error comes from a program that is called in your autoexec.bat file,
knowing which program would tell you a lot about what the problem is. 
On my machine there is a procedure for stepping through the boot-up
process.  If your manual tells you how to do this, you could pinpoint
the problem pretty closely.  
-- 
Maurice Barnhill, mvb@udel.edu                
http://www.physics.udel.edu/~barnhill/          
Physics Dept., University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716