it's clear it's an excel problem.... I had thought perhaps it might have something to do with the Processor in my PC.
Actually, your first thought was more correct -- it does have to do with the processor in your PC. Floating point arithmetic has been an inherent part of the way computers perform calculations since -- will Wikipedia claims that the first floating point "computer" was invented over 100 years ago in 1914. The modern floating point standards came together in the early 1980's, and, as far as I know, every modern computer and programming language implements floating point arithmetic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_point#History

The thing that surprises me about floating point error is not that it exists. Rather, I am frequently surprised at how many programmers seem completely unaware that this is how their processor performs arithmetic. We are supposed to be the most computer literate generation, and yet we seem blissfully unaware of this most fundamental part of how a computer works.