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Machine Check Architecture

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In computing, Machine Check Architecture (MCA) refers to a mechanism in which the CPU reports hardware errors to the operating system.

Intel's Pentium 4, Intel Xeon, P6 family processors as well as the Itanium architecture implement a machine check architecture that provides a mechanism for detecting and reporting hardware (machine) errors, such as: system bus errors, ECC errors, parity errors, cache errors, and TLB errors. It consists of a set of model-specific registers (MSRs) that are used to set up machine checking and additional banks of MSRs used for recording errors that are detected. [1]

See also


References

  1. ^ Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manual, Volume 3A. Intel Corporation. August, 2007. pp. 14–1. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)