Intel Pentium Pro Processor Machine Check
The Machine Check Exception (MCE) is processor exception 18. The handler for MCE is implemented as a task gate for maximum reliability of the exception handler. The HAL provides a generic exception handler for all errors that cause an exception. This handler reports the machine check exception code on the screen and causes the operating system to halt gracefully, reducing the possibility of persistent data corruption.
In addition, the HAL also provides MCA-specific interface that can be used by drivers to:
Read the MCA banks to detect an error that does not generate an exception.
One case where an error does not generate an exception is if the bit that controls reporting of the machine check error for a specific bank (MCi_CTL.Eej bit) is cleared. There are also some corrected errors that do not generate MCE and are logged in the MCA banks.
Obtain control (to possibly log errors to NVRAM) when the MCE handler is invoked by providing two callback routines--ExceptionCallback and DpcCallback.
For more information about MCE for this processor, see Machine Check Exception Handling for a Pentium Pro Processor.
Note Windows Vista and later versions of Windows do not support the type of Machine Check Architecture (MCA) and Machine Check Exception (MCE) reporting that is described in this topic. MCA and MCE reporting are supported through Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA) instead.