AMD Athlon 6 Specifications download pdf (Page 30)

30 Product Errata

25759 Rev. 3.79 July 2009

Revision Guide for AMD Athlon™ 64 and AMD Opteron™ Processors

65 Uncorrectable NB Machine Check Error May Disrupt Power

Management

Description

If an uncorrectable machine check error in the Northbridge (NB) error reporting bank is detected at

approximately the same time as any of the following events, then the intended power management

activity may be disrupted and various failures may result:

• A HyperTransport™ link frequency change

• Entry into the S3 state (suspend-to-RAM)

Potential Effect on System

For HyperTransport link frequency changes, undefined operation results, leading to unpredictable

system failure.

For entry into the S3 power state, the DRAM is not put into self-refresh state, leading to likely

corruption of DRAM contents.

Suggested Workaround

A workaround may not be required since this erratum only occurs in the presence of a fatal machine

check error, and even then only when it happens to coincide in a small window of time with one of the

power management events described.

If desired, the NB error reporting bank MCG_CTL, MSR 0x17B, bit 4 (NBE), (or all of the machine

check architecture) can be disabled by software around the time of these events. Refer to the BIOS

and Kernel Developer's Guide for AMD Athlon™ 64 and AMD Opteron™ Processors, order# 26094,

for information on how to program the machine check architecture.

Fix Planned

Yes

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AMD Athlon 6 Specifications Page 30