Patent ID: 7383423

Claim:
A node comprising: a plurality of processor cores; and a node controller coupled to the plurality of processor cores, wherein the node controller is configured to receive a first read operation addressing a machine check status register in the node controller, and wherein, in a first mode in which machine check exceptions are steered to a selected processor core of the plurality of processor cores, the node controller is configured to return a status stored in the machine check status register in response to the first read operation if the selected processor core transmitted the first read operation, and wherein the node controller is configured to return a no-error status independent of all status stored in the machine check status register if another one of the plurality of processor cores transmitted the first read operation, and wherein, in a second mode for machine check exceptions, a given machine check exception is steered to a given processor core of the plurality of processor cores that is a source of an operation that caused the given machine check exception responsive to the node controller detecting that the given processor core is the source, and wherein the node controller is unable to identify the source for at least one of the machine check exceptions, and wherein the node controller is configured to return the status stored in the machine check status register in response to a second read operation that is transmitted by the given processor core and further in response to detecting that the given processor core is the source, and wherein the node controller is configured to return the status stored in the machine check status register in response to a third read operation that is transmitted by a preferred processor core of the plurality of processor cores responsive to the second mode and the node controller being unable to determine the source, and wherein the preferred processor core is identified as a processor core that is to process machine check exceptions resulting from machine check exceptions for which the source is not identified.