Patent ID: 7752495

Claim:
In a multiprocessor system having an operating system and supporting a system management mode that is transparent to the operating system, a processor recovery system comprising: system management processing means responsive to detecting a faulty processor agent for: issuing a system management interrupt (SMI) request; operating the faulty processor agent and a replacement processor agent in the system management mode in response to said SMI request, and while operating the faulty processor agent and the replacement processor agent in system management mode: saving an operating state of said faulty processor agent to system management memory that is accessible by said faulty processor agent only when said faulty processor agent is operating in system management mode; copying the saved operating state to the replacement processor agent; and re-assigning an interrupt control ID from the faulty processor agent to the replacement processor agent; and system management processing means for resuming operating system processing from the system management mode utilizing the replacement agent.