Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Specification

ACPI Platform Error Interfaces (APEI)
18
ACPI Platform Error Interfaces (APEI)
This section describes the ACPI Platform Error Interfaces (APEI), which provide a means for the
platform to convey error information to OSPM. APEI extends existing hardware error reporting
mechanisms and brings them together as components of a coherent hardware error infrastructure.
APEI takes advantage of the additional hardware error information available in today’s hardware
devices and integrates much more closely with the system firmware.
As a result, APEI provides the following benefits:
• Allows for more extensive error data to be made available in a standard error record format for
determining the root cause of hardware errors.
• Is extensible, so that as hardware vendors add new and better hardware error reporting
mechanisms to their devices, APEI allows the platform and the OSPM to gracefully
accommodate the new mechanisms.
This provides information to help system designers understand basic issues about hardware errors,
the relationship between the firmware and OSPM, and information about error handling and the
APEI architecture components.
APEI consists of four separate tables:
• Error Record Serialization Table (ERST)
• BOOT Error Record Table (BERT)
• Hardware Error Source Table (HEST)
• Error Injection Table (EINJ)
18.1Hardware Errors and Error Sources
A hardware error is a recorded event related to a malfunction of a hardware component in a
computer platform. The hardware components contain error detection mechanisms that detect when
a hardware error condition exists. Hardware errors can be classified as either corrected errors or
uncorrected errors as follows:
• A corrected error is a hardware error condition that has been corrected by the hardware or by the
firmware by the time the OSPM is notified about the existence of the error condition.
• An uncorrected error is a hardware error condition that cannot be corrected by the hardware or
by the firmware. Uncorrected errors are either fatal or non-fatal.
— A fatal hardware error is an uncorrected or uncontained error condition that is determined to
be unrecoverable by the hardware. When a fatal uncorrected error occurs, the system is
restarted to prevent propagation of the error.
— A non-fatal hardware error is an uncorrected error condition from which OSPM can attempt
recovery by trying to correct the error. These are also referred to as correctable or
recoverable errors.
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