MCA error

[Oliver Fromme]

Frank <frank at deze.org> wrote:
 > The last 3 days, I'm getting this message on my (i386 based, FreeBSD 8.1 
 > PRERELEASE) system (frequency about 1 time per day):
 > 
 > MCA: Bank 2, Status 0x940040000000017a
 > MCA: Global Cap 0x0000000000000104, Status 0x0000000000000000
 > MCA: Vendor "AuthenticAMD", ID 0x680, APIC ID 0
 > MCA: CPU 0 COR GCACHE L2 EVICT error
 > MCA: Address 0x5f4540
 > 
 > I have no clue what it means. Should I be worried?

Yes.  MCA means Machine Check Architecture.  It reports
an error in the hardware, in this case in the L2 cache
of the processor.  The word "COR" means that the error
was correctable (e.g. with ECC mechanisms), so it is
not fatal yet.

Do you overclock that processor?  Did you check that the
cooling is sufficient?  I.e. check the fan, remove dust
etc.

Best regards
   Oliver

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