7 Important Technology Information
7 Important Technology Information
The following technological information is designed to give the reader a better understanding of some of features of the
7.1I/O APIC vs 8259 PIC Interrupt mode
The I/O APIC (Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller) handles interrupts differently then the 8259 PIC. The following information explains these differences. The
7.1.1Method of interrupts transmission
The I/O APIC transmits interrupts through the system bus and interrupts are handled without the needs for the processor to run an interrupt acknowledge cycle.
7.1.2Interrupt priority
The priority of interrupts in the I/O APIC is independent of the interrupt number.
7.1.3More interrupts
The I/O APIC in the chipset of the
The APIC is not supported by all operating systems. Only Windows Xp supports APIC.
For more information see chapter 8 of the
7.2Thermal Monitor and Catastrophic Thermal Protection
The Thermal Monitor within the Intel® processors helps to control the processor temperature by activating the TCC (Thermal Control Circuit) when the processor silicon reaches its maximum operating temperature. The temperature at which the Intel® Thermal Monitor activates the TCC is not user- configurable and is not software visible.
The Thermal Monitor controls the processor temperature by modulating (starting and stopping) the CPU core clocks at a 50% duty cycle (TM1) or by initiating an Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technology transition (TM2)* when the processor silicon reaches its maximum operating temperature (selectable in setup).
Note: TM2 is the recommended mode for the Intel® Core Duo® and Core2Duo® processors. *Not supported on the
Thermal Monitor supports two modes to activate the TCC: Automatic and
Kontron User's Guide ETX CD | 43 |