Intel E5310 Specification Update - Page 22

AJ17. Using 2M/4M Pages When A20M# Is Asserted May Result in Incorrect Address Translations Problem: An external A20M# pin if enabled forces address bit 20 to be masked (forced to zero) to emulates real-address mode address wraparound at 1 megabyte. However, if all of the following conditions are met, address bit 20 may not be masked. • Paging is enabled • A linear address has bit 20 set • The address references a large page • A20M# is enabled Implication: When A20M# is enabled and an address references a large page the resulting translated physical address may be incorrect. This erratum has not been observed with any commercially available operating system. Workaround: Operating systems should not allow A20M# to be enabled if the masking of address bit 20 could be applied to an address that references a large page. A20M# is normally only used with the first megabyte of memory. Status: For the steppings affected, see the Summary Tables of Changes. AJ18. Writing Shared Unaligned Data that Crosses a Cache Line without Proper Semaphores or Barriers May Expose a Memory Ordering Issue Problem: Software which is written so that multiple agents can modify the same shared unaligned memory location at the same time may experience a memory ordering issue if multiple loads access this shared data shortly thereafter. Exposure to this problem requires the use of a data write which spans a cache line boundary. Implication: This erratum may cause loads to be observed out of order. Intel has not observed this erratum with any commercially available software or system. Workaround: Software should ensure at least one of the following is true when modifying shared data by multiple agents: • The shared data is aligned • Proper semaphores or barriers are used in order to prevent concurrent data accesses. Status: For the steppings affected, see the Summary Tables of Changes. AJ19. Code Segment limit violation may occur on 4-Gbyte limit check Problem: Code Segment limit violation may occur on 4-Gbyte limit check when the code stream wraps around in a way that one instruction ends at the last byte of the segment and the next instruction begins at 0x0. Implication: This is a rare condition that may result in a system hang. Intel has not observed this erratum with any commercially available software, or system. Workaround: Avoid code that wraps around segment limit. Status: For the steppings affected, see the Summary Tables of Changes. AJ20. Problem: FP Inexact-Result Exception Flag May Not Be Set When the result of a floating-point operation is not exactly representable in the destination format (1/3 in binary form, for example), an inexact-result (precision) exception occurs. When this occurs, the PE bit (bit 5 of the FPU status word) is normally set by the processor. Under certain rare conditions, this bit may not be set when this rounding occurs. However, other actions taken by the processor (invoking the software exception handler if the exception is unmasked) are not affected. This erratum can only occur if one of the following FST instructions is one or two instructions after the floating-point operation which causes the precision exception: • FST m32real 22 Intel® Xeon® Processor 5300 Series Specification Update, December 2010