what is a Machine Check Exception ?

[S.Salman Ahmed <ssahmed@pathcom.com>]

Got the following message from syslogd:

CPU 0: Machine Check Exception: 0000000400000000<0>Bank 1: f200000000000115general protection fault: 0000
CPU:    0
EIP:    0010:[mcheck_fault+225/336]
EFLAGS: 00010246
eax: 00000115   ebx: 72000000   ecx: 00000405   edx: 72000000
esi: 00000004   edi: 00000003   ebp: 00000115   esp: c3187f94
ds: 0018   es: 0018   ss: 0018
Process netscape (pid: 776, process nr: 68, stackpage=c3187000)
Stack: 0a8cb97d bfffca3c 00000405 00000001 00000000 00000004 0000000f bfffc994 
       00000000 c010a049 c3187fc4 00000000 00000070 0a8cb97d 0931ba00 00000036 
       0a8cb97d bfffca3c 0931ba19 0000002b 0000002b ffffffff 083c5be6 00000023 
Call Trace: [error_code+45/56] 
Code: 0f 30 ff 44 24 14 8b 44 24 14 3b 05 84 0e 1d c0 0f 8c 51 ff 

Never seen this before, so I'd be interested in a (technical)
explanatation of exactly what netscape (no surprise there) did to cause
this.

Platform (woody).

Thanks.

PS : I know that running the unstable dist can cause problems but I have
never seen this kind of a problem.

-- 
Salman Ahmed
ssahmed AT pathcom DOT com

http://www.pathcom.com/~ssahmed
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