Power and Thermal Management
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7.3 Internal Thermal Sensor
This section describes the new on-die Thermal sensor capability.
7.3.1 Overview
The Thermal sensor functions are provided below:
Catastrophic Trip Point: This trip point is programmed through the BIOS during initialization.
This trip point is set at the temperature at which the GMCH should be shut down immediately with
minimal software support. The settings for this are lockable.
High Temperature Trip Point: This trip point is nominally 14ºC below the Catastrophic trip
point. The BIOS can be programmed to provide an interrupt when it is crossed in either direction.
Upon the trip event, Hardware Throttling may be enabled when the temperature is exceeded.
7.3.2 Hysteresis Operation
Hysteresis provides a small amount of positive feedback to the Thermal sensor circuit to prevent a
trip point from flipping back and forth rapidly when the temperature is right at the trip point.