Tell me more ×
Super User is a question and answer site for computer enthusiasts and power users. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 0 down vote favorite

Say for example, one of the cores in a quad core computer overheated and died, would the system compensate by routing all operations to the remaining 3 cores, or would the computer be inoperable? If the system compensates, could it compensate for 3 of 4 cores failing?

share|improve this question
If you have a 4 cylinder car and one of the cylinders breaks, do you expect it to run fine on the remaining 3? – Hennes Jan 17 at 19:43
2  
@Hennes: Cylinders cannot be compared to CPU cores, given that it's possible to turn off any given core manually. It's more similar to four engines in a single car. – grawity Jan 17 at 20:57

2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

It largely depends on the exact failure (and the system architecture, but I'll assume you're talking about a standard x86 based system).

In short, the system will not function properly - with exact symptoms ranging from appearing to be okay "most of the time" to a complete failure to boot. There is no mechanism to ignore the bad core at run time, and as such anything that attempts to execute there risks failing/corruption/crashing.

share|improve this answer
up vote 2 down vote

No. Your computer is not supposed to start-up at all if any core has failed.

If any core failure is detected at testing and packaging stage, it can be disabled like those AMD 3-core processors.

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.