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Possible Duplicate:
How do interrupts in multicore/multicpu machines work?

what is interrupted by a hardware interrupt? one particular CPU core execution or all CPUs in the system?

The CPU is i7 or Xeon X3450

Community
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Boppity Bop
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  • Hardware interrupts interrupt - hardware. If you're not writing the interrupt handlers, then why do you care? – John Saunders Jun 26 '10 at 13:47
  • why do you care why do I care? – Boppity Bop Jun 27 '10 at 13:24
  • PLEASE reopen the question. This question is nothing to do with "Possbile duplicate" you noted. My question is very simple: does it interrupt one core or all of them. And the possible duplicate is about how the interrupts work and there is NO straight and simple answer on my particulare question.... The analogue is - say one guy asks what is C# and then all the consecutive questions about C# should be closed or what? – Boppity Bop Jun 27 '10 at 13:29

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Interrupts are tied to the CPUs by the hardware driver servicing them. Hardware routing of the interrupts is handled by an APIC. So the driver (software in the kernel) can decide which CPUs get notice of the interrupt.

jdehaan
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A hardware interrupt interrupts a single core, depending on SMP affinity. It doesn't have to be the same core always, i.e. you can process a network packet in a core, and the next one in another core.

ninjalj
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