Triple fault

Triple fault

Some operating system kernels, such as Linux, still use triple faults as a last effort in their rebooting process if an ACPI reboot fails. This is done by setting the IDTR register to 0 and then issuing an interrupt.[1] Since the table now has length 0, all attempts to access it fail and the processor generates a triple fault.

Way to assume x86.

>>2
Only Intel could come up with a complicated turd like that.

>>4
actually, it is even more retarded than that and was used for task-switching:

intentionally triple-faulting the CPU was found to cause the transition to occur much faster and more cleanly, permitting multitasking operating systems to switch back and forth at high speed.

>>5

On the IBM AT and compatibles, the documented method of doing this was to use a special function on the Intel 8042 keyboard controller, which would assert the RESET pin of the processor.

>>6
According to the article, that was the original way of resetting the processor, but it was later found that triple-faulting was faster.