Method and apparatus for detecting a fault condition and restoration thereafter using user context information

A method comprising:

• detecting a fault condition associated with a processing unit by at least one of:
• detecting, by a co-processing unit, that an input associated with the co-processing unit has received information identifying the fault condition;
• detecting, by the co-processing unit, an initial fault condition based on monitoring at least one memory location associated with the processing unit in normal operation and verifying the initial fault condition as the fault condition based on determining, by the processing unit, that at least another memory location associated with the processing unit contains information indicating the fault condition;
• determining, by the co-processing unit, that at least one processing unit identification memory location associated with the processing unit contains incorrect processing unit identification information;
• and
• determining, by the co-processing unit, that at least one pixel clock memory location associated with the processing unit contains incorrect pixel clock information;
• and
• after detecting the fault condition, restoring the processing unit using stored user context information by at least reinitializing at least one memory location of the processing unit to a working state using an initialization routine.

An apparatus comprising:

• a processing unit;
• and
• a co-processing unit operatively coupled to the processing unit and memory that contains stored instructions such that when executed by the co-processing unit, cause the co-processing unit to:
• restore the processing unit, upon detection of a fault condition associated with the processing unit, using the stored user context information.