One question about perf_counter on IA

[Yong Wang <yong.y.wang@linux.intel.com>]

I noticed that the LVT error register is masked and then unmasked during
perf_counter initialization on IA in arch/x86/kernel/cpu/perf_counter.c

void perf_counters_lapic_init(int nmi)
{
	u32 apic_val;

	if (!x86_pmu_initialized())
		return;

	/*
	 * Enable the performance counter vector in the APIC LVT:
	 */
	apic_val = apic_read(APIC_LVTERR);

	apic_write(APIC_LVTERR, apic_val | APIC_LVT_MASKED);
	if (nmi)
		apic_write(APIC_LVTPC, APIC_DM_NMI);
	else
		apic_write(APIC_LVTPC, LOCAL_PERF_VECTOR);
	apic_write(APIC_LVTERR, apic_val);
}

Why is this needed? Is this documented somewhere in the spec? I tried
commenting out the masking and unmasking operations and I did not any
error interrupt generated.

Thanks
-Yong