x86 Instruction Set Reference

HLT - Halt

Opcode Mnemonic Description
F4 HLT Halt.
Description

Stops instruction execution and places the processor in a HALT state. An enabled interrupt (including NMI and SMI), a debug exception, the BINIT# signal, the INIT# signal, or the RESET# signal will resume execution. If an interrupt (including NMI) is used to resume execution after a HLT instruction, the saved instruction pointer (CS:EIP) points to the instruction following the HLT instruction.

When a HLT instruction is executed on an IA-32 processor supporting Hyper-Threading Technology, only the logical processor that executes the instruction is halted. The other logical processors in the physical processor remain active, unless they are each individually halted by executing a HLT instruction.

The HLT instruction is a privileged instruction. When the processor is running in protected or virtual-8086 mode, the privilege level of a program or procedure must be 0 to execute the HLT instruction.

Operation
EnterHaltstate();
Flags affected

None.

Protected Mode Exceptions
#GP(0)If the current privilege level is not 0.
Real-Address Mode Exceptions
None.
Virtual-8086 Mode Exceptions
#GP(0)If the current privilege level is not 0.