In the regular MIPS instruction set RDHWR is encoded with the SPECIAL3 (011111) major opcode. Therefore it cannot trigger the CpU (Coprocessor Unusable) exception, and certainly not for coprocessor 0, as the opcode does not overlap with any of the older ISA reservations, i.e. LWC0 (110000), SWC0 (111000), LDC0 (110100) or SDC0 (111100). The closest match might be SDC3 (111111), possibly causing a CpU #3 exception, however our code does not handle it anyway. A quick check with a MIPS I and a MIPS III processor: CPU0 revision is: 00000220 (R3000) CPU0 revision is: 00000440 (R4400SC) indeed indicates that the RI (Reserved Instruction) exception is triggered. It's only LL and SC that require emulation in the CpU #0 exception handler as they reuse the LWC0 and SWC0 opcodes respectively. In the microMIPS instruction set RDHWR is mandatory and triggering the RI exception is required on unimplemented or disabled register accesses. Therefore emulating the microMIPS instruction in the CpU #0 exception handler is not required either. Signed-off-by: Maciej W. Rozycki <macro@xxxxxxxxxx> --- linux-mips-rdhwr-do-cpu.diff Index: linux-sfr-test/arch/mips/kernel/traps.c =================================================================== --- linux-sfr-test.orig/arch/mips/kernel/traps.c 2016-01-30 03:44:50.567566000 +0000 +++ linux-sfr-test/arch/mips/kernel/traps.c 2016-01-30 03:48:33.611317000 +0000 @@ -1369,26 +1369,12 @@ asmlinkage void do_cpu(struct pt_regs *r if (unlikely(compute_return_epc(regs) < 0)) break; - if (get_isa16_mode(regs->cp0_epc)) { - unsigned short mmop[2] = { 0 }; - - if (unlikely(get_user(mmop[0], epc) < 0)) - status = SIGSEGV; - if (unlikely(get_user(mmop[1], epc) < 0)) - status = SIGSEGV; - opcode = (mmop[0] << 16) | mmop[1]; - - if (status < 0) - status = simulate_rdhwr_mm(regs, opcode); - } else { + if (!get_isa16_mode(regs->cp0_epc)) { if (unlikely(get_user(opcode, epc) < 0)) status = SIGSEGV; if (!cpu_has_llsc && status < 0) status = simulate_llsc(regs, opcode); - - if (status < 0) - status = simulate_rdhwr_normal(regs, opcode); } if (status < 0)