One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates self-correcting memory in a shared-memory system. The system includes a main memory coupled to a memory controller for reading and writing memory locations and for marking memory locations that have been checked out to a cache. The system also includes a processor cache for storing data currently in use by a central processing unit. A communication channel is coupled between the processor cache and the memory controller to facilitate communication. The memory controller includes an error detection and correction mechanism and also includes a mechanism for reading data from the processor cache when a currently valid copy of the data is checked out to the processor cache. When the data is returned to the memory subsystem from the cache, the error detection and correction mechanism corrects errors and stores a corrected copy of the data in the main memory.
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