- * We need to read back the CMP register to make sure that
- * what we wrote hit the chip before we compare it to the
- * counter.
+ * We need to read back the CMP register on certain HPET
+ * implementations (ATI chipsets) which seem to delay the
+ * transfer of the compare register into the internal compare
+ * logic. With small deltas this might actually be too late as
+ * the counter could already be higher than the compare value
+ * at that point and we would wait for the next hpet interrupt
+ * forever. We found out that reading the CMP register back
+ * forces the transfer so we can rely on the comparison with
+ * the counter register below. If the read back from the
+ * compare register does not match the value we programmed
+ * then we might have a real hardware problem. We can not do
+ * much about it here, but at least alert the user/admin with
+ * a prominent warning.