System and method for auxiliary channel error messaging

• US 20070168763A1
• Filed: 12/09/2005
• Published: 07/19/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/09/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Sauber, William, Miller, Bruce, White, Larry, Jaber, Muhammed, Ancona, Rocco, Montero, Adolfo, Sultenfuss, Andrew, Rose, Jeff, Reed-Lade, Margaret
• Granted Patent: US 7,685,477 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/327 Alarm or error message display

Abstract

Information handling system errors are presented at a display with the information handling system graphics subsystem inoperative by communicating an identified error to the display through an auxiliary channel and generating a presentation of the error information with a microcontroller of the display. For example, errors determined by BIOS firmware running on a chipset are communicated through a DDC or I2C channel from the chipset to the display so that textual error messages are generated at the display without the use of the information handling system'"'"'s graphic processor to generate an error message image.

Claims

1. An information handling system comprising:

plural processing components operable to generate visual information for presentation at a display;

a display operable to present the visual information;

an interface operable to communicate information between the processing components and the display;

a microcontroller disposed in the display and operable to communicate management information from the display to the processing components through an auxiliary channel of the interface;

an error engine running on one or more of the processing components and operable to identify errors associated with one or more of the processing components and to communicate the errors to the display through the auxiliary channel; and

an error reporter running on the microcontroller and interfaced with the error engine through the auxiliary channel, the error reporter operable to present the errors at the display.

2. The information handling system of claim 1 wherein the interface comprises a DVI cable and the auxiliary channel comprises the DDC channel.

3. The information handling system of claim 1 wherein the interface comprises a VGA cable.

4. The information handling system of claim 1 wherein the management information comprises identification information stored on the display.

5. The information handling system of claim 1 wherein the processing components comprise a chipset having an integrated graphics processor and the error engine comprises firmware operating on the graphics processor.

6. The information handling system of claim 1 wherein the processing components comprise a CPU and the error engine comprises firmware operating on the CPU.

7. The information handling system of claim 1 wherein the processing components comprise a chipset having an integrated graphics processor and the error engine comprises firmware operating on the chipset, the information handling system further comprising an auxiliary channel selector operable to selectively configure the auxiliary channel to communicate information between the display and the graphics processor or between the error engine and error reporter.

8. The information handling system of claim 1 wherein the processing components comprise a chipset having the error engine operating as firmware, a graphics card having a graphics processor, and a management bus communicating management information to the graphics card, the information handling system further comprising an auxiliary channel selector operable to selectively configure the auxiliary channel operable to selectively communicate information between the display and the graphics processor or between the error engine and error reporter, the auxiliary channel selector managing the communication on the auxiliary channel through the management bus.

9. The information handling system of claim 1 wherein the processing components comprise a chipset having the error engine operating as firmware and a graphics card having a graphics processor connected to the cable, the information handling system further comprising an auxiliary channel selector operable to selectively interface the error engine with the cable between the graphics processor and the display.

10. A method for presenting error messages at an information handling system display, the method comprising:

detecting an error at the information handling system, the error restricting communication of visual information at the display;

identifying the error with firmware running on the information handling system;

communicating the identified error from the firmware to the display through an auxiliary communication channel; and

presenting the identified error at the display.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein presenting the identified error comprises generating a text message for presentation at the display with a processor running on the display.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein identifying the error with firmware further comprises identifying the error with a BIOS running on a processor of the information handling system.

13. The method of claim 10 wherein the auxiliary communication channel comprises a DDC channel of a DVI cable connecting the information handling system to the display.

14. The method of claim 10 wherein the auxiliary communication channel comprises an HDMI cable connecting the information handling system to the display.

15. The method of claim 10 wherein the error comprises a failure that compromises the operation of a graphics card, and wherein communicating the identified error further comprises communicating the identified error from the firmware to the auxiliary channel through a management bus interfacing the firmware and the graphics card.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein the management bus comprises an SMBus.

19. The system of claim 16 wherein the cable comprises a DVI cable and the auxiliary channel selector selectively interfaces the error engine and error reporter through a DDC channel.

20. The system of claim 16 wherein the cable comprises a VGA cable an the auxiliary channel selector selectively interfaces the error engine and error reporter through an I2C channel.

21. The system of claim 16 wherein the error reporter comprises firmware operating in a chipset of the information handling system.

17. A system for presenting error messages at an information handling system display, the system comprising:

an error engine running as firmware and operable to identify an error with a component of the information handling system;

an error reporter running on the display and operable to receive error identified by the error engine and generate an error text at the display; and

an auxiliary channel selector operable to selectively interface the error engine and error reporter through a display cable if predetermined conditions exist.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the predetermined conditions comprise an error identified by the error engine and a failure to present information at the display with a graphics processor of the information handling system.