Computer system and monitoring device

• US 8,234,526 B2
• Filed: 09/16/2010
• Issued: 07/31/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/18/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ASUSTek Computer, Inc.
• Original Assignee: ASUSTek Computer, Inc.
• Inventors: Wu, Li Chien, Huang, Pai Ching
• Primary Examiner(s): Ehne, Charles
• Application Number:
  US12/883,608
• Publication Number:
  US 20110072314A1
• Time in Patent Office: 684 Days
• Field of Search: 714/37, 714/44, 714/45, 714/47.1, 714/48
• US Class Current: 714/47.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3051 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the configuration of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring the presence of processing resources, peripherals, I/O links, software programs verification or detection of system hardware configuration G06F11/2247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3058 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring environmental properties or parameters of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring of power, currents, temperature, humidity, position, vibrations thermal management in cooling arrangements of a computing system G06F1/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3476 Data logging G06F11/14, G06F11/2205 take precedence

Abstract

A computer system and a monitoring device for a computer system are disclosed. The computer system includes a plurality of electronic modules, a memory module and an embedded controller. The embedded controller is coupled to the electronic modules and the memory module, respectively. The embedded controller collects information of the electronic modules and generates the system information about the electronic modules. The embedded controller selectively writes the system information into the memory module. The system information in the memory module can be provided to the user or the maintenance engineer for system analysis. Besides, the computer system may utilize an application program to monitor the system information, so as to achieve the error prevention and alert function.

Claims

1. A computer system, comprising:

a central processing unit (CPU) for running an operating system program;

a plurality of electronic modules;

a memory module; and

an embedded controller coupled to the electronic modules, the CPU and the memory module, respectively;

when the computer system is on, the embedded controller collects system information of the electronic modules, and the embedded controller records the system information into the memory module,

wherein the embedded controller is driven by a firmware program to collect and record the system information and the firmware program is independent from the operating system program.

2. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein the memory module stores system history information, and after the embedded controller records the system information, the embedded controller records the system information into the memory module.

3. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein the embedded controller collects and records the system information instantaneously.

4. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein the embedded controller collects and records the system information periodically according to a monitoring period.

5. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein when the computer system is booted, or a hardware configuration of the computer system changes, the embedded controller collects and records the system information.

6. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the electronic modules is a dynamic random access memory (DRAM) module, a clock generator, a basic input/output system (BIOS), or an input/output (I/O) control chip.

7. The computer system according to claim 6, wherein the system information comprises at least one of a memory module configuration information, a system operating frequency information, a system timing information, an initializing setting information and a hardware monitoring information.

8. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein the memory module is a non-volatile memory, and the memory module is a read-only memory (ROM) module.

9. The computer system according to claim 1, wherein all of the system information stored in the memory module forms a system operating history record corresponding to the computer system, and the system operating history record is used for helping to determine an error cause or a hardware updating history of the computer system.

10. A monitoring device applied to a computer system, comprising:

a memory module; and

an embedded controller coupled to a plurality of electronic modules and the memory module of the computer system, respectively, wherein the embedded controller collects a system information of the electronic modules via the electronic modules and records the system information into the memory module,

wherein the embedded controller is driven by a firmware ware program to collect and record the system information and the firmware program is independent from the operating system program.

11. The monitoring device according to claim 10, wherein the memory module stores system history information, and after the embedded controller generates the system information, the embedded controller records the system information into the memory module.

12. The monitoring device according to claim 10, wherein the embedded controller collects and records the system information instantaneously.

13. The monitoring device according to claim 10, wherein the embedded controller collects and records the system information periodically according to a monitoring period.

14. The monitoring device according to claim 10, wherein when the computer system is booted or a hardware configuration of the computer system changes, the embedded controller collects and records the system information.

15. The monitoring device according to claim 10, wherein the memory module is a non-volatile memory and the memory module is a ROM module.