KR20160044125A

KR20160044125A - Computer Hardware Fault Detection System

Info

Publication number: KR20160044125A
Application number: KR1020140138319A
Authority: KR
Inventors: 정헌석
Original assignee: 극동대학교 산학협력단
Priority date: 2014-10-14
Filing date: 2014-10-14
Publication date: 2016-04-25

Abstract

The failure detection apparatus according to the present invention is installed in a PCI slot of a computer in the form of a card. When the computer is powered on, the CPU sequentially processes the mainboard ROM BIOS contents to stop the sequential process in case of a specific hardware failure. In this case, the apparatus of the present invention recognizes the break address of the ROM BIOS and informs the user of the fault hardware.
In particular, by informing the failure determination result through the in-house TV by the management server, the user can easily grasp the failure hardware and the type even if a failure related to the computer monitor occurs.

Description

[0001] Computer Hardware Fault Detection System [

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention [0001] The present invention relates to a computer fault diagnosis, and more particularly, to a system for detecting a fault on a computer hardware and easily verifying the fault.

If there is no external response after turning on the monitor or main unit from the PC, it is difficult for the general user to check whether this is a hardware failure or a software failure. Usually, it is common to send the entire hardware to the AS center, or to have a repair specialist visit and repair it. In this case, time and money are involved.

It is impossible to judge what is wrong with a PC unless there are actually visible symptoms. In addition, a tripartist or a maintenance service provider will have to spend a considerable amount of time identifying the cause, especially if they do not have any symptoms, especially if they are diagnosed with a certain level of disability.

Also, without professional diagnostic equipment, there is no way for the user to know the state of the computer in the event of a computer monitor failure.

An object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus and method for recognizing a hardware fault that allows a general user to easily identify and respond to the cause of a PC failure.

Specifically, we want to provide a system that notifies the user of such information through a home TV at boot time, such as a monitor failure, a graphic card failure, or a motherboard failure, an adapter error, or a sound card error.

A fault detection system according to the present invention comprises: a fault detection device installed in a PC, collecting hardware and an aspect of a fault of the PC, and transmitting the result to a wireless communication device; and receiving the result from the fault detection device, And the like.

The management server includes a storage unit for receiving and storing the result of the failure determination of the PC, a transmission unit for transmitting the result to the home TV, and a control unit for controlling the home TV, And transmits a power on command, a result display command and the result to the home TV if the power of the detection result is off.

In the case of hardware failure, it provides the level of trouble information that was confirmed by some expert group or professional repair shop that has expert knowledge, so that users can diagnose their PC directly, In the case of the related disorder, the type and the pattern of the disorder can be easily grasped through the TV.

1 is a block diagram of a PCT system;
2 shows a format of 2-byte device information data in the ROM BIOS;
3 shows the procedure of a ROM BIOS interrupt service routine according to the present invention;

The computer fault diagnosis system according to the present invention includes a fault diagnosis apparatus and a management server.

The fault-tolerance device is a PCI-based hardware fault detection device that provides the user with information about the faulty hardware in case of boot failure due to a hardware failure before booting the general PC.

The failure detection apparatus according to the present invention is installed in a PCI slot of a computer in the form of a card. When the computer is powered on, the CPU sequentially processes the mainboard ROM BIOS contents to stop the sequential process in case of a specific hardware failure. In this case, the apparatus of the present invention recognizes the break address of the ROM BIOS and informs the user of the fault hardware.

The management server according to the present invention receives the result from the failure detection device and delivers the result to the home TV. The management server detects the state of the home TV, and when the detection result is power off, the management server receives the power on command and the result display command, By transmitting to the TV, the user can easily check the failure status of the PC instantly.

First, the fault detection apparatus according to the present invention will be described in detail, and then the configuration of the management server will be described.

The range and types of fault recognition hardware are as follows.

CPU exchange, memory, main board exchange

Memory exchange, memory slot cleaning, mainboard replacement

Video card, main board exchange

Battery check, main board replacement

CPU, main board exchange

Mainboard replacement

Memory swap, memory slot cleaning, BIOS, CPU

IO chip, main board exchange

Keyboard, in-board exchange

Mouse, IO chip exchange

sound

BIOS exchange

BIOS exchange, main board exchange

Battery, CMOS circuit, increase power ripple

Mainboard replacement, power

Video card, main board, VGA circuit

Video card

Mouse, mainboard exchange

Memory, main board exchange

Main board exchange, CPU check

Video card, main board exchange

CPU exchange

CMOS setting

Setup reset, BIOS swap

Floppy, mainboard replacement

HDD, main board exchange

HDD, BIOS swap, CMOS reset

The fault detection apparatus of the present invention is composed of a hardware module (PCI Type) mounted on a PC and a display program of a ROM address of the ROM address.

To facilitate understanding of the technical idea of the present invention, the basic matters of the computer system will be outlined.

Bios is an important element in computer systems. BIOS is an abbreviation of 'Basic Input / Output System', meaning 'basic system for input and output'. Bios is present in most hardware related to input and output, and it is also supported by external support in special cases. In short, hardware inputs and outputs data at the request of the user, so it requires the most basic code to control the hardware to perform this operation.

It also means 'firmware ware'. Firmware is a program that exists in the form of hardware and software. In the hardware design, the code for the most basic execution of the system is made of a special type of program and is embedded in the hardware, so it is difficult to change the shape of the system. Also, because the software has to go through the firmware to control the hardware, the program will look different. Therefore, the term BIOS is sometimes used in combination with the term firmware.

The bottom layer is the hardware, the top layer is the software, and the intermediary is the firmware or bios.

The firmware is stored in the ROM of the memory on the hardware such as the motherboard, the video card, and many other devices, and when the PC is turned on, it provides the necessary programs and data for various routines and frequently used basic operations. However, there are cases where the firmware is not a specific type of ROM, but the memory is set up inside the chip when designing the chip, and there are some products that can be upgraded for bug patching and performance improvement by enabling rewriting using flash ROM .

The most important attachment to a computer is a motherboard or motherboard. The motherboard has CPU and RAM installed, and many add-on cards can be connected. A connector is also provided for connection to an external device.

Because the motherboard controls all of these things, it needs a mediator to take care of it, and it is the BIOS that plays the role.

The BIOS goes through several stages in order to make the system available at boot time, and initiates initialization for each device connected to each chipset on the motherboard. As part of the initialization process, the interrupt handler in the ROM BIOS is read and the interrupt vector table is constructed.

Also, the status of the devices installed in the current system is obtained, the data is recorded in the lower address of the memory, and the presence of the extended BIOS is checked to install the extended BIOS at the memory lower address of the device having the extended BIOS. As an example of a popular SCSI controller these days, you will see a message that the ROM BIOS on the SCSI card is installed in the computer's memory. Of course, this message is reported by the SCSI card, and some SCSI cards do not report in some cases. The SCSI BIOS installed in this way ranks in the extended BIOS and joins the ROM BIOS of the system. Of course, this process is performed each time the system is powered on.

If there is no problem during system initialization, the BIOS prepares to boot the disk and loads the bootstrap loader from the disk to be booted for this operation. The bootstrap loader is a very small program required to boot the system, and if it succeeds in reading it, the disk boot will start. With the start of the disk boot, the operating system installed on the disk is loaded into the computer's memory, and the operating system checks the system, performs a series of initialization steps, and then waits for the user's command. The user can then use the program or control the system directly. Of course, even in this state, the BIOS will continue to be used, and the routines needed to operate the computer are provided as functions. You can use it by calling, and it can also be used by the operating system.

The fault detection apparatus of the present invention is interfaced with a motherboard in a PCI system. 1 is a conceptual diagram of a PCI interface.

In the present invention, the failure detection device detects a series of processes for inspecting the BIOS through the PCI interface to display a failure, so that the user can easily recognize the failure cause. The ROM BIOS access program can be configured as follows.

01 #include <stdio.h>

02 #include <dos.h>

03 int main ()

04

05 struct BIOS_EQUIP

06 unsigned bootdisk: 1; / * Whether the disk is booted * /

07 unsigned copro: 1; / * Whether or not a coprocess is mounted * /

08 unsigned ram: 2; / * The size of the rambling of the Mad Borderer * /

09 unsigned video: 2; / * Video mode * /

10 unsigned fdd: 2; / * Number of FDDs * /

11 unsigned DMA: 1; / * Whether DMA is installed * /

12 unsigned comport: 3; / * Number of COM ports * /

13 unsigned gameio: 1; / * I / O with GAME I / O * /

14 unsigned s_prt: 1; / * Whether or not there is a serial printer * /

15 unsigned p_prt: 2; / * Number of parallel printers * /

16 * equip;

17 unsigned equipment;

18 equipment = peek (0, 0x410); / * 2 bytes read from 0000 to 0410 * /

19 equip = (struct BIOS_EQUIP *) &equipment;

20 printf ("<< ROM BIOS DATA CHECKING >>");

21 printf ("Boot from disk =% u", equip-> bootdisk);

22 printf ("Floating-point Coprocessor =% u", equip-> copro);

23 printf ("Motherboard RAM size (kb) =% u", (equip-> ram + 1) * 16);

24 printf ("Initial VIDEO Mode =% u", equip-> video);

25 printf ("Number of disk drives (FDD) =% u", equip-> fdd);

26 printf ("Direct Memory Access (DMA) =% u", equip-> dma);

27 printf ("Number of COM ports =% u", equip-> comport);

28 printf ("Game I / O attached =% u", equip-> gameio);

29 printf ("Serial Printer attached =% u", equip-> s_prt);

30 printf ("Number of Parallel printers installed =% u", equip-> p_prt);

31 return 0;

32}

Here, the device information of the ROM BIOS is read and information is displayed. FIG. 2 shows the ROM BIOS 2Byte device information. The fault detection apparatus of the present invention reads information of the ROM BIOS to display a hardware failure.

Here again, the way to read this ROM BIOS information must intercept the interrupt service routine. This method is performed in the same manner as in Fig.

1) Assign the interrupt service number to the AH register.

2) Allocate necessary data to other registers (BX, DX).

3) Invoke the interrupt service routine by using interrupt execution instruction INT.

4) Obtain the return value returned in each register and check the execution result to find out which fault occurred in which part.

These ROM BIOS service routine interception logic is as follows

01 #include <stdio.h>

02 #include <dos.h>

03 void my_putch (char ch)

04

05 union REGS r;

06

07 r.h.ah = 0x0E;

/ * Assign the service number for text output to AH * /

08 r.h.al = ch

/ * Assign output character to AL register * /

09 r.h.bh = 0; / * Output to current screen * /

10 r.h.bl = 1; / * The color of the character to be output * /

11 int86 (0x10, & r, &r); / * Call the interrupt service routine * /

12

13 int main ()

14

15 char * t = "What a wonderful world!";

16 while (* t! = 0) my_putch (* t ++);

17 return 0;

18}

Table 1 shows interrupts and addresses, and corresponding fault hardware and aspects.

Interrupt Address Kinds Explanation 00h 0000: 0000h Processor Divide by zero 01h 0000: 0004h Processor Single step 02h 0000: 0008h Processor Non maskable interrupt (NMI) 03h 0000: 000Ch Processor Breakpoint 04h 0000: 0010h Processor Arithmetic overflow 05h 0000: 0014h Software Print screen 06h 0000: 0018h Processor Invalid op code 07h 0000: 001Ch Processor Coprocessor not available 08h 0000: 0020h Hardware System timer service routine 09h 0000: 0024h Hardware Keyboard device service routine 0Ah 0000: 0028h Hardware Cascade from 2nd programmable interrupt controller 0Bh 0000: 002Ch Hardware Serial port service - COM post 2 0Ch 0000: 0030h Hardware Serial port service - COM port 1 0Dh 0000: 0034h Hardware Parallel printer service - LPT 2 0Eh 0000: 0038h Hardware Floppy disk service 0Fh 0000: 003Ch Hardware Parallel printer service - LPT 1 10h 0000: 0040h Software Video service routine 11h 0000: 0044h Software Equipment list 12h 0000: 0048h Software Memory size service routine 13h 0000: 004Ch Software Hard disk drive service 14h 0000: 0050h Software Serial communications service routines 15h 0000: 0054h Software System services support routines 16h 0000: 0058h Software Keyboard support service routines 17h 0000: 005Ch Software Parallel printer support services 18h 0000: 0060h Software Load and run ROM BASIC 19h 0000: 0064h Software DOS loading routine 1Ah 0000: 0068h Software Real time clock service routines 1Bh 0000: 006Ch Software CRTL - BREAK service routines 1Ch 0000: 0070h Software User timer service routine 1Dh 00000074h Software Video control parameter table 1Eh 0000: 0078h Software Floppy disk parameter routine 1Fh 0000: 007Ch Software Video graphics character routine 20h-3Fh 0000: 0080f - 0000: 00FCh SOftware DOS interrupt points 40h 0000: 0100h Software Floppy disk revector routine 41h 0000: 0104h Software C: parameter table 42h 0000: 0108h Software EGA default video driver 43h 0000: 010Ch Software Video graphics characters 44h 0000: 0110h Software Novel Netware API 46h 0000: 0118h Software Hard disk drive D: parameter table 4Ah 0000: 0128h Software User alarm 64h Software Novel Netware IPX 67h Software EMS support routines 70h 0000: 01c0h Hardware Real time clock 71h 0000: 01C4h Hardware Redirect interrupt cascade 75h 0000: 01D4h Hardware Math coprocessor exception 76h 0000: 01D8h Hardware Hard disk support 77h 0000: 01DCh Hardware Suspend request 7Ah Software Novell Netware API

As described above, the fault detection apparatus of the present invention reads the information of the ROM BIOS when the computer boots, and determines the type and type of the hardware failure by checking the address on the ROM BIOS which is interrupted.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the determination result is transmitted to the management server and displayed on the user's home TV.

To this end, the failure detection apparatus includes a transmission unit for transmitting a determination result to the management server. In consideration of the ease of management and installation, the transmission unit is preferably a wireless transmission apparatus.

Hereinafter, the management server will be described in detail.

The management server according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a storage unit for receiving and storing a result of the failure determination of the PC, a transmission unit for transmitting the result to the home TV, and a control unit for controlling the home TV.

The control unit detects the state of the home TV before transmitting the result to the home TV.

If the power is off, the power on command, the result display command, and the failure determination result are transmitted to the home TV.

As a result, it is possible to display the result of the fault judgment on the TV screen after powering on the home TV.

The mode of expression can be various, such as a method of processing a subtitle at the bottom of a video during a broadcasting, a method of processing a subtitle in a blue screen state, and the like.

When the home TV is detected as being powered on, the result display command and the determination result are transmitted to the home TV.

The management server may be located in the home, or may be located at a remote center or other location. However, in light of the object of the present invention, it is preferable to communicate with the PC and the TV wirelessly.

While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments, but, on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

Claims

A failure detection device mounted on the PC, for collecting failure occurrence hardware of the PC and its aspects and transmitting the result wirelessly,
And a management server for receiving the result from the fault detection device and delivering the result to a home TV
Computer failure detection system

The management server according to claim 1,
A storage unit for receiving and storing the fault determination result of the PC,
A transmitter for transmitting the result to the home TV,
A control unit for controlling the home TV
Wherein the computer fault detection system comprises:

3. The apparatus of claim 2,
Wherein the controller detects the status of the home TV and transmits a power on command and a result display command and the result to the home TV when the power of the home TV is off.

The apparatus as claimed in claim 1,
A storage unit for storing a table including the PC hardware and its aspects,
A determination unit for collecting ROM bias information through a contactor connected to a PCI slot of the PC and detecting a PC hard air failure by referring to the information and the table,
A transmitter for wirelessly outputting a result of the determination unit
Wherein the computer fault detection system comprises:

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the table stored in the storage unit comprises:
Each row contains an interrupt number, ROM BIOS address, fault hardware, and fault conditions.

5. The apparatus of claim 4,
And interrupts the interrupt service routine of the ROM BIOS to verify the information of the ROM BIOS.