TWI487844B - Method for fan monitoring and server system using the same - Google Patents

Description

Fan monitoring method and server system

The present invention relates to a server system, and more particularly to a server system and a fan monitoring method therefor.

A server is usually a computer that has high computing power and can be used by multiple users. In order to maintain long-term service, in addition to the computing power of the host system, the server system also includes a number of detection points for detecting various components in the server, such as fan speed, area temperature, power consumption, etc. The server system itself can adjust the system according to the data reported by the detection point, and can be used for a long time without interruption.

Among them, the temperature detected in each area of the server and the speed of the fan corresponding to each area are one of the important detection items. When the temperature of the corresponding area is too high, the control module in the server, such as the baseboard management controller (BMC) on a host, receives the message and sends the command to the corresponding fan to increase its Rotating speed. However, when the temperature of the area is too high, it may not be possible to provide a large enough fan speed to generate a large enough air volume to achieve a cooling effect, and the heat generating component sound in the servo system cannot be quickly cooled and damaged. .

The invention provides a fan monitoring method and a server system thereof, so that When the server system detects that an area is too hot, it can instantly adjust the speed of the corresponding fan in the area.

The present invention provides a fan monitoring method, which is applicable to a server system, wherein the server system includes a fan and a detection point, and the detection point includes a plurality of rotation speed control modules respectively corresponding to a plurality of temperature intervals, and the method includes The following steps. First, a current temperature is detected and it is determined that the current temperature is in one of the temperature intervals. Then, the speed control module corresponding to the temperature interval is used to output a speed control signal to the fan to control the speed of the fan. Wherein, the rotation speed control signal includes a rotation speed value, and the rotation speed value is gradually increased or decreased from a starting value to a rotation speed value corresponding to the current temperature. Then, the current temperature is continuously detected. When the current temperature is increased or decreased to another temperature interval in the temperature range, the speed control signal is output to the fan by using a speed control module corresponding to another temperature interval. When the speed value in the speed control signal outputted by one of the speed control modules is changed, the remaining speed control modules except the speed control module adjust the initial value of the speed value according to the speed value.

In an embodiment of the invention, the step of adjusting the initial value of the rotational speed value according to the rotational speed value of the remaining rotational speed control module further comprises: adjusting the initial value and the rotational speed value of the remaining rotational speed control module.

In an embodiment of the invention, the step of outputting the rotational speed control signal by using the rotational speed control module corresponding to another temperature interval comprises: gradually increasing or decreasing the rotational speed value in the rotational speed control signal from the current rotational speed value to a current temperature Speed value.

In an embodiment of the invention, the speed control module transmits the speed control signal through a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) method. number.

In an embodiment of the invention, wherein the server system further comprises a plurality of sub-fans, the method further comprises the following steps. When the speed control module corresponding to the temperature interval outputs a speed control signal to the fan to control the speed of the fan, the speed control module simultaneously outputs the speed control signal to the sub-fan to adjust the speed of the sub-fan. When the speed control module corresponding to another temperature interval is used to output the speed control signal to the fan, the speed control module corresponding to the other temperature interval simultaneously outputs the speed control signal to the sub fan to adjust the speed of the sub fan.

In an embodiment of the invention, the speed control module outputs the speed control signals in a plurality of control modes, wherein the control modes respectively correspond to the plurality of temperature-speed relationship.

The invention provides a server system comprising: a fan and a detection point. The detection point is coupled to the fan, and includes a plurality of speed control modules respectively corresponding to the plurality of temperature intervals. The detection point detects a current temperature and determines that the current temperature is in one of the temperature intervals. The detection point uses a speed control module corresponding to the temperature interval to output a speed control signal to the fan to control the speed of the fan, wherein the speed control signal includes a speed value, and the speed value is gradually increased or decreased from a starting value to a speed corresponding to the current temperature. value. The detection point continuously detects the current temperature. When the current temperature rises or falls to another temperature range in the temperature range, the speed control module corresponding to the other temperature interval is used to output a speed control signal to the fan, wherein, when the speed is controlled When the speed value in the speed control signal outputted by one of the modules is changed, the remaining speed control modules except the above-mentioned speed control module adjust the speed value according to the speed value. Initial value.

Based on the above, the present invention provides a fan monitoring method and a server system thereof, which can generate sufficient air volume for heat dissipation.

The above described features and advantages of the present invention will be more apparent from the following description.

At least one set of detection points and their corresponding fans for a particular area in the server system. The detection point often divides the detection temperature into multiple temperature intervals, and has different processing methods for each temperature interval, for example, when the temperature is high, the speed of the fan is increased faster. However, when the temperature rises from one temperature range to another, and the detection point is adjusted by another processing method, the speed value controlled by the detection point often has to be controlled from an initial value, that is, the interval can be controlled. The minimum speed value starts to increase gradually. After the speed value is pulled up to the last speed value controlled by the previous temperature range, the speed value can be continuously increased. As a result, there will be varying lengths of waiting time during the increase in the rotational speed, and this region, as well as the heating elements in the region, cannot be cooled quickly and may be damaged.

Therefore, the present invention proposes a fan monitoring method suitable for a server system, which can reduce the delay time of the fan speed value between the temperature intervals. The contents of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the embodiments.

In an embodiment of the invention, the fan monitoring method is applicable to a server system, wherein the server system includes a fan and a detection point, and the detection point It includes multiple speed control modules and corresponds to multiple temperature intervals. The method includes the following steps. FIG. 1 is a flow chart showing the steps of a fan monitoring method according to an embodiment of the invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, first, at step S101, a current temperature is detected, and it is determined that the current temperature is in one of the temperature intervals. Then, in step S102, the speed control module corresponding to the temperature interval is used to output a speed control signal to the fan to control the speed of the fan. Wherein, the rotation speed control signal includes a rotation speed value, and the rotation speed value is gradually increased or decreased from a starting value to a rotation speed value corresponding to the current temperature.

Then, in step S103, the current temperature is continuously detected. When the current temperature is increased or decreased to another temperature interval in the temperature interval, the rotation speed control module corresponding to the other temperature interval is used to output the rotation speed control signal to the fan. When the speed value in the speed control signal outputted by one of the speed control modules is changed, the remaining speed control modules except the speed control module adjust the initial value of the speed value according to the speed value.

2 is a system block diagram of a server system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

The server system 20 includes a fan 210 and a detection point 220. The detection point 220 is coupled to the fan 210, and includes the rotation speed control modules 221 22 22n corresponding to the plurality of temperature intervals. Where n is a positive integer, the same as the number of temperature intervals. In this embodiment, the speed control modules 221 22 22n have different processing methods for the speed values, that is, the temperature-speed relationship in each of the speed control modules 221 22 22n is somewhat different. For example, in a temperature range where the temperature is relatively high, the rate of increase in the speed corresponding to the temperature is high, but the invention is not limited thereto. herein.

The detection point 220 detects the current temperature and determines that the current temperature is in one of the temperature intervals. The detection point 220 outputs a rotation speed control signal SC to the fan 210 by using a rotation speed control module (one of the rotation speed control modules 221 22 22n) corresponding to the temperature interval to control the rotation speed of the fan 210.

The rotational speed control signal SC includes a rotational speed value that gradually increases or decreases from a starting value to a rotational speed value corresponding to the current temperature. The detection point 220 continuously detects the current temperature. When the current temperature increases or decreases to another temperature interval in the temperature range, the speed control module corresponding to the other temperature interval is used to output the speed control signal SC to the fan, wherein When the speed value in the speed control signal SC outputted by one of the speed control modules (one of the speed control modules 221 to 22n) is changed, in addition to the speed control module (one of the speed control modules 221 to 22n) The remaining speed control module speed control modules 221~22n adjust the initial value of the speed value according to the speed value.

In short, the speed values of the individual speed control modules 221~22n can be overlapped. For example, the maximum values of the speed values that can be controlled by the speed control modules 221~22n are different, but have the same starting point. value. According to the above method, even if the rotation speed control module that does not output the rotation speed control signal SC changes the initial value according to the rotation speed value in the currently output rotation speed control signal SC (for example, when the rotation speed value in the rotation speed control signal S is increased, The speed control module that does not output the speed control signal SC also increases the initial value according to the speed value. When the current temperature is raised to another temperature range, the speed control module corresponding to the temperature range can immediately keep up with the current speed control. The value of the rotational speed in the signal SC is followed by the control of the rotational speed.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the rotational speed control module that does not output the rotational speed control signal SC adjusts the initial value to be the same as the rotational speed value in the current rotational speed control signal SC, so that when the current temperature falls into another temperature interval, The rotation speed control module corresponding to the time interval can directly increase (or decrease) the rotation speed value in the output rotation speed control signal SC from the current rotation speed value of the fan 210 to the rotation speed value corresponding to the current temperature. In this way, there is no possibility of causing a delay time between the switching of the speed control module.

In the present embodiment, the rotational speed control modules 221 22 22 n transmit the rotational speed control signal SC through a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) method. In yet another embodiment, the server system 20 further wraps a plurality of sub-fans toward the same area as the fan 210. In this embodiment, when the detecting point 220 uses one of the rotational speed control modules 221 22 22n to output the rotational speed control signal SC to the fan 210 to control the rotational speed of the fan 210, the rotational speed control module 210 simultaneously outputs the rotational speed control signal SC to These sub-fans adjust the speed of these sub-fans. When the detection point 220 outputs the rotation speed control signal SC to the fan 210 by using the rotation speed control module (one of the rotation speed control modules 221 22 22n) corresponding to another temperature interval, the rotation speed control module corresponding to another temperature interval (One of the rotational speed control modules 221 to 22n) simultaneously outputs the rotational speed control signal SC to the sub-fan to adjust the rotational speed of the sub-fan.

It is to be noted that the rotational speed value included in the rotational speed control signal SC output to the sub-fans may be different from the rotational speed value in the rotational speed control signal SC output to the fan 210, but is output to the rotational speed control signal SC of the sub-fans. The included speed value is still controlled with the speed output to the fan 210. The value of the rotational speed in the signal SC is proportional.

In particular, the server system 20 also includes components of the prior art that maintain the normal operation of the server system, such as nodes, ports, racks, etc., which are not shown here for the sake of brevity. In the server system 20, a plurality of sets of fans and detection point combinations such as the fan 210 and the detection point 220 may also be provided, and the present invention is not limited thereto.

The speed control modules 221 22 22n of the present invention can also be implemented by using a processor in cooperation with a memory unit to execute a code. The speed control modules 221 22 22n respectively correspond to a plurality of temperature-speed correspondences. Functional modules with different control methods. In addition, the rotational speed control modules 221 22 22 n can also be implemented by actual circuits, and the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments.

Figure 3A is a graph showing the relationship between the rotational speed value and time of the detection point 220 using conventional methods. In this implementation, the detection point 220 includes three speed control modules 221 to 223, which respectively correspond to three temperature intervals, that is, the case of n=3 in the embodiment shown in FIG. 2. Moreover, the rotational speed (PWM) values that the rotational speed control modules 221 to 223 can control are 90 to 145, 90 to 220, and 90 to 255, respectively, and have the same starting value.

Referring to FIG. 2 and FIG. 3A, when the temperature value of the current temperature detected by the detection point 220 falls within the temperature range corresponding to the speed control module 221, the detection point 220 first controls the fan 210 to start at the time point t1. Increase the speed value from the starting value (90) to the maximum speed value (145).

At this time, the temperature value of the current temperature detected by the detection point 220 continues to climb to the corresponding temperature range of the corresponding speed control module 222. Detection point 220 Then, the transfer speed control module 222 increases the speed value from the time t2. Since the starting value of the speed control module 222 is the same as the speed control module 221 (90), the speed control module 222 must wait for the speed control module 222 to increase from the starting value (90) to the maximum speed of the speed control module 221. The period of time, that is, the delay time of time T1.

Similarly, when the current temperature is again increased to the temperature interval corresponding to the rotational speed control module 223, and the rotational speed control module 223 controls the rotational speed value from time t3, the rotational speed control module 223 is still waiting for the starting value (90). The time to the maximum speed that can be controlled by the previous speed control module (speed control module 222), that is, the delay time such as T2. For the fan 2 to reach the maximum speed value corresponding to the speed control module 223, the fan 210 needs the time length of the time TT1, and further includes the delay time of the times T1 and T2.

On the other hand, Fig. 3B is a diagram showing the relationship between the rotational speed value and the time of the detection point 220 in an embodiment of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 3B, in this embodiment, when the temperature value detected by the detection point 220 falls within the temperature range corresponding to the speed control module 221, the speed control module 221 directly controls the fan 210. The time t1 starts to increase the rotation speed. While the rotational speed control module 221 outputs the rotational speed control signal SC, the rotational speed control modules 222 and 223 also simultaneously adjust the initial value (in this embodiment, the increase) and the rotational speed control signal SC outputted by the rotational speed control module 221 The speed value is the same. In this way, when the current temperature continues to rise, the detection point 220 switches to use the rotational speed control module 222 or 223 to output the rotational speed control signal SC, and the waiting time (time T1, T2) of the implementation shown in FIG. 3A may not be needed. The measuring point 220 only requires the time length of the time TT2, that is, the fan 210 can be raised to the steerable maximum speed value, and the delay time of the times T1, T2 as shown in FIG. 3A is removed.

In summary, the present invention provides a fan monitoring method and a server system. When a temperature in a specific area of the server system is too high, the detection point uses the corresponding speed control module to increase the speed of the fan. At the same time, the other speed control modules in the detection point also increase the initial value according to the current speed value, so that the detection point can shorten the delay time between the starting value and the maximum speed value of the previous speed control module, A sufficient amount of air is generated to reduce the temperature in a specific area, thereby protecting the heating element therein from damage caused by excessive high temperature for a long time.

Although the present invention has been disclosed in the above embodiments, it is not intended to limit the invention, and any one of ordinary skill in the art can make some modifications and refinements without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. The scope of the invention is defined by the scope of the appended claims.

20‧‧‧Server System

210‧‧‧fan

220‧‧‧Detection points

221~22n‧‧‧Speed Control Module

S101~S104‧‧‧Steps

TT1, TT2‧‧‧ time

T1, T2‧‧‧ delay time

T1~t3‧‧‧ time point

FIG. 1 is a flow chart showing the steps of a fan monitoring method according to an embodiment of the invention.

2 is a system block diagram of a server system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.

Figure 3A is a graph showing the relationship between the rotational speed value and time using the conventional method for the detection point.

FIG. 3B shows the speed value and time of the detection point in an embodiment of the present invention. Diagram of the relationship.

S101~S104‧‧‧Steps

Claims (7)

A fan monitoring method is applicable to a server system, wherein the server system includes a fan module and a detection point, and the detection point includes a plurality of rotation speed control modules respectively corresponding to a plurality of temperature intervals, according to the detection Measuring a point to control the operation of the fan, the method comprising: detecting a current temperature, and determining that the current temperature is located in one of the temperature ranges; and outputting the fan to the fan by using the speed control mode corresponding to the temperature interval a speed control signal for controlling the speed of the fan, wherein the speed control signal includes a speed value that gradually increases or decreases from a starting value to the speed value corresponding to the current temperature; continuously detecting the current temperature, when When the current temperature is increased or decreased to another temperature range in the temperature range, the speed control signal is output to the fan by using the speed control module corresponding to the other temperature interval, and the speed in the speed control signal is The value is gradually increased or decreased from the current value of the rotational speed to a rotational speed value corresponding to the current temperature; and when the rotational speed control modules thereof The speed value when the speed control signal output from one of the changes, the plurality of rotation speed control module to rest in addition to the speed control module to adjust the initial value of the rotational speed value is the same as the rotation speed value according to the rotational speed value. The method of claim 1, wherein the speed control module transmits the speed control signal through a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) method. The method of claim 1, wherein the server system The system further includes a plurality of sub-fans, and the method includes: when the speed control module corresponding to the temperature interval outputs the rotation speed control signal to the fan to control the rotation speed of the fan, the rotation speed control module outputs the rotation speed at the same time. Controlling signals to the sub-fans to adjust the rotational speeds of the sub-fans; and when the rotational speed control module corresponding to the other temperature interval outputs the rotational speed control signal to the fan, corresponding to the other temperature interval The speed control module simultaneously outputs the speed control signal to the sub-fans to adjust the speed of the sub-fans. The method of claim 1, wherein the speed control modules respectively output the speed control signals in a plurality of control manners, wherein the control modes respectively correspond to a plurality of temperature-speed correspondences. A server system includes: a fan; and a detection point coupled to the fan, comprising: a plurality of speed control modules respectively corresponding to a plurality of temperature intervals, wherein the detection point detects a current temperature, And determining that the current temperature is located in one of the temperature ranges; the detecting point outputs a speed control signal to the fan by using the speed control module corresponding to the temperature interval to control the speed of the fan, wherein the speed control signal includes a a speed value that gradually increases or decreases from a starting value to the speed value corresponding to the current temperature; and the detecting point continuously detects the current temperature when the current temperature rises or When the temperature range is lowered to another temperature range, the speed control module is output to the fan by using the speed control module corresponding to the other temperature interval, and the speed control module controls the speed in the speed control signal. The value is gradually increased or decreased from the current value of the rotational speed to a rotational speed value corresponding to the current temperature, wherein when the rotational speed value in the rotational speed control signal output by one of the rotational speed control modules is changed, The other speed control modules outside the control module adjust the initial value of the speed value according to the speed value to be the same as the speed value. The system of claim 5, wherein: the server system further comprises a plurality of sub-fans, wherein the detecting point outputs the speed control signal to the fan when the detecting point uses the speed control module corresponding to the temperature interval When controlling the rotation speed of the fan, the rotation speed control module outputs the rotation speed control signal to the sub-fans to adjust the rotation speeds of the sub-fans; and when the detection point uses the rotation speed corresponding to the other temperature interval When the control module outputs the rotation speed control signal to the fan, the rotation speed control module corresponding to the other temperature interval simultaneously outputs the rotation speed control signal to the sub-fans to adjust the rotation speeds of the sub-fans. The system of claim 5, wherein the speed control modules respectively output the speed control signals in a plurality of control manners, wherein the control modes respectively correspond to a plurality of temperature-speed correspondences.