JPH10161900A - Information processor and method therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily and surely recover a boot error. SOLUTION: A boot state is supervised and a state at the time of the occurrence of an error is communicated to a center. The state at the time of boot is stored in flash memory 90 and when a boot error occurs and a boot recovery button 34 is operated, a CPU 91 which supervises the state at the time of boot controls a DSVD modem 79 and makes it automatically call a prescribed service center and transmit data which is stored in the flash memory 90. The CPU 91 is provided independently of a CPU 71 which executes basic processing of a personal computer 1.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and method, and more particularly, to an information processing apparatus and method capable of promptly recovering from a boot error.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Recently, personal computers have become widespread and have been used not only for business purposes as office automation equipment but also at home. As a result, not only those who have a good knowledge of computers but also those who do not have very detailed knowledge of computers have more opportunities to operate the computers.

[0003]

Therefore, for example, when the personal computer cannot be booted normally, the user calls the service center to report the defect of the personal computer and request repair. However, if you do not have enough detailed knowledge and cannot tell exactly how the problem is, or if it is not a problem but a user operation error, call the service center. There was something like that. As a result, the number of service operations at the service center has increased, and personal computer providers tend to have sufficient staff for after-sales service.

[0004] The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and it is an object of the present invention to be able to easily identify a defect and quickly recover from the defect.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing apparatus, comprising: processing means for performing predetermined processing; monitoring means for monitoring a state of the processing means at the time of booting; Operating means to be operated and communication means for communicating with a predetermined destination when the operating means is operated.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing method, comprising: a processing step for performing a predetermined process; a monitoring step for monitoring a state of the processing step at the time of booting; and whether a predetermined operation is performed when a boot error occurs. And a communication step of communicating with a predetermined destination in accordance with the determination result of the determination step.

In the information processing apparatus according to the first aspect and the information processing method according to the fourth aspect, when a boot error occurs, when a predetermined operation is performed, communication with a predetermined destination is performed. Done. Therefore, a quick recovery from a boot error becomes possible.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will be described below. In order to clarify the correspondence between each means of the invention described in the claims and the following embodiments, each means is described. When the features of the present invention are described by adding the corresponding embodiment (however, an example) in parentheses after the parentheses, the result is as follows. However, of course, this description does not mean that each means is limited to those described.

The information processing apparatus according to the first aspect includes a processing unit (for example, CPU 71 in FIG. 5) for performing a predetermined process and a monitoring unit (for example, for monitoring the state of the processing unit at the time of booting)
CPU 91 in FIG. 5), operating means (for example, boot recovery button 34 in FIG. 5) operated when a boot error occurs, and communication means (for example, for communicating with a predetermined destination when the operating means is operated) , The DSVD modem 79 in FIG. 5).

[0010] The information processing apparatus according to claim 2 is a storage means for storing a state of the processing means at the time of booting.
Flash memory 90), and the communication means includes:
The state stored in the storage means is transmitted to the other party.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing apparatus, comprising: display means for displaying occurrence of a boot error (for example, an LCD shown in FIG. 5).
88) is further provided.

FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of an AV system to which the information processing apparatus of the present invention is applied. In this embodiment, a personal computer 1 is an AV device 2 such as a tuner, an amplifier, and a video disc player.
In addition, it is connected to the television receiver 3. The television receiver 3 has a CRT 4 for displaying an image and a speaker 5 for outputting an audio signal.

The keyboard 11 includes a plurality of keys 12.
And a touch pad 13, and an infrared signal corresponding to the operation is emitted from the infrared transmitting unit 14 to the personal computer 1.

FIG. 2 shows the external shape of the personal computer 1. The personal computer 1 has a width of 225 mm, a height of 94 mm, and a depth of 350 mm. Also, on the front of the personal computer 1,
An openable and closable door 21 is provided.
A surface 22 is provided. In the figure, a power switch 23 that is operated to turn on or off the power and an infrared receiving unit 24 that receives infrared light emitted from the infrared transmitting unit 14 of the keyboard 11 are formed on the left surface 22. Further, a speaker 25 is provided on a side wall of the personal computer 1.

Also, when peripheral devices connected to the personal computer 1 are mounted on the upper surface of the personal computer 1, the peripheral devices are arranged so that the legs of the peripheral devices are stably arranged on the upper surface. A recess 25 is formed at a position corresponding to the leg of the device.

FIG. 3 shows a state in which the door 21 of the personal computer 1 is opened. As shown in the figure,
When the door 21 is opened, a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc)
The drive 33 is exposed. A USB terminal 31 as a serial interface and an IEEE (Institute of Electric
l and Electronics Engineers) 1394 standard 1394
A terminal 32 is provided. Furthermore, the DVD drive 33
A microphone 35 is provided at the lower center, and a boot recovery button 34 is provided at the right side thereof.

FIG. 4 shows a state in which the door 41 on the back of the personal computer 1 is opened. As shown in the figure, when the door 41 is opened, the PC card insertion slot 42 is exposed. Also, the PC card insertion slot 42
A USB terminal 43 and a 1394 terminal 44, a printer terminal 45 for connecting a printer, and a VGA terminal 46 for outputting computer graphics data are provided below the USB terminal 43.

FIG. 5 shows an example of the internal configuration of the personal computer 1. CPU (Central Processing Unit)
For example, Pentium (trademark) of Intel Corporation is used for 71. The CPU operates with an internal clock having a frequency of 166 MHz or an external clock having a frequency of 66 MHz, and executes basic processing of the personal computer 1. RA
M72 is a 16 MB main memory, and stores data, programs, and the like processed by the CPU 71 as appropriate.
The ROM 73 stores programs necessary for the CPU 71 to execute various processes. EEPROM (Electricall
y Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) 74
Data and the like that need to be stored even after the power of the personal computer 1 is turned off are appropriately stored.

The graphics processing unit 75 performs a moving image process (color space conversion for converting a YUV signal, which is a display format of moving image data, to an RGB signal, which is a graphics signal data format).
In addition to performing scaling (enlargement or reduction) processing for displaying with a desired screen size, etc., three-dimensional graphics processing (for example, rasterization processing for projecting a three-dimensional object on a secondary screen screen, object Glow shading processing to make the surface look smooth, alpha blending processing to represent translucent objects, etc.), and further, to write the processing result to the display memory 76 and output it to the synthesizing circuit 85. Do.

The MPEG2 video decoder 77 decodes data reproduced from the DVD by the DVD drive 33,
Output to the synthesis circuit 85. Digital sound processing unit 81
Is ADPCM (Adaptive Difference Pulse Code Modulatio
n) FM (Frequency Modulation) for sound source decompression, MPEG audio data decompression, and reverberation and surround sound effects
sound) (ie, the process of generating an audio signal by synthesizing multiple sine waves of different frequencies and amplitudes), or MIDI (Musical Instrument Di
gital Interface) performs wave table synthesis processing, decoding processing of the Dolby AC-3 (trademark) method, and the like. MIDI
The wave table synthesizing process is a process in which a built-in synthesizer reproduces MIDI data using a wave table that stores digital data serving as phonemes of musical instrument sounds. Each processed audio signal is mixed by a built-in audio mixer, converted into an analog audio signal, and output to a speaker 5 of the television receiver 3. The digital sound processing section 81 processes an audio signal input from the microphone 35 and outputs the processed audio signal to the DSVD modem 79, and also processes audio data supplied from the DSVD modem 79 and outputs the processed audio data to the speaker 25. ing.

The Intercast (trademark) board 78 is a board that receives an intercast broadcast via an antenna 91 and performs processing for demodulation. In the intercast, the World Wide Web (W
HTML (Hyper Text Markup Langua)
ge) Insert data and send. The data received is
It is stored on a hard disk driven by a hard disk drive (HDD) 80. Hard disk drive 80
By traversing through the HTML data, the user can have a pseudo-interactive environment.

For example, in the case of a sports program, a score, a still image of a definitive scene, a video clip, or the like is transmitted by this intercast in accordance with the content of the program.
These still images and video clips are linked to related information. For example, the link destination is accessed via an analog telephone line so that the related information can be obtained. This intercast was developed by Intel.

DSVD (Digital Simultaneous Voice & Dat)
a) The modem 79 time-division multiplexes voice and data using the DSVD method developed by Intel Corporation, outputs the time-division multiplexed signal to the telephone line via the modular jack 92, and outputs the DSVD signal input via the telephone line. Then, a process of demodulating and separating the audio signal and the data is performed. In this method, a digitally compressed audio signal and a normal audio signal are converted into V.11 signals. It is multiplexed using a header of 42 protocol. If no audio signal is present, the maximum data transfer rate is 28.8 kbit / sec, and if there is an audio signal, 19.2 kbit / sec. The transmission speed of the audio signal is 9.6 kbit / sec. Audio signal compression and decompression methods are available from Rockwell's DigiTalk ™ and DSP Group's TrueSpeec.
h (trademark) is used.

The keyboard controller 84 receives a signal from the infrared receiving section 24 and outputs a signal corresponding to the received signal to the CPU 71.

The synthesizing circuit 85 includes the graphics processing unit 7
5 and the output of the MPEG2 video decoder 77 as required, and output to the NTSC encoder 86,
LCD 8 via D (Liquid Crystal Display) driver 87
8 is displayed. NTSC encoder 8
6 converts the video data input from the synthesizing circuit 85 into NTSC video data.
The video signal is converted into an analog video signal of the system and output to the television receiver 3.

Although only one bus is shown for convenience, a local bus connecting the CPU 71 and the RAM 72 and an ISA connected to the keyboard controller 84 are actually used.
(Industry Standard Architecture) bus, and other PCI (Periph
eral Component Interconnect) bus. The ISA bus is an 8-bit or 16-bit bus, and the PCI bus is a 32-bit or 64-bit bus. The PCI bus operates at a speed between 25 MHz and 66 MHz and achieves a maximum of 528 KB / sec throughput. This speed is more than 42 times faster than the ISA bus.

The expansion slot 82 is an expansion slot for a PCI bus, and the expansion slot 83 is an expansion slot for an ISA bus. In this expansion slot,
A desired function can be realized by connecting a peripheral circuit of a predetermined function (for example, a SCSI board).

The input / output interface 89 transmits signals corresponding to operations from the power switch 23, the boot recovery button 34, and other switches and buttons to the CPU 7.
1 and the CPU 91. CPU91
Is a personal computer 1 independent of the CPU 71.
It is provided to monitor the malfunction of the CPU 71 (in particular, the CPU 71) and to execute the process of controlling the DSVD modem 79 independently of the CPU 71, and is always in operation. The flash memory 90 is controlled by the CPU 91 and stores information on the operation state of the personal computer 1 (particularly, the CPU 71).

Note that dedicated bus bridge circuits (not shown) are provided between the local bus and the PCI bus, and between the PCI bus and the ISA bus.

FIG. 6 shows an example of the internal configuration of the keyboard 11. The detection circuit 141 detects a key operated from the keys 12. Further, the detection circuit 141 detects the coordinate data (X, Y) of the operated point P on the touch pad 13. Then, the detection circuit 14
1 outputs the detection result to the transmission module 142. The transmission module 142 converts the signal input from the detection circuit 141 into a transmission signal, outputs the signal to the infrared transmitting unit 14,
Transmit as an infrared signal.

The battery 143 supplies a predetermined power to the power supply circuit 144. The power supply circuit 144 includes a detection circuit 141
And the necessary power to the transmission module 142. The power switch 145 is operated when the keyboard 11 is used or stopped.

Next, the operation will be described. When the power switch 23 is operated, the CPU 71 starts boot processing of the personal computer 1, checks a memory, a board, and the like, and incorporates various drivers. The CPU 71 stores the log, message, and the like at the time of booting in the flash memory 90 as a file. When booting is properly performed, the CPU 71 controls the graphics processing unit 75 to generate an image of an initial screen and display the image on the CRT 4 of the television receiver 3 via the synthesizing circuit 85 and the NTSC encoder 86. . Thus, the user can know that the personal computer 1 has been properly booted. Thereafter, the user operates the keyboard 11 to cause the personal computer 1 to execute various processes.

On the other hand, when a boot error occurs, the CPU
Since the 71 cannot operate normally, it cannot control the graphics processing unit 75 to display the initial screen on the CRT 4. This allows the user to know that a boot error has occurred. At this time,
The user turns on the boot recovery button 34. CPU
When the operation signal of the boot recovery button 34 is input, the process 91 executes the processing shown in the flowchart of FIG.

That is, first, in step S1,
The type of the boot error is determined, and a process of displaying the type is executed. As described above, the flash memory 90 includes:
The state (log, message, etc.) that changes every moment at boot time is recorded. The CPU 91 reads the recording data in the flash memory 90, determines the type of the boot error, and causes the graphics processing unit 75 to generate character data representing the type. The determination at this time can be made in the same manner as in step S5 described later. This character is supplied to the LCD driver 87 via the synthesizing circuit 85 and displayed on the LCD 88 (of course, it may be displayed on the CRT 4). The user can use this LCD 88
The type of boot error can be recognized from the display.

Next, proceeding to step S2, the CPU 91
Executes service center call processing. That is, DS
The telephone number of the service center is stored in the VD modem 79 in advance, and the CPU 91 controls the DSVD modem 79 to execute a calling operation for the stored telephone number. As a result, the DSVD modem 79 makes a call to the service center via the telephone line. When a line is connected to the service center, the CPU 91 controls the digital sound processing unit 81 and
And the speaker 25 are used to make the user execute a process of talking with the service center. At this time, the user verbally tells the staff of the service center via the microphone 35 that the personal computer 1 is not normally booted. The audio signal is output from the microphone 3
5 and compressed by the digital sound processing unit 81, the DSVD modem 79, the modular jack 9
2. It is transmitted to the service center via the telephone line.

The voice signal from the service center staff is transmitted via a telephone line and a modular jack 92 to the DS.
It is input to the VD modem 79. The DSVD modem 79 demodulates this audio signal and outputs it to the digital sound processing unit 81. The digital sound processing section 81 expands this audio data and outputs it from the speaker 25. In this way, the user can make a call directly from the personal computer 1 without using the telephone with the staff of the service center.

Next, proceeding to step S4, the CPU 91
The data regarding the state of the personal computer 1 stored in the flash memory 90 is read out and transmitted to the service center via the DSVD modem 79. In the service center, the transmitted data is analyzed in step S5 to determine the failure.

For example, if the memory check indicates NG, a log indicating that there is a hardware failure or the telephone line or the like is not connected remains, and if a log remains, a user operation error or a specific device driver is incorporated. If it becomes NG at that time, it is determined that the software or the target hardware is faulty.

When the staff of the service center determines from the transmitted data that the cause of the boot error is a user operation error, in step S6,
Advise the user to perform the correct operation. Upon receiving this advice, the user performs the boot operation again.

If it is determined in step S5 that there is a failure in the software, the service center transmits a predetermined command to the CPU 71 via the telephone line in step S7, and directly executes the process of removing the failure. .
Alternatively, the user is verbally advised on the operation method for removing the obstacle, and the user is caused to execute the operation for removing the obstacle.

If it is determined in step S5 that the hardware has a failure, the service center arranges for repair of the personal computer 1 in step S8. For example, a serviceman arranges to go for repair or requests the user to deliver the personal computer 1 to a service center.

As described above, in this embodiment,
When the personal computer 1 cannot be booted properly, simply by operating the boot recovery button 34, the process for recovering the boot error is automatically started, so that even a user who is unfamiliar with the operation of the personal computer can easily execute the process. And it is possible to recover the boot error reliably.

[0043]

As described above, according to the information processing apparatus according to the first aspect and the information processing method according to the fourth aspect, when a boot error occurs, when a predetermined operation is performed, an automatic operation is performed. Since the communication with the other party is performed first, it is possible to recover the boot error easily and reliably.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a configuration example of an AV system to which an information processing apparatus according to the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view showing a configuration of the external appearance of the personal computer of FIG. 1 as viewed from the front.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a state in which a door of the personal computer of FIG. 2 is opened.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a state where a door on a rear surface of the personal computer of FIG. 1 is opened.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an example of the internal configuration of the personal computer shown in FIG. 1;

6 is a block diagram showing a configuration example of the keyboard 11 of FIG.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart illustrating an operation when a boot error occurs.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 personal computer, 3 television receiver, 4 CRT, 5 speakers, 11 keyboard,
12 keys, 13 touch pad, 14 infrared transmitter, 24 infrared receiver, 25 speaker,
33 DVD drive, 34 boot recovery button,
35 microphone, 75 graphics processing unit, 77 MPEG2 video decoder, 85 synthesis circuit, 86 NTSC encoder, 88 LCD, 90 flash memory

Claims (4)

[Claims] A processing unit that performs a predetermined process; a monitoring unit that monitors a state of the processing unit at the time of booting; an operating unit that is operated when a boot error occurs; and a processing unit that is operated when the operating unit is operated. An information processing apparatus comprising: communication means for communicating with a predetermined destination. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a storage unit configured to store a state of the processing unit at the time of booting, wherein the communication unit transmits the state stored in the storage unit to the other party. 2. The information processing device according to 1. 3. The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a display unit that displays the occurrence of the boot error. A processing step of performing a predetermined process; a monitoring step of monitoring a state of the processing step at the time of booting; and a determining step of determining whether a predetermined operation has been performed when a boot error has occurred. A communication step of communicating with a predetermined destination in accordance with the result of the determination.