Jeremy L Holland

US Patent:

8504875, Aug 6, 2013

Filed:

Dec 28, 2009

Appl. No.:

12/647828

Inventors:

Ryuji Orita - Redmond WA, US
Barry A. Kritt - Raleigh NC, US
Charles D. Bauman - Sammamish WA, US
Sumeet Kochar - Apex NC, US
Jeremy K. Holland - Gig Harbor WA, US
Karen A. Taylor - Carnation WA, US

Assignee:

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY

International Classification:

G06F 11/00

US Classification:

714 30, 714 31, 714 34, 714 3814, 714 26

Abstract:

A computing device includes a processor, firmware, a hardware component, and a debugging module. The firmware stores error decoding logic particular to the computing device. The hardware component detects an error in the computing device, and responsively issues an interrupt and halts the processor such that the processor cannot execute any more computer-readable code. The debugging module loads the logic from the firmware at reset and executes the logic responsive to the interrupt. The debugging module does not use the processor to execute the logic, the firmware is not part of the debugging module, and the debugging module is not part of the hardware component. The firmware may also store a mapping between registers of the hardware component and field-replaceable hardware units of the computing device, which the debugging module loads at reset and uses when executing the error decoding logic to determine which unit has caused the error.