1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an initializing system of a computer at a time of power-on of the computer, and, more particularly, to an initializing system of an expansion card mounted on the computer.
2. Description of the Related Art
An initializing program (ROM program) stored in a ROM (Read Only Memory) mounted on the expansion card is read out from the expansion card connected to a computer main body device (hereinafter called “main body device”) and the program is executed, at a time of start-up operation of the main body device (at the time of power-on). With this, operational states of the expansion card, peripheral devices connected to the expansion card, and the like are initialized.
The execution processing of the initializing program is executed by each expansion card unit connected to the main body device in order. Therefore, for a server with a large scale configuration having a number of expansion cards mounted on the main body device for example, there has been such a disadvantage that, at the time of start-up operation of the server main body, initialization processing of each expansion card takes a very long time, and therefore, a very long time is required for starting-up the main body device.
Particularly, when the initialization is executed by recognizing the expansion card which has a plurality of programs in a ROM on the expansion card, an appropriate setting about whether to execute the ROM program of each expansion card is required by expansion slot unit, in order to achieve a prompt start-up operation of the main body device with a necessary minimum time.
However, for the appropriate setting about whether to execute the ROM program of each expansion card, the setting has to be performed according to mounting configuration of the expansion card such as mounted position of the expansion card or the type of the expansion card. Thus, there has been such a disadvantage that content of the setting becomes complicated.
Also, with a large scale configuration having a number of expansion cards mounted thereon, there has been such a disadvantage that a very long time is required for start-up operation since the ROM programs are executed on all the expansion cards at the start-up operation.
As a related art dealing with the problems described above, proposed is a method with which the setting about whether to execute the ROM program on each expansion card is performed manually by each unit of mounting slot for the expansion card, to execute the required minimum number of ROM programs, in order to shorten the start-up time (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication 07-006114 (Patent Document 1)).
However, with the related art described in Patent Document 1, since the mounted position of the expansion card varies according to each shipping configuration of the computer main body device, the setting in accordance with each configuration of the main body devices is required, and there has been such a disadvantage that the procedure cannot be fixed, and becomes complicated.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds