Abstract: A method and system are disclosed which monitor specified events among the number of events within a data processing system. The system of the present invention includes a software writable control register which specifies the events within the data processing system which are to be monitored, hardware for monitoring the specified events, and logic for detecting each occurrence of a specified event. In addition, the system of the present invention includes a number of counters which incrementally advance in response to an occurrence of a specified event, wherein, in response to a setting of the control register, at least one of the counters is programmed to incrementally advance in response to an overflow from a second counter. By selectively linking the counters in this manner, the maximum number of occurrences which may be counted by the counters may be dynamically altered.