PCI error determination using error signatures or vectors

• US 20020124211A1
• Filed: 03/01/2001
• Published: 09/05/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2001
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Gray, Forrest Clifton, Wenning, Mark Walz, Perez, Michael Anthony
• Application Number:
  US09/798,287
• Publication Number:
  US 20020124211A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/39
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0727 in a storage system, e.g. in a DASD or network based storage system drivers for digital recording or reproducing units G06F3/06; circuits for error detection or correction within digital recording or reproducing units G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0745 in an input/output transactions management context input/output processing in general G06F13/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40

Abstract

A method of automatically determining errors and appropriate solutions to those errors in a PCI-based computer system is disclosed. The method is easy to maintain and efficient, because it eliminates the need for inefficient and difficult-to-understand program code containing large numbers of cascaded conditional statements.

Claims

1. A method for determining of corrective measures in a data processing system, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) reading status values from a plurality of status registers;

(b) combining the status values to form a new value; and

(c) using the new value to search a set of corrective measures for at least one corrective measure.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the set of corrective measures are stored in a database.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the new value is a search key used to query the database.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of status registers are associated with a plurality of components.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the plurality of components includes at least one Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) device.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the plurality of components includes at least one software component.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the plurality of components includes at least one hardware component.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the status values are strings of binary digits (bits).

9. The method of claim 8, wherein step (b) includes a step (d) of performing bitwise operations on the strings of binary digits to form the new value.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein step (d) includes a step of concatenating the strings of binary digits.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein step (d) includes a step of modifying the strings of binary digits using a bitmask.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one corrective measure includes a replacement of at least one component with a specified field replaceable unit (FRU).

13. The method of claim 1, comprising the step of:

(d) sorting the at least one corrective measure so that the at least one corrective measure is in decreasing order of desirability.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the at least one corrective measure includes a replacement of at least one component with a specified field replacement unit (FRU).

15. The method of claim 14, wherein corrective measures that require replacement of a greater number of components are less desirable than corrective measures that require replacement of a smaller number of components.

16. The method of claim 1, comprising the step of:

(d) reporting the at least one corrective measure to a user.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the set of corrective measures are stored in a database.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the new value is a search key used to query the database.

20. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the plurality of status registers are associated with a plurality of components.

21. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the plurality of components includes at least one Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) device.

22. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the plurality of components includes at least one software component.

23. The computer program product of claim 20, wherein the plurality of components includes at least one hardware component.

24. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the status values are strings of binary digits (bits).

25. The computer program product of claim 24, wherein the instructions for (b) include instructions for:

(d) performing bitwise operations on the strings of binary digits to form the new value.

26. The computer program product of claim 25, wherein the instructions for (d) include instructions for concatenating the strings of binary digits.

27. The computer program product of claim 25, wherein the instructions for (d) include instructions for modifying the strings of binary digits using a bitmask.

28. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the at least one corrective measure includes a replacement of at least one component with a specified field replaceable unit (FRU).

29. The computer program product of claim 17, comprising instructions for:

(d) sorting the at least one corrective measure so that the at least one corrective measure is in decreasing order of desirability.

30. The computer program product of claim 29, wherein the at least one corrective measure includes a replacement of at least one component with a specified field replacement unit (FRU).

31. The computer program product of claim 30, wherein corrective measures that require replacement of a greater number of components are less desirable than corrective measures that require replacement of a smaller number of components.

32. The computer program product of claim 17, comprising instructions for:

(d) reporting the at least one corrective measure to a user.

17. A computer program product, in a computer-readable medium, for determining in a data processing system, the computer program product comprising instructions for:

(a) reading status values from a plurality of status registers;

(b) combining the status values to form a new value; and

(c) using the new value to search a set of corrective measures for at least one corrective measure.

33. A system for error determination in a computer system having a central processing unit (CPU), comprising:

a plurality of components in communication with the central processing unit, wherein each of the plurality of components is associated with a status register from a plurality of status registers,

wherein the central processing unit combines values from the plurality of status registers to form a vector and wherein the central processing unit searches a database to find at least one corrective measure associated with the vector.

34. The system of claim 33, wherein the plurality of components includes a bus.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein the bus is a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus.

36. The system of claim 33, wherein the plurality of components includes a PCI-host bridge.

37. The system of claim 33, wherein the plurality of components includes a PCI-to-PCI bridge.

38. The system of claim 33, wherein the plurality of components includes an input/output (I/O) adapter.

39. The system of claim 33, wherein the central processing unit sorts the at least one corrective measure in order of decreasing desirability.

40. The system of claim 33, wherein the at least one corrective measure includes replacement of a subset of the plurality of components with a field-replaceable unit.