Process and tool for analyzing and locating hardware failures in a computer
First Claim
1. A process for analyzing and locating hardware failures in a computing machine storing information on operational errors generated by various sensible hardware components of the computing machine, characterized in that it comprises creating a man/machine interface, using the man/machine interface to describe components and rules for interpreting errors in a structural language, error information generated in accordance with the value of one or more status registers of the machine, using the component descriptions and rules for interpreting parameters in correlation with the error information to detect a malfunctioning component, determining the parameters from machine status registers and contents of the status registers of the machine,describing the status registers of the machine, describing the content of said status registers, and describing the set of interpreting rules for extracting the location of the failure from the contents of the registers in order to determine the parameters required for the description of components, the description of the content of the status registers, and for the description of the rules.
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Abstract
A process, a tool and a computer for analyzing and locating hardware failures in a computing machine storing information on operational errors generated by the various sensible hardware components of the machine, characterized in that it consists of creating a man/machine interface (I) through which the components and the rules for interpreting errors are described in a structural language and used by the machine as external parameters in correlation with the error information to detect the malfunctioning component or components. The preventive process is particularly adopted for computer hardware maintenance.
33 Citations
26 Claims
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1. A process for analyzing and locating hardware failures in a computing machine storing information on operational errors generated by various sensible hardware components of the computing machine, characterized in that it comprises creating a man/machine interface, using the man/machine interface to describe components and rules for interpreting errors in a structural language, error information generated in accordance with the value of one or more status registers of the machine, using the component descriptions and rules for interpreting parameters in correlation with the error information to detect a malfunctioning component, determining the parameters from machine status registers and contents of the status registers of the machine,
describing the status registers of the machine, describing the content of said status registers, and describing the set of interpreting rules for extracting the location of the failure from the contents of the registers in order to determine the parameters required for the description of components, the description of the content of the status registers, and for the description of the rules.
- 3. A tool for analyzing and locating hardware failures in a computing machine comprising a memory for storing error information generated by sensible components of the machine, said error information determined by the value of one or more status registers of the sensible components, an error analysis engine for receiving through a first series of inputs, error information, and for receiving through a second series of inputs, parameters required for description of the content of the status registers, for description of the sensible components of the machine, and for description of rules for interpreting errors, and a man/machine interface between the tool and a component expert to allow said component expert to formulate the parameters in a structured language.
- 15. A computer for analyzing and locating hardware errors within a computer comprising a memory for storing error information generated by sensible components of the computer, said error information determined by the value of one or more status registers of the sensible components, an error analysis engine for receiving error information through a first series of inputs, and for receiving parameters through a second series of inputs required for description of the content of the status registers, for description of the sensible components of the computer, and for description of rules for interpreting errors, and a man/machine interface between the tool and a component expert to allow said component expert to formulate parameters in a structured language.
Specification