Dell Products Inc.

Emc IP Holding Company LLC

Craig Lawrence Chaiken

Siva Subramaniam Rajan

Adolfo Sandor Montero

Michael Wayne Arms

Balasingh Ponraj Samuel

Ricardo Luis Martinez

Bryan James Thornley

Vinod Makhija

Richard Martin Tonry

Geroncio Ong Tan

Steven Downum

Anand Prakash Joshi

Muhammed K Jaber

Hong-Ji Huang

Terry Lane Matula

Andrew J O'Rourke

Hong-Ling Chen

Hou-Chun Wang

Kuo-Chieh Lai

Chun Yi Yang

Andrew Thomas Sultenfuss

Timothy Carlyle Shaw

Kendall C Witte

Yi-Fan Wang

Matthew G Page

Stephen Cooper

John Robert Lerma

Zhao Hui Yu

Yi Fan Wang

Shiven Pandya

Paul Jimenez

Jerrold L Cady

Ed Benyukhis

Dustin A Combs

Chun Yi (Jadis) Yang

An information handling system may include a strain force fuse formed on a circuit board of the information handling system, the strain force fuse configured to experience an impedance discontinuity in response to a mechanical force applied to the circuit board at or proximate to the strain force fuse and a management controller electrically coupled to the strain force fuse and configured to provide out-of-band management facilities for management of the information handling system, the management controller further configured to detect whether the impedance discontinuity has occurred.

Systems and methods for detecting mechanical strain on a circuit board

A system analyzes data associated with a failure of an information handling system by evaluating memory addresses found in memory, such as bug check parameters, context register values, or stacks in a memory dump, at the time of a fatal error to determine whether one of the memory addresses has a single-bit error, and modifying a first memory address with the single-bit error to generate a second memory address, wherein the first memory address is one of the memory addresses being evaluated. If a second memory address is mapped to the page table, the system authorizes a repair of the information handling system.

Single-bit memory error detection

An information handling system may include a circuit board, an integrated circuit package mounted on the circuit board, the integrated circuit package comprising: a plurality of solder balls for electrically coupling the integrated circuit package to the circuit board, the plurality of solder balls comprising a first solder ball and a second solder ball, an internal electrical coupling coupled between the first solder ball and the second solder ball, and a management controller electrically coupled to the internal electrical coupling, the first solder ball, and the second solder ball, and configured to provide out-of-band management facilities for management of the information handling system, the management controller further configured to detect whether an impedance discontinuity has occurred with respect to one or both of the first solder ball and the second solder ball.

Systems and methods for detecting mechanical strain on a ball of a ball grid array

An information handling system includes a processor and an embedded controller. The processor executes operations while the information handling system is in an active power state. The embedded controller communicates with the processor. While the information handling system is in the active power state, the embedded controller detects a trigger event. In response to the trigger event, the embedded controller provides a ping command to the processor. Based on a response to the ping command not being received, the embedded controller determines a processor freeze, stores forensic data associated with the processor freeze, and stores an indication to perform a processor freeze recovery during a next boot operation.

Collection of forensic data after a processor freeze

An information handling system may include a processor, a display device communicatively coupled to the processor, and a management controller communicatively coupled to the processor and the display device and configured to, in response to a failure of the information handling system, determine a component of the information handling system as a source of failure, generate a unique failure code associated with the failure, encrypt the unique failure code to generate an encrypted unique failure code, and display the encrypted unique failure code to the display device.

Systems and methods for encrypting unique failure codes to aid in preventing fraudulent exchanges of information handling system components

In some examples, a computing device may include a plurality of components, an embedded controller, and a read-only memory (ROM) to store a basic input output system (BIOS). A display device connected to the computing device may include a display panel and a timing controller. The embedded controller may be configured with instructions to determine that a power-on has been initiated, determine that a particular component of the plurality of components of the computing device has an issue that prevents booting the BIOS, and send a message from the embedded controller to the timing controller. The message may instruct the timing controller to display, on the display panel and before the CPU begins execution, one or more error messages associated with the particular component that has the issue preventing booting the BIOS. In some cases, a logo may be displayed along with the one or more error messages.

Displaying pre-boot error messages

An information handling system may include a processor, a visual indicator, and a management controller communicatively coupled to the processor and the visual indicator and configured to perform out of band management of the information handling system, the management controller further configured to, responsive to receiving an indication from the processor that the information handling system is attempting to enter a standby mode and prior to the information handling system entering the standby mode, cause the visual indicator to generate a visual indication that the information handling system is attempting to enter the standby mode.

Systems and methods for mitigating failure to enter standby mode

An information handling system may include a processor and a basic input/output system (BIOS) comprising a program of instructions executable on the processor, the basic input/output system configured to, upon occurrence of a predetermined number of failures to complete a power-on/self-test (POST) of the information handling system: for each particular critical boot variable of the BIOS stored in a memory associated with the BIOS, read a backup variable for the particular critical boot variable, if available, and write a value of the backup variable as the critical boot variable; and attempt to reboot the information handling system with values of the backup variables used for the critical boot variables.

Systems and methods for repairing corruption to BIOS boot critical memory variables

Systems and methods are provided for supporting use of system BIOS components (e.g., such as BIOS debug messages, debugger firmware, UEFI drivers, etc.) that are stored separately from the remainder of system BIOS firmware for an information handling system. The system BIOS components may represent only a portion of the total BIOS firmware, and may be selectively retrieved and loaded from the separate storage into system memory when needed by the system BIOS for operating purposes (e.g., such as debugging operations).

Systems and methods for separate storage and use of system BIOS components

A set of security templates is maintained including first and second templates. The first template specifies time and location stamp authentication for a file, and contextual security conditions that must be met before the file can be accessed. The second template specifies the time and location stamp authentication, but not the contextual security conditions. One of the first or second security templates is applied to the particular file. When the second security template is applied, a GPS-crypto device adds a time and location stamp to the particular file. The particular file is signed using a private key associated with the GPS-crypto device to generate an authentication signature based on the time and location stamp. The authentication signature is added to the particular file to allow a recipient to verify the time and location stamp of the particular file using a public key corresponding to the private key.

Preventing digital forgery

An information handling system includes a non-volatile storage device communicatively coupled to a boot processor and an application processor. The boot processor, prior to the execution of a hang sensitive transaction, stores information associated with the hang sensitive transaction at a memory device. The application processor is configured to detect a catastrophic failure of the hang sensitive transaction. In response to the detection of the catastrophic failure, the application processor retrieves the information stored at the memory device and store the information at the non-volatile storage device.

System and method for improving detection and capture of a host system catastrophic failure

A method of instructing a user prior to a boot-up process of an information handling system may include, with an embedded controller (EC) of the information handling system, executing a guided diagnostic flow module to: determine that a power-on process has been initiated at the information handling system; determine whether the EC detected a power sequencing timeout during boot up; and determine at which power rail boot-up has hung during the power-on process; and where the EC either determines that the power sequencing timeout has occurred, determining a fault at an issue-experiencing hardware component operatively coupled to the determined power rail. The method may further include sending a message from the EC to a timing controller (TCON) of a display panel of the information handling system, to initiate a guided diagnostic flow, the guided diagnostic flow including: providing, at the display panel via the TCON, diagnostics steps from flash memory as instructions to the user of the information handling system to guide the user to perform a manual manipulation of the issue-experiencing hardware component of the information handling system to address the fault.

System and method to implement a guided resolution of a non-booting information handling system

Motherboard connector failures can be predicted. An embedded controller can be employed on the motherboard to monitor when devices are connected to and disconnected from the motherboard's connectors. The embedded controller can maintain an event log and connector information in which it counts the number of times a device is connected to/disconnected from a connector. The BIOS can leverage the event log and the connector information to notify an end user to take action to correct or prevent possible corrosion. Training records may also be employed to predict connector failure. The training records can track and maintain baseline and periodic device training attributes. When the periodic training attributes deviate from the baseline training attributes, an end user can be notified to take action to remove corrosion.

Predicting motherboard connector failures

Detecting failures using power consumption profiling, including calibrating, at a first time, a system power profile of an information handling system (IHS), including identifying an initial baseline current value of a backlight power of a display device of the IHS; identifying an initial baseline current value of a timing controller of the IHS; calculating, at a second time, an updated system power profile, including: identifying an updated current value of the backlight power of the display device of the IHS; identifying an updated current value of the timing controller of the IHS; determining whether the updated current value of the backlight power of the display device is within a threshold value of the initial baseline current value of the backlight power of the display device.

Detecting display device failures using power consumption profiling

A system, method, and computer-readable medium are disclosed for securing hot-pluggable ports, such as USB ports, of an information handling system, by isolating a dedicated controller from the operating system of the information handling system. Devices that are to be allowed to be enabled at the ports are determined. A hash signature is created and saved to verify the devices. The controller and ports are held in reset until the devices are authenticated.

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Pflugerville, TX, United States of America

Craig Lawrence Chaiken