Digital Equipment Corporation

Comcast IP Holdings I, LLC

Lawrence Huppert

Thomas J Schmidt

A fault notification system detects the non-operational state of the computer, or other type of network device, and transmits network messages from the device to a monitoring system or control console in the case of a detected non-operational state. The network messages are constructed by the network device when it is operational, preferably by the operating system before any problem is detected. This message is then stored in some non-volatile storage medium, such as the BIOS memory in one embodiment. As a result, very limited operating system functionality must be replicated in the device BIOS. Only the actual transmitted message must be stored and the commands necessary to have the message sent. In some embodiments, an auxiliary processor is used to detect improper operation, preferably via a dedicated, secondary bus. It loads the relevant messages into the transport buffer for transmission to the monitoring system even where the computer's CPU may not be operational.

Growing community of inventors

Sudbury, MA, United States of America

Lawrence Huppert