Dell Products Inc.

Dell USA L P

Lois D Mermelstein

Richard Martin Tonry

Ayedin Nikazm

Marc D Alexander

Kendall C Witte

Stacy A Gower

Jay Baxter

A method is provided that includes booting a computer system using a first system firmware stored on a circuit coupled to the computer system and, in response to detecting a test apparatus coupled to the computer system, causing the first system firmware to be stored onto a device in the computer system.

System and method for providing information to a computer system

An information handling system and method are provided to control a power supply in response to an overheating condition of the processor, where the overheating condition is indicated by a THERMTRIP signal from the processor. The THERMTRIP signal is latched, and the processor is shut down.

Thermal trip power control circuit

One embodiment is a method of detecting BIOS corruption that does not require reprogramming of the boot block or calculation of cyclic redundancy (&ldquo;CRC&rdquo;) codes. A simple check is performed using only the first byte or bytes of BIOS to be erased (&ldquo;First Byte&rdquo;) and the last byte or bytes of BIOS to be programmed (&ldquo;Last Byte&rdquo;) during reprogramming. Specifically, if both the First and Last Bytes are programmed, indicating either that erasure did not occur or that reprogramming was successful, the BIOS is not corrupt and no remedial action need be taken. If the First Byte is erased and the Last Byte is programmed, indicating that a failure occurred during erasure, the BIOS is corrupt and remedial action must be taken. Similarly, if the First Byte is programmed and the Last Byte is erased, indicating that a failure occurred during reprogramming, the BIOS is corrupt and remedial action must be taken. Finally, if both the First and Last Bytes are erased, the BIOS is corrupt and remedial action must be taken.

Bios corruption detection system and method

A basic input output system (BIOS) or equivalently functional circuitry can determine when a power on reset in a computer system is due to an invalid event (e.g. power loss) and subsequently re-enable a computer system wakeup event. Additionally, the computer system is restored to its power state prior to the invalid event, thereby advantageously allowing a computer system configuration to be returned to the desired configuration after an invalid event and without unnecessary computer system activity.

Wakeup event restoration after power loss

A computer system is provided which assures that display control signals provided to a display are properly sequenced despite the presence of ill-behaved application software. The risk of damage to displays which require control signals to be in a predetermined sequence is thus significantly reduced. An enable signal from the system's graphics controller is intercepted by a microcontroller. The microcontroller generate its own properly sequenced and timed display control signals in response to the enable signal from the graphics controller. The microcontroller controls a switching apparatus which couples clock and data signals from the graphics controller to the display at an appropriate time in the control signal sequence.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Lois D Mermelstein