Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.p.

Stan Stanart

Craig L Chaiken

An operating system hang condition is detected by exploiting the fact that when an operating system hang condition occurs, the operating system kernel generally fails to respond to operating system interrupts. Consequently, an operating system hang condition may be detected by setting a status flag to a first value, generating an operating system interrupt intended for an operating system interrupt handler within an operating system kernel that resets the status flag to a second value, executing the operating system interrupt handler if the operating system kernel is responding to the operating system interrupt and executing a system BIOS interrupt handler that measures a time interval in which the status flag is set to the first value without being reset to the second value. If the measured time interval exceeds a threshold time interval, an operating system hang condition may be presumed to have occurred and an appropriate procedure may be initiated that informs the user of an operating system malfunction, performs a system reset operation or corrects the problem causing the operating system hang condition.

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Spring, TX, United States of America

Stan Stanart