The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 02, 2001
Filed:
Jul. 29, 1998
George E. Carter, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Siemens Information and Communication Networks, Inc., Boca Raton, FL (US);
Abstract
An integrated reliability enhancement device for providing high reliability operation of a personal computer is preferably embodied in an add-in card for insertion into a bus slot of the personal computer. The add-in card includes monitoring circuitry for detecting an array of events associated with operational failure of the computer including failure of a cooling fan, out-of-range temperature fluctuations within the computer housing, out-of-range deviations in power supply input voltage, out-of-range deviations in power supply output voltage, and out-of-range deviations in line current consumption by the computer. Upon detection of one of the events, data associated with the failure is written into an add-in card memory which is accessed periodically by application software of the host computer. The application software can be configured to respond to detection of the event by executing any combination of notification procedures, which include writing event data into a host computer error log memory, displaying a message on a host computer monitor, transmitting a simple network protocol SNMP message via a local area network, enabling a relay contact alarm output on the add-in card, and transmitting a message from a service modem on the add-in card. A plain-old-telephone service (POTS) line interface on the add-in card enables a remote user to access event data from the add-in card memory and to enable a remote reboot control to reboot the host computer. A power supply control automatically enables a secondary power supply in response to detection of a primary power supply failure by the monitoring circuitry.