Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support – Computer power control – Having power source monitoring
Reexamination Certificate
1998-07-29
2001-10-02
An, Meng-Al T. (Department: 2154)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support
Computer power control
Having power source monitoring
C714S014000, C714S022000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06298449
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates generally to systems and methods for providing high reliability operation of personal computers and, more specifically, the invention relates to increasing operational reliability of personal computers which support telecommunications systems.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
Telecommunications customers who have a requirement for sophisticated large communications services have traditionally met the requirement through private branch exchanges (PBX). Corporate customers requiring a telecommunications system for an office complex that houses a large number of employees within multiple different departments are likely to employ a PBX for their telecommunications requirements, rather than relying on the public switch telephone network (PSTN). As a practical matter, relying on the PSTN provides the customer with less control and flexibility with regard to updating and reconfiguring the telecommunications system because the telephone company owns and operates much of the telecommunications hardware, such as cables and the central office switch. In contrast, a PBX user owns the telecommunications equipment. Furthermore, the customer does not incur charges on internal calls within the PBX, which can be significant if the customer's internal call traffic level is high. Because PBXs provide important functions on which corporate customers heavily rely in conducting business, PBXs have been designed for high operational reliability.
With the advent of powerful and relatively inexpensive personal computers (PC), some of the functions traditionally performed by PBX's are now being performed by telecommunications PC platforms. These telecommunication PC platforms are especially well adapted for emerging communication media such as internet protocol (IP) telephony, also known as voice over IP. However, PCs have not traditionally been designed to meet the same high reliability requirements which PBXs have been designed to meet.
A partial solution to the reliability problem is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,691,870 to Gebara which discloses a circuit which monitors and disables power supply signals to a microprocessor in a computer system that utilizes a main power supply and secondary voltage regulators. The circuit detects whether the voltages supplied by the secondary voltage regulators to the microprocessor fall within a predetermined range that is governed by microprocessor requirements. If the supply voltage falls outside the predetermined range, the circuit causes the main supply voltage to short to ground. As a result, the main power supply is shut down, thereby removing all power supply voltages to the microprocessor. Although the circuit is effective for detecting supply voltage deviations outside of an acceptable range, the circuit does not address an array of reliability concerns unrelated to supply voltage deviations.
What is needed is a system for providing increased operational reliability in telecommunications PC platforms.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An integrated reliability enhancement device adapted for cooperative interaction with a host computer includes monitoring circuitry capable of recognizing an array of conditions associated with host computer failure, multiple remote notification devices capable of notifying remotely located devices that one of the failure conditions has been recognized, a remote rebooting controller for rebooting the host computer in response to a remotely generated request, and a power supply controller adapted for automatically switching to a secondary power supply upon failure of a first power supply.
In a preferred embodiment, the integrated reliability enhancement device is primarily incorporated into an add-in card for installment into a bus slot of the host personal computer (PC). Alternatively, the enhancement device can be primarily incorporated into a stand-alone device for connection to the computer as a peripheral device. The enhancement device can be configured to operate on behalf of a PC-based PBX, voice mail, internet telephony servers, automatic call director servers, “find me” servers, and network management monitoring equipment. The monitoring circuitry includes fan fault detection circuitry capable of detecting a fault in the operation of a cooling fan in the host computer. A multimeter chip is provided which cooperates with a thermistor to detect fluctuations of temperature within the computer housing which exceed a predetermined range. The multimeter chip also enables detection of voltage fluctuations in excess of a predetermined range of power supply input line voltage to the host computer, fluctuations in line current consumption by the host computer, and the voltage level of the power supply output. The monitoring circuitry enables detection of temperature and power supply abnormalities that are associated with operational malfunctions of the host computer. Upon detection of fan failure, out-of-range internal temperature, or power supply abnormality, the monitoring circuitry writes data representative of the detected condition into an enhancement device memory.
Application software on the host computer periodically accesses data from the enhancement device memory to determine if any temperature, power supply, or fan failure events have been detected. If the application software reads data from the register indicative of one of these events, the application software is configured to execute a preselected form of notification. Data representative of a detected event can be written into an error log of the host computer, a message can be displayed on a monitor of the computer, or a message can be transmitted over a data network to which the host computer is connected. In a preferred embodiment, the transmitted message is in the form of a simple network management protocol (SNMP) message. The preferred form of notification depends on the urgency associated with the particular abnormality which has been detected. For instance, if a relatively slight deviation in internal temperature is detected, an entry might be made in the error log, whereas a power failure might additionally result in transmission of an SNMP alarm message.
The enhancement device itself has notification capabilities which are responsive to detection of predetermined events. A relay contact alarm output provides a direct connection from the enhancement device to an external alarm power relay. A service modem can be configured to automatically dial out to a remote device and transmit event data to the remote device upon being activated. Both the relay contact alarm output and the service modem are activated by the host application software upon reading specific event data from a register on the add-on card. The application software can be configured to selectively enable any combination of the notification capabilities, including the host computer error log, the computer monitor message display, the SNMP messaging, the service modem, and the relay contact alarm output, depending on the specific event that has been detected.
In the preferred embodiment, the enhancement device further includes a power supply controller which is responsive to detection of a failure of a first power supply. The power supply controller automatically enables a second power supply upon detection of the first power supply failure. A remote reboot controller enables a remote user to reboot the host computer as a last resort to restoring normal operation of the host computer if no other options are available. Also in the preferred embodiment, the user has two means for accessing the remote reboot controller; through host computer software addressing the enhancement device as a serial port and through a communications network interface on the enhancement device, such as a plain-old-telephone service (POTS) line interface. The serial port might be accessed via a local area network (LAN) card which connects the host computer to a LAN. The concern is that the computer malfunction which necessitates rebooting of the computer might itself
An Meng-Al T.
Chang Jung-won
Siemens Information and Communication Networks Inc.
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