Communications: electrical – Condition responsive indicating system – Specific condition
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-27
2001-05-01
Wu, Daniel J. (Department: 2632)
Communications: electrical
Condition responsive indicating system
Specific condition
C340S648000, C340S661000, C340S663000, C236S049100, C236S00100H
Reexamination Certificate
active
06225911
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer and its control method for cooling inside the apparatus with a cooling fan.
2. Related Background Art
On an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer, a cooling mechanism is generally mounted for cooling the entire apparatus or a CPU. As a cooling mechanism for this purpose, there is a heat sink or a cooling fan. As a heat release value is increased due to an improvement of a processing speed of the CPU in recent years, mainly a cooling fan or a heat sink with a cooling fan is used. If a cooling fan is stopped due to its failure during forced air-cooling with the cooling fan, a CPU or other electronic components may be damaged by heat.
Therefore, there is an information processing apparatus which monitors a temperature inside the apparatus, notifies the CPU that the temperature has reached a predetermined or higher level when detecting it, and disconnects a power supply unit with a control of the CPU.
In this type of an information processing apparatus, however, the power supply unit can be disconnected only under the condition that its software continues the normal operation, and therefore the power supply from the power supply unit cannot always be stopped at an abnormal temperature.
Accordingly to remove this disadvantage, as shown in
FIG. 7
, there has also been suggested an information processing apparatus in which a power supply unit
9
can be stopped even if a CPU
2
is not normally operating, by supplying a temperature abnormal signal from a temperature sensor
10
not only to the CPU
2
but to a counter
3
, directly driving the counter
3
responding to the temperature abnormal signal from the temperature sensor
10
, and halting the power supply unit
9
responding to a time-out signal from the counter
3
in addition to a control signal from the CPU via an OR circuit
8
.
The above-described information processing apparatus, however, halts the power supply unit when detecting an abnormal temperature, and therefore if a cooling fan is stopped by a failure, a preparation for disconnecting the power supply unit is started after the temperature is increased up to a predetermined or higher level. Accordingly its electronic components may be damaged by heat before the power supply unit is disconnected.
On the other hand, if a temperature determined to be abnormal is set to a relatively low level so as to make allowance for the above increase of the heat, an upper temperature limit is forcibly lowered unnecessarily on the information processing apparatus as a condition under which the apparatus can be installed.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore it is an object of the present invention to provide an information processing apparatus and its control method for preventing electronic components from being damaged by heat by stopping power supply in an early stage of a temperature increase caused by an abnormal operation of a cooling fan.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an information processing apparatus and its control method for notifying a user of an abnormal temperature so as to remove the cause of the temperature abnormality if it is not caused by an abnormal operation of the cooling fan.
According to one aspect, the present invention which achieves these objectives related to an information processing apparatus comprising a detecting means for detecting a failure of a cooling fan for cooling an inside of the information processing apparatus and outputting a failure detection signal, a time counting means for starting time counting when the fan failure detection signal is output from the detecting means and outputting a time-out signal when a predetermined time is counted, and a power supply means for supplying a power to the information processing apparatus and stopping the power supply when the time-out signal is output from the time counting means.
According to another aspect, the present invention which achieves these objectives relates to a control method of the information processing apparatus comprising the steps of outputting a failure detection signal when detecting a failure of a cooling fan for cooling an inside of the information processing apparatus, starting time counting with a time counter when the fan failure detection signal is output, outputting a time-out signal when the time counter counts a predetermined time, and stopping supplying power from a power supply unit to the information processing apparatus when the time-out signal is output.
Other objectives and advantages besides those discussed above shall be apparent to those skilled in the art from the description of a preferred embodiment of the invention which follows. In the description, reference is made to accompanying drawings, which form a part thereof, and which illustrate an example of the invention. Such example, however, is not exhaustive of the various embodiments of the invention, and therefore reference is made to the claims which follow the description for determining the scope of the invention.
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Ibaraki Shouichi
Nagamasa Yoshinobu
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Nguyen Hung
Wu Daniel J.
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