JPH09218798A - Method for diagnosing intermittent fault and electronic device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily detect an intermittent fault and to specify a fault cause by designating the diagnosing range and the execution times of a diagnosis program so as to execute diagnosing when a fault occurs in an electronic device. SOLUTION: The starting and calling of a truck, the monitoring of disconnection and the transmission-reception of a dialling numeral, etc., in a D70-type automatic exchange are executed. In this case, truck line signal processing processors 100A and 100B have the same configuration and are constituted of a central controller 111, a bus coupler 112, a bus intersecting circuit 113, an emergency control circuit 114, a main storage device 115 and a call path system (SP system) driving part 116. Then, a range to be suspected in a diagnosis object device is estimated from fault conditions, the range of the diagnosis program to be executed is set by the estimated range to be suspected, the execution times of the diagnosis program in the set range is set, the diagnosis program is executed by the set range and times and the execution result of the diagnosis program is outputted in a prescribed data form.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method of diagnosing an intermittent failure of an electronic device. 2. Description of the Related Art With the recent progress of processor technology, an information processing device and a communication device (hereinafter, the information processing device and the communication device are collectively referred to as an electronic device) are equipped with a microprocessor, and the area for controlling by software is increasing. Such software control not only controls various devices by software, but also diagnoses when a failure occurs by running a diagnostic program, which is one of the software.

However, some electronic device failures occur intermittently depending on environmental conditions and usage conditions. With respect to such intermittent failures, failure detection and failure location identification are not possible by executing the diagnostic program only once. There are cases. Therefore, there is a demand for an intermittent failure diagnostic method that can reliably detect an intermittent failure and identify the location of the failure.

[0003]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 10 is a diagram for explaining an electronic exchange having a duplex configuration, 10 is an electronic exchange of a 0-system, 11 is an electronic exchange of a 1-system, and a central control unit 10 is shown.
0, 101, main storage devices 200, 201, and switch units 300, 301, which are interlaced and connected.

Further, in the main storage devices 200 and 201, the exchange processing program 200 for controlling the exchange connection processing is provided.
It stores A, 201A, station data, 200B, 201B, and diagnostic programs 210, 211 for making a diagnosis when a failure occurs.

In such a configuration, for example, while the 0 system (hereinafter, the 0 system is referred to as the 0 system and the 1 system is referred to as the 1 system) is operated as the active system, the 0 system main storage device 20 is used.
When a failure occurs in 0, the main storage device 200 is switched to the main storage device 201 and the operation is continued.

Then, after the faulty main memory device 200 is separated as a standby system, the fault is detected by running the diagnostic program 211 of the main memory device 201,
Identify the point of failure.

[0007]

The diagnostic programs 210 and 211 shown in FIG. 10 describe programs for testing various functions of the electronic exchanges 10 and 11.
The function check is performed once for each function.

Therefore, when the generated fault is an intermittent fault, the fault cannot be detected by running the diagnostic program once, and the fault may not be detected unless the diagnostic program is run a plurality of times.

Further, even if the fault is detected by executing the diagnostic programs 210 and 211 a plurality of times in this way, the fault location is specified, and the suspected printed board package is replaced,
I cannot determine how many times the diagnostic program should be run and checked after replacement. In such a case, it is often the case that the suspected printed circuit board package is replaced, the device is installed in the active system, and it is actually operated to see the situation, but there is a high possibility of causing a system failure again. Is.

If the suspected printed circuit board package cannot be identified, all the printed circuit board packages of the suspected device will be replaced. In preparation for such a case,
It is necessary to prepare a large number of spare printed circuit board packages for maintenance.

The present invention intends to realize an intermittent failure diagnosing method capable of surely detecting an intermittent failure by designating and executing a diagnostic range of a diagnostic program and the number of executions when a failure occurs in an electronic device. And

[0012]

FIG. 1 is a diagram for explaining the principle of the present invention. The figure shows a diagnosis flowchart when a failure occurs in the electronic device.

In STEP 1, the suspicious range of the device to be diagnosed is estimated from the fault condition, and in STEP 2, the range of the diagnostic program to be executed is set from the estimated suspicious range, and STE is set.
P3 sets the number of times the diagnostic program is executed within the set range, STEP 4 executes the diagnostic program within the set range and number of times, and STEP 5 outputs the execution result of the diagnostic program in a predetermined data format.

According to such a diagnosis method, the range to be diagnosed is narrowed down, and the range is repeatedly executed.
It becomes possible to easily detect the intermittent failure in a short time.
Therefore, it is not necessary to incorporate the suspected package into the active system, which is required in the conventional example. (Claim 1) When the failure occurrence status is stored in the main storage device in correspondence with the number of times of travel and the diagnosis result is output, every predetermined number of times of travel,
For example, it is edited and output to the frequency of failure occurrence every 50 times. With such output data, the tendency of occurrence of a failure can be analyzed, and the required number of times of travel can be easily estimated until the failure is resolved. (Claim 2) In the present invention, a diagnostic range setting unit that sets a range of the diagnostic program to be executed from the estimated suspicious range and a running number setting unit that sets the number of times of running the diagnostic program in the set range in the electronic device. And the number of times the diagnostic program has been run within the set range and number of times, and compares it with the number of times of execution set in the number of times of execution setting section. Detecting intermittent failures easily by providing a failure information storage section that stores failure information generated by execution of diagnostic programs and an edit processing section that edits and outputs failure information stored in the failure information storage section. It is possible to realize an electronic device capable of (Claim 3)

[0015]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 2 shows a diagram for explaining an embodiment of the present invention. The figure shows trunk line signal processors 100A and 100B which perform call origination, disconnection monitoring, transmission / reception of dialed digits, etc. of the trunk of the D70 type automatic exchange. The trunk line signal processors 100A and 100B have the same configuration and include a central control unit 111, a bus coupler 112,
It is composed of a bus crossing circuit 113, an emergency control circuit 114, a main memory 115, and a communication path system (indicated as SP system in the figure) drive section 116. Further, the main storage device 115 has a main storage unit 115A in which a diagnostic program TP, an exchange processing program (not shown), etc. are stored, and a main storage device (shown as main storage in the drawing).
The control unit 115B and the main storage device confounding unit 115C are included. As shown in the figure, the 0-system and the 1-system are entangled and connected by a bus crossing circuit 113, an emergency control circuit 114, and a main storage device entanglement unit 115C.

The TP in the main storage unit 115A is a diagnostic program for diagnosing a fault when a fault occurs. FIG. 3 shows a fault diagnosis flowchart of the present invention.

The figure is an example of fault diagnosis when a fault occurs in the trunk line signal processors 100A and 100B described in FIG. The operation will be described below in accordance with the steps of the flowchart (hereinafter abbreviated as S).

S1; 0 system trunk line signal processor (shown as TSP00 in the figure) 100A main memory unit 115
It is assumed that there is a failure. S2: The 0-system trunk line signal processor 100A in which the failure has occurred is set to the OUS (Out Of Service) state.

S3: The diagnosis program TP is executed to diagnose the 0-system trunk line signal processor 100A. S4: It is determined whether the diagnosis result is NG (No Good).

S5: If the diagnosis result is not NG, that is, if no failure is detected, it is judged as an intermittent failure,
The intermittent failure diagnosis processing of the present invention is executed. S6: It is determined whether the diagnostic process for the intermittent failure is NG.

S7: If the intermittent failure diagnosis process is not NG, it is determined that no intermittent failure has occurred, and the trunk line signal processor 100A is returned to the active system. S8; If the diagnostic result is NG in S4, the faulty printed circuit board package can be detected as a fixed fault, and if the diagnostic result is NG in S6, the faulty printed circuit board package can be detected as an intermittent fault. The package is replaced, the process returns to S3 again, the failure diagnosis is executed, and further, the intermittent failure diagnosis is executed, whereby the diagnosis program is executed a plurality of times to confirm that the failure is recovered.

4 and 5 show flowcharts (1) and (2) of the intermittent failure diagnosis of the present invention. Diagnosis of an intermittent failure may be performed by repeatedly diagnosing only one item of the diagnostic program or by repeatedly designating a range of the diagnostic program. Designation of these diagnostic items is performed from a maintenance console (not shown).

S11: The command input from the maintenance console (the content of the command is described in FIG. 7) is analyzed. S12: It is determined whether the intermittent failure is diagnosed.

S13: In the case of the diagnosis of the intermittent failure, it is further determined whether or not the diagnosis of the individual item is made. S14: In the case of diagnosis of individual items, pre-diagnosis processing such as bus setting for executing specified diagnosis items is executed.

S15: The test data designated by the diagnostic item is set. S16: The test is executed. S17: It is determined whether or not the test for the specified number of times has been completed,
If the specified number of times has not been reached, the process returns to S15 and the test is continued.

S18: When the designated number of tests are completed in S17, post-diagnosis processing such as returning the bus set for the test to the original state is executed. S19: Edit the output message in the designated output data format.

S19 ': The edited message is output. S21: In the case of diagnosis of a plurality of items, pre-diagnosis processing such as bus setting for executing a plurality of designated diagnosis items is executed.

S22: The test data 1 designated by the diagnostic item 1 is set. S23: Test 1 is executed. Hereinafter, similarly, the test data 2 corresponding to the diagnostic items 2 within the designated range are set and the tests 2 are executed.

S24: The test data N designated by the diagnostic item N is set. S25: The test N is executed. S26: It is determined whether or not the test for the specified number of times has been completed,
If the specified number of times has not been reached, the process returns to S22 and the test is continued.

S27: When the designated number of tests are completed in S26, post-diagnosis processing such as returning the bus set for the test to the original state is executed. S28: Edit the output message according to the specified output data format.

S29: The edited message is output. S31: If the intermittent failure is not diagnosed in S12, a normal diagnosis is executed. FIG. 6 shows an example of the diagnosis range designation of the main storage device diagnosis program of the present invention.

The figure shows a diagnostic program for the main memory, which is composed of test numbers 00000 to FFFFF, and the contents of each test are from 00000 address read to FFFFF address read of the main memory.

The data read from addresses 00000 to FFFFF in the main memory is 00000000 to 000FFFFF as the respective confirmation items.
Then, it is checked whether the storage contents of each address of the main storage device are normal.

Conventionally, when diagnosing a main storage device, a diagnostic program composed of test numbers 00000 to FFFFF is executed from the beginning to the end. Therefore, repeatedly performing such diagnostics to detect intermittent failures is time consuming and impossible to perform.

However, in many cases, it can be estimated from the failure occurrence state that the failure range of the main storage device is within the address range. In such a case, specify the test number or range of test numbers,
In addition, by designating the number of times the diagnostic program is executed, repeated diagnosis can be executed in a short time, making it easier to detect intermittent failures.

In the figure, is an example in which the test of the single item of the test number 10035 is designated, and is the test number 100.
In this example, the range from 35 to the test number 10535 is designated. In FIG. 6, the example of diagnosing the main storage device has been described, but the object of the present invention is not limited to the main storage device, and may be applied to the diagnosis of all devices constituting an electronic device. It is possible.

FIG. 7 shows an example of the diagnostic command of the present invention.
As a parameter in the diagnostic command, the diagnosis target device,
It is possible to set the diagnostic phase number, the diagnostic range, the output format, and the diagnostic count.

In the figure, the trunk line signal processor 100A is used as a diagnosis target, and the diagnosis phase number is 5, and the test items are test number 10035 to test number 10535.
In this example, the operation is executed 0 times and the result is designated by the failure occurrence frequency.

FIG. 8 shows an example of the output format of the diagnosis result of the present invention. (A) is NG as a data output mode
The data is specified, the diagnosis is performed 300 times, the NG occurs 3 times, and the content is the test number 100.
NG is generated at 35, and the generated bit is the least significant bit.

(B) designates the frequency of NG occurrences as the data output mode. Diagnosis is performed 150 times, 51 NGs occur in test number 10035, and 103 NGs occur in test number 10249. The following is an example of occurrence of.

(C) designates the tendency of NG occurrence as a data output mode. Diagnosis is performed 50 times, the number of diagnoses is divided into 10, and the failure frequency occurring therein is output. is there. By outputting such a failure occurrence tendency, when there is a tendency for a failure occurrence, it becomes possible to easily estimate the number of execution times required until the failure occurrence converges.

FIG. 9 is a diagram for explaining an embodiment of the electronic exchange of the present invention. The electronic exchange 10A is composed of a central control unit 100, a main storage unit 200, and a switch unit 300. Inside the main storage unit 200, an exchange processing program (shown as an exchange program in the figure) 200A for controlling the exchange processing Station data 200B defining the number of the terminal to be operated, the accommodation position, etc., a diagnostic program 210 for diagnosing when a failure occurs, and a failure information storage unit 220 for storing failure occurrence information when the diagnosis is executed.
The central control unit 100 includes a diagnostic range setting unit 110 that sets a diagnostic range of the diagnostic program 210.
And an execution count setting unit 120 that sets the execution count of the diagnostic program 210 in the specified range, and the number of times the diagnostic program has been executed is counted and compared with the execution count set in the execution count setting unit 120 to obtain the specified count. And an edit processing unit 140 for editing the failure information stored in the failure information storage unit 220 into a specified data format when outputting the diagnosis result to the maintenance console 20. There is.

With this configuration, when a failure occurs,
An electronic exchange capable of easily detecting an intermittent failure can be realized by performing a diagnosis by designating the diagnosis range and the number of executions of the diagnosis program 210.

In FIG. 9, the example of the electronic exchange 10A has been described, but the present invention is not limited to the electronic exchange, and it can be applied to all electronic devices having a diagnostic program.

[0045]

According to the present invention, when a failure occurs in an electronic device, an intermittent failure can be easily detected and a cause of failure can be identified by designating a diagnosis range and a number of times of execution of a diagnostic program. can do.

Further, when the repeated diagnosis is performed, by specifying the output format and outputting the failure information, it is possible to easily grasp the failure occurrence status and efficiently take the failure countermeasure.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 illustrates the principle of the present invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a fault diagnosis flowchart of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart (1) of the intermittent failure diagnosis of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart (2) of the intermittent failure diagnosis of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is an example of specifying a diagnosis range of a main storage device diagnosis program of the present invention.

FIG. 7: Example of diagnostic command of the present invention

FIG. 8 is an example of an output format of diagnostic results of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an embodiment of an electronic exchange according to the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating an electronic exchange having a duplex configuration.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10, 11, 10A Electronic exchange 20 Maintenance console 100, 101 Central control unit 100A, 100B Trunk line signal processor 110 Diagnostic range setting unit 111 Central control unit 112 Bus coupler 113 Bus crossing device 114 Emergency control circuit 115, 200, 201 Main memory Device 115A Main storage unit 115B Main storage device control unit 115C Main storage device confounding unit 116 SP system drive unit 120 Execution count setting unit 130 Execution count control unit 140 Editing processing unit 200A, 201A Exchange processing program 200B, 201B Station data 210, 211 , TP diagnostic program 220 Fault information storage unit 300, 301 Switch unit

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A method of diagnosing an intermittent failure of an electronic device, wherein a suspected range of a device to be diagnosed is estimated from a failure condition (STE).
P1), the range of the diagnostic program that executes the diagnosis is set from the estimated suspected range (STEP2), and the number of times the diagnostic program is executed within the set range is set (S1).
TEP3), the diagnostic method of the intermittent failure characterized by running a diagnostic program in the set range and the number of times (STEP4), and outputting the execution result by the diagnostic program in a predetermined data format (STEP5). 2. The intermittent failure diagnosis method according to claim 1, wherein the failure occurrence frequency is output in correspondence with the number of running times. 3. An electronic device having a self-diagnosis function, a diagnostic range setting section for setting a range of a diagnostic program to be run from an estimated suspicious range, and an execution count setting section for setting the number of times of execution of the diagnostic program in the set range. And the number of times the diagnostic program has been executed within the set range and number of times, and compares the number of times of execution with the number of times of execution set in the number of times of execution setting section. An electronic device comprising: a failure information storage unit that stores failure information generated by execution of a diagnostic program; and an edit processing unit that edits and outputs the failure information stored in the failure information storage unit.