System status ligtht indicator device embedded in a connecting port
Contents
1. Thus based on the light indications of the system boot up warning status the user can consult the user s manual in which the light indications corresponding to the error signals are stated and can know precisely where the problem lies The above described error message indicates the causes of the breakdowns via the error message signal 0016 Since the causes of breakdowns have been recorded in the error message processor when the BIOS program detects the peripheral device errors the cause of breakdown can be found by consulting the light indications corresponding to the error signals recorded in the user s manual Thus the user knows exactly what the problem lies and without having to guess what a beep signifies or having to inspect each device one by one The direct use of a newly designed universal serial bus USB connecting port and a printer connecting port provides many embedded LED lights that display the system status and which do not require definitions of special input output shields 0017 It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and are intended to provide further explana tion of the invention as claimed BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 0018 The accompanying drawings are included to pro vide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification The drawings illustrate embodime2. an example the boot up warnings of the BIOS programs of three different vendors IBM AWARD AMD are defined differently and listed in the tables below TABLEI Boot up Warnings for the BIOS of IBM Beep Meaning None Power supply and CPU breakdown Continuous Memory breakdown Mar 14 2002 TABLE I continued Boot up Warnings for the BIOS of IBM Beep Meaning Short System self test normal condition Two short Error found during self test and it is displayed on the monitor Power supply and motherboard breakdown One long and one short Errors on the motherboard One long and two short Errors on the display One long and three short Errors on the EGA card Continuous short Three long Errors on the keyboard controller 0011 TABLE II Boot up Warnings for the BIOS of AWARD Beep Meaning One short Not an error indicates system turn on One long and two short Errors on the EGA card Two short There are errors and is indicated on the monitor One long and three short Errors on the keyboard controller 0012 TABLE III Boot up Warnings for the BIOS of AMI Beep Meaning 1 Defects on the memory regain chipset 2 Errors found while checking the first 64K of memory 3 Defects on the first 64K of memory and are unreadable 4 Clock on the motherboard is out of order 3 CPU breakdown 6 keyboard controller breakdown disabled to enter the protected mode 7 Errors on the abnormal interrupt of CPU 8 Errors on the read write mem
3. as United States S 200200328834 a2 Patent Application Publication co Pub No US 2002 0032885 A1 Dai 43 Pub Date Mar 14 2002 54 SYSTEM STATUS LIGTHT INDICATOR DEVICE EMBEDDED IN A CONNECTING PORT 76 Inventor Ming Hou Dai Kuei San Hsiang TW Correspondence Address RABIN amp CHAMPAGNE P C Suite 500 1101 14 Street N W Washington DC 20005 US 21 Appl No 09 852 005 22 Filed May 10 2001 30 Foreign Application Priority Data May 11 2000 TW 89207905 Publication Classification EOS cst e tet G06F 11 32 15 Kult 12 62 US Catala 714 57 57 ABSTRACT A system status light indicator device embedded in a con necting port is made up of an error message processor and a plurality of light emitting diodes LED suitable for use with a Basic Input Output System BIOS program When the BIOS examines a plurality of the peripheral devices on the computer as soon as the error is found the warning signals can be sent to the error message processor then retrieved the corresponding error message data Next it outputs to the system status indicator devices embedded in a connecting port Thus the operators can know exactly where the problems are located via the indicated boot up warning signals sent out that indicate system status and the messages corresponding to the light indicators recorded in the user s manual The above described error message data uses the light
4. d embodi ment featuring the system status light indicator device embedded in a connecting port stays as near as possible to US 2002 0032885 A1 the I O shield 305 of the printer connecting port 300 in the present invention Consequently the system status can be clearly indicated by identifying a plurality of the LED indicators 16a 16d and meanwhile the electromagnetic radiation protection is not affected 0031 In summary of the above it can be seen that the system status light indicator device embedded in a connect ing port in the present invention the conventional beep settings by various vendors can be modified into light signals Thus users can quickly locate the problems without having to guess at the meaning of the beeps or to perform checks on the peripheral devices one by one 0032 The present invention has been disclosed using an exemplary preferred embodiment However it is to be understood that the scope and the sprit of the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments on the contrary it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrange ments the scope of the claims therefore should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements What is claimed is 1 A system status light indicator device embedded in a connecting port suitable for use on the computer which includes a plurality of peripheral devices and a connecting port the s
5. e connecting port device with embedded light indicators as claimed in the claim 10 wherein the printer port includes at least one printer connecting port junction wherein the second space between the printer connecting port and the I O shield is used for embedding the light indicators
6. iguration Analysis SCA analyzes the CPU type the size of memory the number and types of floppy and hard disks yes or no to install the floating processor as an important reference for the other actions 0007 2 The Power On Self Test POST program tests the status of hardware such as the memory chipsets CMOS stored data keyboard and disk drives once the error is found it will report the problems 0008 3 The address allocation of the operating system like the MS DOS Windows 95 98 and loads it up via what is called the Bootstrap Loader short program passes the control of the computer to the operating system and officially ends the boot up action 0009 The program organized by the above commands is called the Basic Input Output System BIOS program therefore the BIOS can be said as first program executed after the personal computer is turned on If it cannot run the BIOS program normally while in the process of booting up the computer generally the hardware can withstand certain problems the problems should first be removed before continuing further operations thereby ensuring that the computer is running in the optimal mode 0010 However in order not to infringe to the copyrights of the BIOS originally made by IBM the BIOS programs designed by different vendors may process them with the same function but different program codes using the error message data in the above described POST program proce dure as
7. indicators to display the various causes of breakdown 15 E tet 16a 16b l6c 16d 200 300 US 2002 0032885 A1 Patent Application Publication Mar 14 2002 Sheet 1 of 3 ed 200 300 12 FIG 1 Patent Application Publication Mar 14 2002 Sheet 2 of 3 US 2002 0032885 A1 FIG 2A 201a 208 205 201b 200 FIG 2E Patent Application Publication Mar 14 2002 Sheet 3 of 3 US 2002 0032885 Al 31 30 FIG 3A FIG 3B US 2002 0032885 A1 SYSTEM STATUS LIGTHT INDICATOR DEVICE EMBEDDED IN A CONNECTING PORT CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION 0001 This application claims the priority benefit of Tai wan application serial no 89207905 filed on May 11 2000 BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 0002 1 Field of the Invention 0003 The present invention relates to a system status light indicator device embedded in a connecting port More particularly the present invention relates to a system status light indicator device embedded in a connecting port which can clearly indicate to users the causes of breakdowns via the warning light indicators during the booting up process 0004 2 Description of Related Art 0005 When we turn on the power of a personal computer the central processing unit CPU inside the PC may start executing a series of commands the commands can be approximately divided into three categories according to the functions 0006 1 System Conf
8. irst space being used for embedding the light indicators 6 The system status light indicator device embedded in a connecting port as claimed in the claim 4 wherein the printer connecting port includes a printer connecting port junction an I O shield and a second space between the printer connecting port junction and the I O shield the second space being used for embedding the light indicators 7 A connecting port device with embedded light indica tors comprising a connecting port which includes at least one connecting port junction an I O shield encompassing the outer area of the connecting port junction and a plurality of light indicators embedded into the space between the connecting port junction and the I O shield The connecting port device with embedded light indi cators as claimed in the claim 7 wherein the light indicators are light emitting diodes 9 The connecting port device with embedded light indi cators as claimed in the claim 7 wherein the connecting port is a USB connecting port 10 The connecting port device with embedded light indicators as claimed in the claim 7 wherein the connecting port is a printer connecting port 11 The connecting port device with embedded light indicators as claimed in the claim 9 wherein the USB connecting port includes at least two USB connecting port junctions wherein the first space between the USB port connectors is used for embedding the light indicators 12 Th
9. nts of the invention and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the invention In the drawings 0019 FIG 1 is a structural illustration of a system status light indicator embedded in a connecting port according to the present invention 0020 bus 0021 FIG 2B shows a serial bus connecting port fea turing the system status light indicator embedded in a connecting port FIG 2A illustrates a conventional universal serial 0022 FIG 3A illustrates a conventional printer connect ing port and 0023 FIG 3B illustrates the printer connecting port featuring the system status light indicator embedded in a connecting port DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 0024 FIG 1 is a structural view of a system status light indicator embedded in a connecting port In FIG 1 it can be seen that the present invention features the system structure indicating the causes of breakdown which includes the error message processor 12 and the system status light indicators 16a 16d The system status light indicators 16a 16d are embedded into the newly designed Mar 14 2002 USB port 200 and printer port 300 The existing status displaying system is not modified and an I O shield does not require special definition 0025 Now let us continue describing the running pro cedures of the system status light indicator embedded in a connecting port from the present invention Firstly when the computer i
10. orts The consideration of the present invention of a system status light indicator device embedded in a connecting port lies in not modifying the existing I O shield 25 and in not influencing the efficiency of the original connecting port while providing many LED signals that indicate system status The USB connecting port 20 includes one USB connecting port I O shield 25 and the two junctions 21a and 21b of the USB connecting port 0028 FIG 2B illustrates the USB connecting port 200 in a preferred embodiment featuring the system status light indicator device embedded in a connecting port according to the present invention Since most of the I O shield 205 within the USB connecting port 200 is not located in the space 208 between the two junctions 201a and 201b of the USB connecting port The system status can be indicated through the use of many LED light indicators 16a 16d embedded in the space 208 0029 FIG 3A illustrates a conventional printer connect ing port wherein the printer connecting port 30 includes a printer connecting port I O shield 35 and a junction 31 of the printer connecting port 0030 FIG 3B illustrates a printer connecting port 300 in a preferred embodiment featuring system status light indi cators embedded in a connecting port according to the present invention Since there is only a narrow space 308 between the junction 301 of most printer connecting port 300 and the I O shield 305 therefore the preferre
11. ory display region 9 Errors on the checking value of ROM 10 Errors on the read write of CMOS shutoff register 11 Errors on the cache 0013 From the tables above we find that the boot up warnings set by different PC vendors make use of long and short beep combinations to indicate to users of problems that arise during the booting up process However since the specifications set by each vendor is not the same and most users would not remember the meanings of the different warning signals there is no point in having quick self maintenance for understanding the meanings of different boot warning in the internal process of computers 0014 Accordingly the present invention is to provide a system status light indicator embedded in a connecting port suitable for use for a BIOS program when the BIOS program detects that the errors have occurred on the periph eral devices of the computer it will send out a set of the warning signals 0015 The system status light indicator embedded in a connecting port comprises of an error message processor US 2002 0032885 A1 and a plurality of light emitting diodes LED Firstly the BIOS program starts checking the peripheral devices of the computer as soon as the BIOS program detects the errors it will send out a set of the warning signals to the error message processor and retrieves the error message data previously stored in the error message processor that corre spond to the warning signals
12. s turned on the computer will proceed with he BIOS program itself The BIOS program will use the POST program to check the hardware status of the peripheral devices such as the memory chipset CMOS stored data keyboard and hard drive Once there are such errors as no display on the monitor shortage of electricity in the CMOS battery hard disk install failure and keyboard error or keyboard present the BIOS drive program will send out the warning signal 11 via the controllable output port such as a portion for input and startup 10 as shown in FIG 1 and retrieve the error message data 15 which is corresponding to the warning signal and is stored inside the error message processor 12 followed by outputting to the system status light indicators 16a 16d embedded in the port connectors 200 or 300 The user refers to the error message correspond ing to the light indicators recorded in the user s manual to guide the user to locate precisely where the problem is 0026 The above described error message data uses the light indicators 16a 16d to indicate the causes of break down and enables the user to easily understand what the computer problem is so that maintenance and further han dling can be facilitated 0027 FIG 2A illustrates a conventional USB connecting port 20 in consideration of Electro magnetic interference EMI the computer motherboards used nowadays are all featuring the I O shield 25 in the input and output connecting p
13. ystem status light indicator device comprising a BIOS program used for checking the peripheral devices of the computer when an error is found in the periph eral devices it will send out a warning signal an error message processor electrically connected to the BIOS system for receiving the warning signal sent out from the BIOS program the error message processor retrieving and outputting an error message data which is corresponding to the warning signal and is previously stored in the error message processor and a plurality of light indicators embedded in the connecting port is electrically connected to the error message processor and indicates the error message data received from the error message processor 2 The system status light indicator device embedded in a connecting port as claimed in the claim 1 wherein the light indicators are a plurality of light emitting diodes LED 3 The system status light indicator device embedded in a connecting port as claimed in the claim 1 wherein the connecting port is a universal serial bus USB port Mar 14 2002 4 The system status light indicator device embedded in a connecting port as claimed in the claim 1 wherein the connecting port is the printer connecting port 5 The system status light indicator device embedded in a connecting port as claimed in claim 3 wherein the USB port includes two USB connecting port junctions and a first space between the two junctions the f
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