| WATCHDOG SERIAL PORT FOR WINDOWS 98/NT/2000/ME | |
| last updated November 1, 2001 http://www.pciwatchdog.com/ |
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| Brief Introduction:
Watchdog Serial Port is an application that monitors the amount of
data going in and out of a COM/Serial Port. While monitoring the stream
of data, it would also perform tasks in reaction to the amount of data
being sent or being received in the COM/Serial port. |
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| Application of Watchdog Serial Port: It could be used to restart a computer that might have been exhibiting some problems. It also could be used to restart devices that are directly connected to the serial port whenever these devices hang or stop responding. This is done by the application by continuously monitoring the amount of data coming in and going out of the serial port. If the minimum amount of data has not been achieved, it will perform some specified action like restarting the motherboard or the external device. For example, Company A has a computer in a remote location outside
of town. This computer is connected to the internet via modem to send
important data to another remote system. Somehow the modem hanged and
was not processing data anymore, as a result no data is received from
the modem. Watchdog Serial Port would be able to see that no data is
coming from the modem and as a result, Watchdog Serial Port will restart
the modem (by shutting the power off and on again). |
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| How to use the Watchdog Serial Port application:
1.Select how many COM / Serial ports you want to use. This is done
by checking the corresponding buttons in the “Use?column.
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| 2.Choose the COM port you want to monitor. Do this by selecting
from the list of COM ports in the “COM Port?column. |
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| 3.The Watchdog Serial Port application works mainly by monitoring the amount of data coming in and out of the serial port in a specified lapse of time. The minimum amount of data that must transmitted or received is specified in the “Number of Bytes?column. And the time lapse that is needed is specified in the “Duration?column. For example, you have a serial equipment that is known to transmit at least 30 bytes per second and receives at least 10 bytes per 2 seconds. So the setting would be as such: | |
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4.The next step is to specify what the Watchdog Serial Port application
will do when the minimum no. of bytes in the specified amount of time
is not achieved. The options are to either “Reset the Motherboard?or
to “Reset the Power Control Box? For example, if the specified settings
in the previous example is not met, the following actions will be taken.
For the Transmit part, the Watchdog Serial Port application should restart
the computer if the specified number of bytes are not achieved within
the specified time limit. As for the Receive part, the Watchdog Serial
Port application should reset the Power Control Box (to activate maybe
an alarm) if the requirements are not achieved. See the below for the
application of such scenario. |
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| 5.Since there is an option to reset the Power Control Box, there is also an option to specify how long will be the transition of the Power Control Box from one state to the other. For example, the Power Control Box is initially turned OFF, and an alarm is attached to the box to sound off any problem that might occur. The alarm should sound on for 10 seconds after the no. of bytes for receive part has not been achieved as to warn any personnel about the problem. After 10 seconds has elapsed, the Power Control Box will revert back to its previous state (OFF) and would eventually shut down the alarm. | |
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| 6.Like in the above example, the initial state of the Power
Control Box was known to be OFF, this option can be specified in the selection
“Initial State of Power Box? This setting defines the initial state of
the box whether it is ON or OFF. So if the box was initially ON, the transition
would be from ON to OFF then back to ON. |
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| 7.Sometimes, there are equipments that require warming up
before reaching their normal operation speed. Thus there is an option
in the Watchdog Serial Port application to delay a while before starting
to monitor the flow of data in the COM/Serial port. The value specified
in the “Start After?field signifies the amount of time (delay) that the
program will wait before it may begin monitoring the flow of data. As
an example, the program will start monitoring immediately as specified
in the “Start After? field below. |
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| 8.There is also an option to save every configuration/settings made. This is done by clicking the “SAVE?button. So the next time the program is ran the previous configuration are automatically set. So whenever the user clicks the “SAVE? button the present configuration of the application will be saved into a file called “swdconf.log?on the root directory. And the same file is checked for previous configuration upon the execution of the application. | |
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| 9.After everything has been set, the user can now start the “Watchdog Serial Port?to work by clicking the “OK? button. | |
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| SAMPLE APPLICATION | FILE |
| WATCHDOG SERIAL PORT
FOR WINDOWS 98/NT/2000/ME |
1.5Mb |
