Patent ID: 7783938

Claim:
A method of diagnosing a test system to determine whether a condition of the test system contributed to an undesirable measurement result, the method comprising: interrogating a device under test comprising at least one of transmitting an electric signal to energize a device under test by the test system and conducting a passive measurement that does not require the device under test to be energized to determine if the device under test satisfies a design parameter; processing an output signal comprising at least one of a responsive electric signal transmitted from the device under test in response to being energized and a passive signal corresponding to the passive measurement; comparing a value of a property of the output signal to a reference value; responsive to said comparing, determining whether the value of the output signal is within an acceptable tolerance of the reference value; and initiating a limited diagnostic routine on at least a portion of the test system involved in the processing of the output signal and the comparing the value of the output signal to the reference value when the value of the output signal falls outside of the acceptable tolerance.