Patent ID: 7734955

Claim:
A voltage regulator module failure detector, wherein the voltage regulator module failure detector is a hardware device comprising: a voltage comparator comprising: a first input, the first input receiving an output front a voltage regulator module (VRM) that supplies regulated power to a computer component, a second input, the second input receiving a threshold voltage, the threshold voltage being a boundary of an operational output voltage of the VRM, wherein the threshold voltage is a minimum operational output voltage of the VRM, and an output, the output transmitting a result of a comparison of the output from the VRM with the threshold voltage, wherein the result is transmitted only when the output from the VRM is outside the threshold voltage; a courtier coupled to the output of the voltage comparator, wherein the counter counts the number of times that the output from the VRM is outside the threshold voltage, and wherein the counter is cleared if a failure of the computer component has not occurred after a pre-determined period of time from when the VRM error was posted; an event comparator coupled to the counter, the event comparator comparing a count in the counter with a pre-determined event threshold, wherein a VRM error is posted by the event comparator when the count in the counter exceeds the pre-determined event threshold; and a combinational logic having a first input of the posted VRM error and a second input of the computer component failure, wherein in response to the posted VRM error and computer component failure both being input contemporaneously into the combinational logic, the combinational logic outputs a message instructing a replacement of the VRM.