Patent ID: 7895471

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of isolating failures in a system, comprising: a) receiving reports of multiple faults occurring within a unit, and storing the faults in a fault table for the unit, the fault table being stored on a storage device; b) utilizing a processor to perform a linear search of a the fault table for the unit to identify one of the multiple faults that first appears in the fault table; c) determining that the identified fault is a first-occurring fault that is a source of a failure within the unit; repeating steps a) through c) for multiple units in the system to thereby identify a first-occurring fault for each of the multiple units; determining which of the identified first-occurring faults is the source of the failure for the system based on assigned primary priority values and, if the assigned primary priority values indicate that a plurality of first-occurring faults is the source of the failure, using assigned secondary priority values to determine which of the plurality is the source of the failure; and determining a fault action to take based on which of the identified first-occurring faults is determined to be the source of the failure.