Location of a faulty module in a computing system

Considering the interplay between different phases of fault tolerance, a new problem of locating a faulty module in a computing system is formulated and solved. First, the probability of each module being faulty, or faulty probability, is calculated using the likelihood principle from the model parameters for fault detection, diagnostics, error propagation, and error detection. Then, based on the faulty probabilities and a given required diagnostic coverage, the order in which modules are to be diagnosed and the maximum time allotted to diagnose each module are determined by minimizing the average total diagnostic time. An example is presented and analyzed to answer the question of whether or not a system should delay the diagnosis upon detection of an error until more errors are detected.