A value which indicates the failures of some particular Power On Self Test (POST). The value is a sum. This sum initially takes the value zero, Then, for each POST test, T, in the range 1 through 16, that fails, 2 raised to (T - 1) is added to the sum. The defined POST tests are: T POST Test 1 ports 2 station address PROM 3 CAM 4 RS-232 port 5 real time clock 6 CAM SRAM 7 system timer interrupt 8 port control/status 9 Flag DRAM or ISLT ASIC 10 Packet DRAM 11 forwarding engine 12 forwarding engine 13 non-volatile RAM 14 SRAM 15 EPROM 16 ECU DRAM