HARDWARE DEVICE CONTROL APPARATUS, IMAGE FORMING APPARATUS, AND CONTROL METHOD

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make it possible to accurately monitor the occurrence of abnormality of a hardware device, when abnormality occurs to a relay part of an I/O expander connected to a control part (CPU), and stop the drive of the hardware device.SOLUTION: A hardware device control apparatus includes: a control part 101 that outputs a control signal to control a hardware device 105; an I/O expander 103a that outputs a control signal to the hardware device 105 on the basis of the control signal; and a watch dog timer 102 that outputs a second signal when a first signal to be output from the control part 101 via the I/O expander 103a is not received for a predetermined prescribed period or more. When the second signal is output, the control part 101 and I/O expander 103a perform initialization processing, and the hardware device 105 stops its drive.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2