heartbeat (redirected from Heartbeat (disambiguation))

(1) A periodic signal generated by hardware for activation and/or synchronization purposes. See MHz.

(2) A periodic signal generated by hardware or software to indicate that it is still running.

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1.	(networking)	heartbeat - The signal emitted by a Level 2 Ethernet transceiver at the end of every packet to show that the collision-detection circuit is still connected.
2.		heartbeat - A periodic synchronisation signal used by software or hardware, such as a bus clock or a periodic interrupt.
3.		heartbeat - The "natural" oscillation frequency of a computer's clock crystal, before frequency division down to the machine's clock rate.
4.		heartbeat - A signal emitted at regular intervals by software to demonstrate that it is still alive. Sometimes hardware is designed to reboot the machine if it stops hearing a heartbeat. See also breath-of-life packet, watchdog.