Method and apparatus for managing power consumption of peripheral devices of personal computers
First Claim
1. In a computer having a processor, on-board system devices, a display and other external devices, a system for managing and coordinating the power consumption of the display and the external devices comprising:
- a) a display and an associated display device driver;
b) a plurality of external devices and buses, each having an associated external device driver;
c) event manager means for generating power events indicating that power being supplied to the display and external devices and buses may be changed without specifying any particular device or bus; and
d) a plurality of power management handler means, each associated with a respective one of said display device driver and said external device drivers, each of said plurality of power management handler means for receiving power events generated by said event manager and for making a decision of whether or not to activate a change in power requirements for its associated device based on a received power event and under predetermined conditions, said power events having been broadcast to all external device drivers and to said display device driver.
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Abstract
A system for managing power consumption in a personal computer, specifically peripheral devices including the display and other external devices such as disk drives, CD-ROM drives, modems and the like. A software and hardware architecture is provided for managing the power consumption of peripheral devices through their device drivers and a global event messaging scheme. A set of power events is defined which are delivered to device drivers, through an associated power management handler. Each driver can make the decision as to whether that power event should affect its coupled device'"'"'s power state.
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Citations
21 Claims
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1. In a computer having a processor, on-board system devices, a display and other external devices, a system for managing and coordinating the power consumption of the display and the external devices comprising:
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a) a display and an associated display device driver; b) a plurality of external devices and buses, each having an associated external device driver; c) event manager means for generating power events indicating that power being supplied to the display and external devices and buses may be changed without specifying any particular device or bus; and d) a plurality of power management handler means, each associated with a respective one of said display device driver and said external device drivers, each of said plurality of power management handler means for receiving power events generated by said event manager and for making a decision of whether or not to activate a change in power requirements for its associated device based on a received power event and under predetermined conditions, said power events having been broadcast to all external device drivers and to said display device driver. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A computer system comprising:
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a plurality of devices and device drivers, each device being associated with at least one of the device drivers; event manager generating at least one power event to be broadcast to the device drivers, the power event indicating that power being supplied to the devices may be changed without specifying any particular device; and a plurality of power management handlers, each associated with a respective one of the device drivers, each handler receiving the power event and on the basis of that and predetermined conditions making a decision of whether or not to activate a change in power requirements for the associated device. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. In a computer system, a method comprising:
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generating at least one power event and broadcasting it to a plurality of device drivers of the computer system, the power event indicating that power being supplied to devices may be changed without specifying any particular device; and making a decision by a power management handler of whether or not to activate a change in power requirements for a device associated with one of the plurality of device drivers in response to receiving the power event. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21)
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Specification