System for responding to a power saving mode and method thereof

Details System for responding to a power saving mode and method thereof System for responding to a power saving mode and method thereof

1999-08-31

2004-06-15

Lee, Thomas (Department: 2185)

Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support

Computer power control

Power conservation

C713S300000, C713S320000, C713S324000, C713S340000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06751742

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to computer systems, and more specifically to a system for responding to a power saving mode.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In computer systems, it is desirable to have power saving modes, including a power down mode of operation. Such an operation may be executed at the request of a user, a timing device, or any other means capable of requesting a low power mode. The low power request is generally handled by the computer's operating system. However, it is generally desirable to gracefully enter low power mode in order to avoid terminating applications abruptly, whereby information would be lost.
In order to gracefully enter low power mode, the operating system checks with each of the open applications prior to performing a low power operation. Generally, an operating system will issue a suspend request to each open application in order to determine whether or not it is permissible to stop the applications operation.
Upon receiving a suspend, or low power operation request, an application will respond in one of two manners. In a first manner, a fixed response is provided to the operating system. For example, the application can be written such that any suspend request by the operating system will be accepted or denied. In a second manner of operation, the suspend operation request results in a query to the user to determine how to respond to the system. Generally, the query is in the form of a dialog box, whereby a user is asked to indicate whether or not to continue operation of the present application.
The prior art method of responding to suspend, or low power operations, is not flexible, only fixed responses and user provided responses can be handled by the application being queried. This creates a problem for application designers in that there may be only certain times during which it is desirable to select a specific mode of operation. This results in applications and the operating system performing in a non-optimal manner.
Likewise, requiring a user input in order to determine how to handle a suspend, or low power operation is disadvantageous, in that it requires the attention of the user. In situations where the user is not available, the computer system will either wait for the user input, or in the alternative, be forced to act in a fixed manner if no input is provided.
Therefore, a method and apparatus capable of providing more flexibility to respond to power management modes or requests, would be desirable.


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Lu, Y.-H.; Simunic, T.; De Micheli, G.; “Software controlled power management”, Hardware/Software Codesign, 1999. (CODES '99) Proceedings of the Seventh International Workshop on, May 3-5, 1999, pp. 157-161.

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