Patent ID: 8463456

Claim:
A method, in a data processing system, for minimizing system power in the data processing system, the method comprising: determining, by a management control unit in the data processing system, a convergence has been reached in the data processing system; responsive to convergence failing to be reached, determining, by the management control unit, whether a maximum fan flag is set to indicate that a fan is operating at a maximum speed; responsive to the maximum fan flag failing to be set to indicate that the fan is operating at the maximum speed, either increasing or decreasing a thermal threshold of the data processing system and thereby a fan speed of the data processing system based on whether the system power of the data processing system has either increased or decreased and based on whether a temperature of the data processing system has either increased or decreased thereby fanning a new thermal threshold and a new fan speed; determining, by the management control unit, whether the convergence has been reached in the data processing system using the new thermal threshold; and responsive to convergence failing to be reached using the new thermal threshold, repeating, by the management control unit, the steps of determining whether the maximum fan flag is set to indicate that the fan is operating at the maximum speed and either increasing or decreasing the thermal threshold of the data processing system and thereby the fan speed of the data processing system until convergence has been reached in response to the maximum fan flag failing to be set to indicate that the fan is operating at the maximum speed.