Patent ID: 7334138

Claim:
An apparatus for dynamically managing a power consumption of peripheral devices in a computer, comprising: at least one peripheral device; a memory unit; and a power management unit, comprising: a device idle time table for recording the an average idle time of each peripheral device with respect to each application program in the computer; and a daemon program being launched and loaded in the memory unit for carrying out a first criterion by determining whether the power supplied to a peripheral device is associated with an active application program running on said computer based on a statistical data of said device idle time table, and carrying out a second criterion by determining whether the power supplied to said peripheral device is associated with an inactive application programs running on said computer based on the statistical data of said device idle time table, and, wherein a power-saving signal is sent to an operating system of the computer when both of said first criterion and said second criterion are satisfied, and in response to said power-saving signal, said operating system powers off said peripheral device.