Patent ID: 7380142

Claim:
A standby power control apparatus being used in a power control device for controlling a power-supply voltage of a computer system including a computer and a monitor, and controlling power-supply voltages of peripheral devices, the apparatus comprising: a power-supply unit for converting a commercial power source to a DC power-supply voltage requisite for the system, and providing individual components with necessary power-supply voltages; an interface unit being connected to the computer via a communication line, and interfacing a signal transmitted from the computer; an Input/Output (I/O) terminal unit being connected to a mouse and a keyboard of the computer and transmitting input signals received from the mouse and the keyboard to a microprocessor; a switching unit for connecting a plurality of switches to a plurality of sockets, respectively, switching the switches according to an external control signal, and recovering or blocking power-supply voltages applied to the sockets; an individual load detector for receiving power-supply state information from the switching unit, and detecting load information of the peripheral device on the basis of the received power-supply state information; a sensor being mounted to one side of the computer or the monitor, and determining the presence or absence of a user; a microprocessor for receiving a first input signal from the computer via the interface unit, a second input signal from the mouse and the keyboard via the I/O terminal unit, and a third input signal from the individual load detector and the sensor, switching the switching unit according to the received first to third input signals, and controlling a power-supply voltage generated from the sockets, wherein said microprocessor transmits only standby power to the computer if the presence of the user is detected by the sensor on the condition that the computer is completely powered off; an individual drive signal generator for receiving a control command signal from the microprocessor, and generating a drive signal to switch on or off the switches of the switching unit; and a monitoring/management unit for determining whether the computer, the monitor, and the peripheral device are actually used, transmitting a power-supply control command signal to the microprocessor via the interface unit according to the determined result, and being installed in the computer in the form of an application program, such that it provides the user with a variety of administrator setup menus to allow the user to control overall operations of the system using the administrator setup menus, wherein said monitoring/management unit displays a message indicative of a power-supply recovery on the monitor until the peripheral device recovers its power-supply voltage in a warm-up state when recovering a power-supply voltage of the peripheral device.