Patent ID: 7421591

Claim:
A method for conserving power in an information handling system, comprising: while a host unit is in a normal power state, evaluating activity criteria from time to time, wherein said activity criteria are indicative of activity on a bus of the host unit; evaluating said activity criteria to determine whether one or more pending activities should be completed to fulfill the needs of a currently running process; responsive to determining the one or more pending activities should be completed, maintaining the host unit in the normal power state until the one or more pending activities is completed; responsive to said activity criteria indicating both a lack of current bus activity and a lack of the one or more pending activities that should be completed, transitioning the host unit to a reduced power state; responsive to receiving data by a communication controller while said host unit is in said reduced power state, maintaining the data in a buffer associated with the communication controller; and releasing the data from the buffer for processing responsive to the host unit transitioning from the reduced power state to the normal power state.