Patent ID: 7971031

Claim:
A method of modifying an executing application, the method comprising: monitoring the executing application to identify at least one of a hot load instruction, a hot store instruction and an active prefetch instruction that contributes to cache congestion; where the monitoring identifies a hot load instruction or a hot store instruction, determining whether the identified hot load instruction or hot store instruction is found in a blacklist, wherein the blacklist includes a list of prefetches that are not to be enabled as they contribute to the cache congestion; if not, enabling at least one prefetch associated with the hot load instruction or the hot store instruction; and if so, repeating the steps of monitoring and determining for a next hot load instruction or a hot store instruction; and where the monitoring identifies an active prefetch instruction that contributes to cache congestion, performing one of disabling the active prefetch instruction and reducing the effectiveness of the active prefetch instruction.