Patent ID: 7630856

Claim:
A method of thermal management in a computing system comprising a plurality of critical heat generating electronic components having designated maximum operating temperatures and designated maximum operating speeds, respectively, comprising: monitoring the temperature of said critical components and the rate of temperature increase of said critical components; determining that the temperature of a detected critical component approaches its designated maximum operating temperature, or determining that the rate of temperature increase of said detected component exceeds a predetermined temperature, and, in response to such determination initiating one or more of the following procedures as necessary to maintain operation of said detected component at or above at least about 80% of its designated maximum operating speed: (a) reducing the operating speed of said detected component in increments of between about 1% and about 5% until a predetermined component temperature is reached, (b) increasing the speed of one or more fans for cooling said detected component in increments of between about 1% and about 5% until the predetermined component temperature is reached, and if carrying out step (a) or step (b) does not result in reducing the temperature of said detected component to the predetermined lower temperature within a predetermined time limit, (c) inducing thermal communication between said detected component and a variable capacity heat transfer component.