Patent ID: 8112646

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a power management module having a power management controller, the power management controller to couple to a transceiver; a managed power system to couple to the power management module, the managed power system comprising a communications sub-system and a computing sub-system, the power management controller to switch the communications sub-system and the computing sub-system from a higher power state to a lower power state to conserve energy, the communications sub-system having: the transceiver; a buffer to couple to the transceiver, the buffer to store packets of information for the transceiver during a communications idle duration period to create a computing idle duration period; a watermark generator to couple to the buffer, the watermark generator operative to generate a variable receive threshold value; and a buffer manager to couple to the buffer and the watermark generator, the buffer manager operative to transfer the stored packets of information from the buffer to the computing sub-system based on the variable receive threshold value, to receive a power management message with an energy measurement parameter from the power management controller, and send a request to adjust a communications rate for the transceiver based on the energy measurement parameter.