Thermal management for computer systems running legacy or thermal management operating systems

A computer program product comprises:

• a machine useable medium having computer program code embedded therein, the computer program product having:
• computer readable program code to invoke a system management interrupt (SMI) handler in response to an SMI;
• computer readable program code to determine a thermal state of a processor by the SMI handler;
• and
• computer readable program code to cause the SMI handler to selectively interact between one of a performance state control applet and a thermal driver in a thermal management operating system (OS) to determine whether to transition the processor to one of a low power state and a high power state based on the thermal state according to a native performance control status.

A system comprising:

• a processor;
• a memory coupled to the processor to store a thermal management module, the thermal management module including a system management interrupt (SMI) handler and a thermal management operating system (OS), the thermal management module, when executed, causing the processor to:
• invoke a system management interrupt (SMI) handler in response to an SMI,
• determine a thermal state of a processor by the SMI handler, and the SMI handler to selectively interact between one of a performance state control applet and a thermal driver in a thermal management operating system (OS) to determine whether to transition the processor to one of a low power state and a high power state based on the thermal state according to a native performance control status.