Methods and apparatuses for controlling the temperature of a data processing system

A data processing system, comprising:

• a housing;
• and
• a plurality of components mounted within the housing, the plurality of components including:
• a memory,
• a plurality of sensors instrumented within the housing, each of the plurality of sensors configured to detect a working state of a corresponding component,
• a processor coupled to the memory and the plurality of sensors, the processor configured by programming to:
• determine, based on information collected from the plurality of sensors, a subset of controls from a plurality of controls, each control in the subset of controls being configured to control at least one of the corresponding components,
• determine a ranked order to adjust the subset of controls, the ranked order based on a plurality of rules to prioritize the subset of controls, and
• adjust the subset of controls in the ranked order to change the working states of the corresponding components of the data processing system to balance requirements in performance and in at least one of:
• thermal constraint or power consumption.

A non-transitory machine readable medium containing executable computer program instructions which when executed by a data processing system cause the system to perform a method to operate the data processing system, the method comprising:

• collecting information from a plurality of sensors, wherein each sensor detects a working state of a corresponding component of a data processing system;
• determining, based on the collected information, a subset of controls from a plurality of controls, each control in the subset of controls being configured to control at least one of the corresponding components of the data processing system;
• determining a ranked order to adjust the subset of controls, the ranked order based on a plurality of rules to prioritize the subset of controls;
• and
• adjusting the subset of controls in the ranked order to change the working states of the corresponding components of the data processing system to balance requirements in performance and in at least one of:
• thermal constraint or power consumption.

A data processing system, comprising:

• means for collecting information from a plurality of sensors, wherein each sensor detects a working state of a corresponding component of a data processing system;
• means for determining, based on the collected information, a subset of controls from a plurality of controls, each control in the subset of controls being configured to control at least one of the corresponding components of the data processing system;
• means for determining a ranked order to adjust the subset of controls, the ranked order based on a plurality of rules to prioritize the subset of controls;
• and
• means for adjusting the subset of controls in the ranked order to change the working states of the corresponding components of the data processing system to balance requirements in performance and in at least one of:
• thermal constraint or power consumption.