JP-2026074529-A - Electronic equipment and control methods

Abstract

[Challenge] To avoid or reduce the risk of system downtime or data loss. [Solution] An electronic device comprising a host system, a first controller, and a battery pack, wherein the battery pack comprises a battery module, a temperature sensor for detecting temperature, and a second controller, and when the device is instructed to start up, the second controller estimates the amount of dischargeable power, which is the amount of power that can be discharged from the battery module, based on the voltage and temperature of the battery module, and the first controller determines whether or not to start up the host system based on whether or not the amount of dischargeable power is sufficient to meet the power consumption required to start up the host system. [Selection Diagram] Figure 5

Inventors

• 徳野 真弘
• 渡邉 寛之
• 前田 陽平
• 川上 淳平

Assignees

• レノボ・シンガポール・プライベート・リミテッド

Dates

Publication Date

20260507

Application Date

20241021

Claims (6)

1. An electronic device comprising a host system, a first controller, and a battery pack, The battery pack comprises a battery module, a temperature sensor for detecting temperature, and a second controller. When the device is instructed to start, The second controller is, Based on the voltage and temperature of the battery module, the dischargeable power amount, which is the amount of power that can be discharged from the battery module, is estimated. The first controller is, An electronic device that determines whether or not to start the host system based on whether the dischargeable power amount is sufficient to meet the power consumption required to start the host system.
2. The second controller is, The electronic device according to claim 1, which estimates the amount of power consumption based on the system configuration of the device itself.
3. With even more storage, The electronic device according to claim 1, wherein the startup process includes data transfer from the storage to the host system.
4. The first controller is, When the amount of dischargeable power does not meet the power consumption required to start up the host system, The electronic device according to claim 1, which displays guidance information indicating the startup or shutdown of the host system on a display.
5. The first controller is, When power is supplied from an external power source separate from the aforementioned battery pack, The electronic device according to claim 1, which starts the host system regardless of the amount of dischargeable power.
6. A control method for an electronic device comprising a host system, a first controller, and a battery pack, When the device is instructed to start, The battery pack comprises a battery module, a temperature sensor for detecting temperature, and a second controller. The second controller, The steps include: estimating the amount of power that can be discharged from the battery module based on the voltage and temperature of the battery module; The first controller, A control method that performs the step of determining whether or not to start the host system based on whether or not the dischargeable power amount is sufficient to meet the power consumption required to start the host system.

Description

This application relates to electronic equipment and control methods, such as the control of the clock frequency of a processor. Portable electronic devices, including notebook personal computers (sometimes referred to as "notebook PCs"), are equipped with a processor such as a CPU (Central Processing Unit) and a battery. The processor consumes power stored in the battery to perform the main functions of the electronic device, even without a constant external power supply. Generally, the amount of power discharged from the battery decreases as the temperature drops. In low-temperature environments, electronic devices cannot perform to their expected level. Therefore, a lower limit of operating temperature (for example, 0 to 10°C) is defined. If the startup temperature is lower than the predetermined lower limit of the operating temperature, the functionality of the electronic device may be limited. For example, the electrical device described in Patent Document 1 includes a microcontroller, and when the temperature detected by the temperature sensor at system startup falls below the guaranteed operating temperature, it operates the CPU at a lower frequency clock than normal and initiates a self-test operation. Japanese Patent Publication No. 2012-177968 This diagram shows an example configuration of the electronic device according to this embodiment.This block diagram shows an example configuration of the battery pack according to this embodiment.This flowchart illustrates the battery status monitoring process according to this embodiment.This flowchart shows a first example of system startup control according to this embodiment.This figure illustrates a guide screen according to this embodiment.This flowchart illustrates the system startup control for the comparative example. Hereinafter, embodiments of the present application will be described with reference to the drawings. First, an example of the configuration of the electronic device 1 according to the present application will be described. Figure 1 is a block diagram showing an example configuration of the electronic device 1 according to this embodiment. In the example shown in Figure 1, the electronic device 1 is configured as a general-purpose PC. The electronic device 1 comprises a host system 10, a ROM (Read Only Memory) 22, storage 23, a display 24, a communication module 25, an input/output interface 26, an EC 31, an input device 32, a power supply circuit 33, a battery pack 34, and a power switch 36. The host system 10 is the core computer system of the electronic device 1. The host system 10 comprises a CPU (Central Processing Unit) 11, main memory 12, and a chipset 21. In this application, the hardware constituting the host system 10 may be referred to as the "host device." The CPU 11 controls the operation of the entire electronic device 1. That is, the CPU 11 is a core processing unit (processor) that executes arithmetic processing instructed by various commands written in the software (program). The operation of the CPU 11 includes reading and writing data to storage media such as the main memory 12 and storage 23, reading data from the ROM 22, and input/output with other devices. Programs executed by the CPU 11 include, for example, the OS (Operating System), firmware, device drivers (sometimes simply referred to as "drivers" in this application), utility programs, and application programs (sometimes simply referred to as "applications" or "apps" in this application). In this application, the execution of processing instructed by commands written in a program is sometimes referred to as "executing a program" or "program execution." Main memory 12 is a writable memory used as a reading area for the CPU 11's executable program, or as a work area for writing processing data for the executable program. Main memory 12 is composed of, for example, multiple DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) chips. The CPU 11 and main memory 12 constitute the minimum hardware required to form the host system 10. The chipset 21 includes multiple controllers and is capable of connecting to multiple devices for input and output of various types of data. The controllers on the chipset 21 may be, for example, USB (Universal Serial Bus), SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) bus, PCI-Express bus, etc. In the example shown in Figure 1, the chipset 21 is connected to the ROM 22, storage 23, display 24, communication module 25, input/output interface 26, and EC31. ROM22 primarily stores firmware. The firmware stored in ROM22 includes the BIOS and other firmware specific to individual devices. ROM22 is composed of rewritable non-volatile memory such as EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) and flash ROM. Storage 23 is an auxiliary storage device that stores various data used in the processing of the host system 10, various data acquired through such processing, or various programs. Storage 23 may be, for example, an SSD (Solid State Drive) or an HDD