As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
An indispensible part an information handling system is its power system. A power system of an information handling system, or other device, may include a power source, one or more voltage regulators for controlling one or more voltages distributed to various components of the information handling system, a power controller for controlling operation of the various voltage regulators, and a distribution network for distributing electrical current produced by the one or more voltage regulators to various components of the information handling system.
Often it is desirable to intentionally disable or power down a voltage regulator in order to reduce power consumption in an information handling system. For example, it may be determined that a portion of memory on an information handling system is unused. Accordingly, a voltage regulator providing electrical current to such portion of memory may be intentionally disabled in order to reduce power consumption. The disabling may occur as a result of a message or command communicated to the voltage regulator by a processor or access controller, and any such command may be communicated automatically (e.g., by means of a program executing on the processor that determines that it is advisable to disable a voltage regulator in order to conserve power) or manually (e.g., a user or administrator may determine that it is advisable to disable a voltage regulator and manually issues a command to do so).
However, when a voltage regulator is disabled, it may indicate to a power controller that the voltage regulator is no longer receiving or producing power. Accordingly, unless the fact that the voltage regulator has been intentionally disabled (as opposed to experiencing a fault condition) is communicated to the power controller, the power controller may detect a false fault, and may in response take unneeded and undesirable corrective action (e.g., by disabling power throughout other portions of the information handling system).
In traditional approaches, such false faults are masked via a somewhat complex method involving handshakes among various components of the information handling system. For example, if an intentional disable originates from a processor, the processor may communicate to the information handling system's basic input/output system (BIOS) of the intent to disable a voltage regulator prior to issuing a disable command to the voltage regulator. The BIOS may then write a masking bit to a register file in a power controller to prevent the power controller from interpreting the disabling of the voltage regulator as a fault. If an intentional disable originates from an access controller, the access controller may, prior to issuing a disable command to the voltage regulator, write a masking bit to a register file in a power controller to prevent the power controller from interpreting the disabling of the voltage regulator as a fault. Such complex handshaking requires undesirable design complexity.