DYNAMIC POWER SAVING BY MONITORING CPU UTILIZATION

A CPU activity monitoring circuit is electrically connected to a CPU. This circuit monitors the state of a bus signal line on the CPU, as there is a strong correlation between the state of this line and the processing load of the CPU. This circuit can interrupt the processor to force an interrupt service call to a BIOS routine. This BIOS routine will adjust the internal clock frequency, or internal operating voltage, of the CPU based upon the perceived processing load of the CPU.