US Patent 7290172 Computer system maintenance and diagnostics techniques

Methods and apparatus relating to computer system maintenance and/or diagnostics are described. In an embodiment, maintenance and diagnostics operations may be performed on a computer system during power-down modes, e.g., without disturbing the pre-power-down state of the computer system. In another embodiment, a request may be provided to perform a maintenance operation on a computer system in response to a power-down state of the computer system. Also, some contents of a state of the computer system may be stored in a memory in response to the at least some contents not previously having been backed-up in accordance with one embodiment. Other embodiments are also disclosed.