Computer system, operational method for a microcontroller, and computer program product

A computer system or method to switch the computer from an operating state (e.g. ACPI S0, low power idle) to an off state (e.g. ACPI S5, soft off, standby) wherein when a power button is held for a certain time indicating forced switching (e.g. 4 seconds, hardware shutdown, Step S1), the microcontroller waits so that the computer system is reset ("e.g. it waits for a time period of 1 s so that system components such as a USB controller, a network controller etc of the system are safely reset, step S4). A decision step S1 may check whether the shutdown event corresponds to a power button override (forced shutdown) request or a normal shutdown request (e.g. triggering of a software request within a user interface). In the case of a normal shutdown request, the computer system 1 may be shut down under software control (step S2). A forced switching may interrupt both the supply voltage (Vcc) and the standby voltage (Vaux) in a step S3. Resetting a computer (e.g. resetting wake-up values e.g. USB, Wake-on-Lan, WOL) in a forced shutdown event may be important because otherwise the system may end up in an unknown state.