Method and apparatus for automatically configuring circuit cards in a computer system
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorsMark R. Enstrom, Ralph L. Lipe, David W. Voth, Robert T. Short, Narendar B. Sahgal, Ajay V. Bhatt, Philip W. Martin, Sudarshan Bala Cadambi
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Abstract
A method and apparatus for automatically configuring circuit cards used in a computer system. The present invention includes a method and apparatus that enables the circuit cards to be automatically configured during system boot up without any user intervention. The present invention also includes a method for the computer system software to detect resources requested by the circuit cards in order to resolve any system resource conflicts.
Claims20
In a computer system having a bus, a processor coupled to the bus, and the system resources coupled to the bus, a self configuring circuit card comprising:
- an interface operative to enable removable coupling of said circuit card to said bus;
- at least one card resource resident on said circuit card, said circuit card further including readable card resource information resident on said circuit card, said readable card resource information including information describing attributes of said card resource;
- and
- auto-configuration logic resident on said circuit card for self configuring said circuit card when said interface is removably coupled to said bus, said auto-configuration logic further including arbitration logic for reading said readable card resource information and for resolving conflicts between said system resources and said card resource by assigning to each card an individual identification.
A computer system comprising:
- a bus for communicating information;
- a processor, coupled to said bus, for processing data instructions;
- system resources coupled to said bus;
- and
- a self configuring circuit card including:
- a.) an interface operative to enable removable coupling of said self configuring circuit card to said bus,
- b.) at least one card resource resident on said circuit card, said at least one card resource including video, sound, storage, or input/output resources to said computer system,
- c.) readable card resource information resident on said circuit card, said card resource information including information describing attributes of said at least one card resource, and
- d.) auto-configuration logic circuit resident on said circuit card for self configuring said circuit card when said circuit card is removably coupled to said bus, said auto-configuration logic further including arbitration logic for reading said card resource information and for resolving conflicts between said system resources and said at least one card resource by assigning to the card a unique identification.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.