METHOD FOR ENABLING OR DISABLING A PERIPHERAL DEVICE THAT IS MAINTAINED ELECTRICALLY CONNECTED TO A COMPUTER SYSTEM

• US 20060230191A1
• Filed: 05/06/2005
• Published: 10/12/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/11/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Wistron Corporation
• Original Assignee: Wistron Corporation
• Inventors: Fan, Chen-Chang, Chang, Shih-Chi
• Application Number:
  US10/908,302
• Publication Number:
  US 20060230191A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 710/15
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4081 Live connection to bus, e.g. hot-plugging current or voltage limitation during live insertion H02H9/004
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A method for enabling or disabling a peripheral device, that uses a basic input output system to control a system chip, modifies the status of a register of a peripheral controller in the south bridge chip of a computer. The method enables or disables the peripheral device through the control of a software application that sends a control command to the basic input output system and therefore can achieve its purpose using only the present configuration of circuits on a motherboard.

Claims

1. A method for enabling or disabling a peripheral device that is maintained electrically connected to a computer system, the method comprising:

(a) detecting the peripheral device connected to the computer system;

(b) storing a status of the peripheral device on a register;

(c) receiving a command for disabling the peripheral device; and

(d) when receiving the command for disabling the peripheral device, modifying the status of the register while maintaining the computer system and the peripheral device electrically connected.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising notifying an operating system of the modification of the register in step (d).

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising step (e) setting the status of the peripheral by a system chip.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein in step (e) a basic input output system (BIOS) controls the system chip to set up the status of the peripheral.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising enabling the peripheral after the execution of step (d) when receiving a command for enabling the peripheral.