System and method for adding hardware registers to a power management and configuration system

• US 7,328,279 B2
• Filed: 04/04/2005
• Issued: 02/05/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Pierce, Tony D, Oshins, Jacob, Plante, Stephane G.
• Primary Examiner(s): VU, THONG H
• Application Number:
  US11/099,189
• Publication Number:
  US 20050187719A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,037 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/238, 717/164, 717/166, 713/1, 713/2, 713/310
• US Class Current: 709/238
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4411 Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers

Abstract

A system for adding multiple GPE blocks (in addition to the system/root GPE block device) to a computing system by creating a device entry in the ACPI namespace, and using a _CRS object to describe the system resources consumed by the device is described. The GPE block device may then access associated hardware devices through a well known mechanism (either I/O or Memory Mapped accesses). By creating additional GPE block devices within the ACPI namespace, general purpose events may be delivered using more traditional hardware interrupt mechanisms than with existing systems (e.g., wiring GPE blocks together). Moreover, by putting GPE block devices in the ACPI namespace, hardware components having hardware registers may be “hot plugged” to the computing system.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for including a plurality of general-purpose event components in a computing system, comprising:

providing a computer management namespace;

associating a plurality of objects with the namespace, wherein at least one of the objects defines a general-purpose event component and a sub-object that defines a set of resources used by the at least one object; and

distinguishing the at least one object that defines the general-purpose event component from other objects in the namespace that define other general-purpose event components associated with the computer management namespace.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the resources used by the at least one object are associated with I/O space resources.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the resources used by the at least one object comprises memory space resources.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the at least one object further comprises at least one control configured to manage a notice generated by a hardware device.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein the notice is generated by a device using standard interrupt mechanisms.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the at least one object is configured to load to the namespace in response to a hardware component being added to the computing system.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the at least one object is unloadable from the namespace.

8. A computer-implemented method for associating a plurality of general-purpose event components with a computing system, comprising:

providing a first general-purpose event component having a first set of resources and a second general-purpose event component having a second set of resources;

associating the first general-purpose event component with a first data object of a namespace of an advance configuration and power interface; and

associating the second general-purpose event component with a second data object of the namespace of the advanced configuration and power interface.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein the second general-purpose event component comprises a root general-purpose event component, and wherein the first general-purpose event component comprises a secondary general-purpose event component.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising storing the first data object and the second data object in a namespace associated with a configuration management system.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, further comprising storing the first data object and the second data object within a basic input/output system (BIOS) associated with a configuration management system.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising reading the first data object and the second data object from the BIOS.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the first general-purpose event component and the second general-purpose event component each include a hardware device in electrical communication with one or more other hardware devices to detect an interrupt.

14. A computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions for associating a plurality of general-purpose event modules with a computer system, the instructions comprising:

associating a first general-purpose event module with a first data object of a namespace of an advance configuration and power interface, wherein the first general-purpose event includes a first set of resources; and

associating a second general-purpose event module with a second data object of the namespace of the advanced configuration and power interface.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the second-general-purpose event module comprises a root general-purpose event module, and wherein the first general-purpose event module comprises a secondary general-purpose event module.

16. The computer-implemented medium of claim 14, further comprising storing the first data object and the second data object in a namespace associated with a configuration management system.

17. The computer-implemented medium of claim 14, further comprising storing the first data object and the second data object within a basic input/output system (BIOS) associated with a configuration management system.

18. The computer-implemented medium of claim 14, further comprising reading the first data object and the second data object from the BIOS.

19. The computer-implemented medium of claim 18, wherein the first general-purpose event module and the second general-purpose event module each include a hardware device in electrical communication with one or more other hardware devices to detect an interrupt.

20. The computer-implemented medium of claim 14, wherein the first set of resources includes at least one of:

I/O space resources and memory space resources.