Abstract: A method and system for autonomously operation a PCI-serial bus interface device (20) in an autonomous mode includes directing circuitry (370) for directing an autonomous boot mode select signal to the data transfer device. Instructions configure registers (36, 38) associated with the data transfer device for autonomous operation of a data transfer device. The directing circuit (370) associates with the data packet transfer device for transferring data to at least one program control list (456) for operating said data packet transfer device in an autonomous mode.