Abstract: A method and system for efficiently servicing a peripheral component event. In one embodiment of the present invention, a peripheral component such as, for example, a network interface card generates a first interrupt upon the occurrence of a first peripheral component event. In the present embodiment, a peripheral component driver such as, for example, a network interface card driver then services the first peripheral component event. In this embodiment of the present invention, the peripheral component then services any existing coalesced peripheral component event (or events) which has not yet generated a respective interrupt. In so doing, the present embodiment eliminates the need for the existing coalesced peripheral component event to generate an additional interrupt at some later time. As a result, the present embodiment reduces the frequency with which interrupts are generated, and minimizes the CPU overhead associated with the servicing of interrupts.

Abstract: A method and system for efficiently transferring data between a host computer and a peripheral component which is removably coupled to the host computer. In one embodiment of the present invention, a peripheral component driver such as, for example, a network interface card driver receives a request from a peripheral component, such as, for example, a network interface card, to transfer data from the peripheral component to memory of the host computer. The data to be transferred requires a first block of memory in the host computer wherein the first block of the memory has a first size. The present embodiment then allocates a second block of memory in the host computer to receive the data from the peripheral component. In the present invention, the second block of memory has a second size which is greater than the first size. Additionally, the second block of memory comprises an integer unit of the memory.

Abstract: A method and system for efficiently transferring data between a host computer and a peripheral component which is removably coupled to the host computer. In one embodiment of the present invention, a peripheral component such as, for example, a network interface card receives information from a peripheral component driver, such as, for example, a network interface card driver. In this embodiment, the information triggers the peripheral component to transmit a read request to the host computer such that the peripheral component can access data present at the host computer. Next, the peripheral component determines from the information received at the peripheral component, which type of read request to transmit to the host computer. In this embodiment, the type of read request is selected such that only a desired portion of the data will be prefetched and stored in memory of the host computer.