Patent ID: 6073181
Filing Date: 2000-06-06
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
In a system including an adapter for receiving data frames received from a Local Area Network (LAN), a system bus connecting the adapter to a memory which includes a plurality of data buffers under control of LAN device driver software located in a system main processor, a method for transferring data frames received from the LAN to the buffers and status information related to said data frames to the LAN device driver software comprising the following steps:in said adapter;receiving the data encoded in frames from said LAN and transferring the received data to a predetermined buffer via the system bus,accumulating the frame length and providing an output indicative of the accumulated frame length when the data frame ends,comparing the output indicative of the received frame length to the size of the predetermined buffer, andsending a status message to the LAN device driver software via the system bus indicating good status when the comparison indicates that the length of the frame did not exceed the capacity of the predetermined buffer.