Patent ID: 7539807

Claim:
A method for operating an expansion card of a computer provided with at least one slot for accommodating the expansion card, comprising: accessing a first configuration data record and a second configuration data record stored in a memory area of said expansion card, wherein the first configuration data record is assigned to a first signaling voltage, and the second configuration data record is assigned to a second signaling voltage; transmitting the first configuration data record or the second configuration data record to a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chip of the expansion card indicating to the FPGA chip whether a protection circuit is to be activated or deactivated; reading a third data record stored in the expansion card, when the computer is switched off and the expansion card is connected to an external voltage supply, wherein the third stored data record corresponds to the signaling voltage to be used; and transmitting a third configuration data record to the FPGA chip when the computer is switched off and the expansion card is connected to an external voltage supply, wherein the third configuration data record corresponds to the first configuration data record or the second configuration data record.