Patent ID: 6910142

Claim:
In a computer system including plurality of cells, each comprising at least one processor having an operating system associated therewith, wherein each of the cells is connected to a peripheral backplane containing a plurality of peripheral I/O card slots, an event notification system for detecting and routing platform event information relating to removal and replacement of peripheral I/O cards during operation of the computer system, the event notification system comprising: a supervisory processor, connected to each said cell via said backplane; a plurality of doorbell switches, each associated with a specific said I/O card slot and operatively coupled to said supervisory processor, for providing, to the supervisory processor, a doorbell event indicating that a user is ready to remove a specific said I/O card from said card slot associated therewith; a local service processor in each cell, interfaced to the operating system and operatively coupled to the supervisory processor via a link for sending said platform events including said doorbell event from the supervisory processor to the local service processor; wherein the operating system powers down the card slot associated with the specific said I/O card in response to notification, from the local service processor, of the doorbell event.