Subjects         Chips & Upgrades   Computers   News   Opinions   Peripherals Systems Software   SysOpt

internet.commerce Be a Commerce Partner

Search for more hardware and systems terms . . .

hot plugging Last modified: Thursday, February 01, 2007

The ability to add and remove devices to a computer while the computer is running and have the operating system automatically recognize the change. Two external bus standards -- Universal Serial Bus (USB ) and IEEE 1394 -- support hot plugging. This is also a feature of PCMCIA. Hot plugging is also called hot swapping.