An apparatus, system, and method are disclosed for reliably controlling an I/O enclosure. A bus module receives two or more Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (“PCIe”) sideband signals via one or more PCIe cables. The one or more PCIe cables are connected between one or more hosts and an I/O enclosure. A decode module determines an asserted value of each of the two or more PCIe sideband signals and combines the PCIe sideband signal asserted values to form a bus value. Each PCIe sideband signal represents a bit in the bus value, and the bus value specifies a command for controlling the I/O enclosure. An execution module executes the specified command to perform control actions on the I/O enclosure.