Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to systems and methods for updating a System on Chip (SOC) image without using direct memory access (DMA) programming. A target SOC monitors a target mailbox to determine reception of a data packet of an SOC image received from a host computer, wherein the SOC image includes a plurality of data packets. The target SOC reads the data packet from a buffer of the target SOC and writes a status message to a host mailbox of the target SOC, wherein the status message is indicative of a reception status of the data packet.