Hard Drive Activity Light
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I am working on an application service that will be running on a PC with no monitor attached to it. Is there a way to force the hard drive activity light to blink (maybe like 1 second on, then 1 second off) so that we can tell whether or not the service is running without attaching a monitor? The normal disk activity that occurs while the service is running happens so fast that the light just flickers so dimly that it is hard to see if it is even on. Thanks for any help, or pointers to resources that may be useful. The only things I could find from searching are people asking why their activity light constantly blinks.
-- Marcus Kwok
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I am working on an application service that will be running on a PC with no monitor attached to it. Is there a way to force the hard drive activity light to blink (maybe like 1 second on, then 1 second off) so that we can tell whether or not the service is running without attaching a monitor? The normal disk activity that occurs while the service is running happens so fast that the light just flickers so dimly that it is hard to see if it is even on. Thanks for any help, or pointers to resources that may be useful. The only things I could find from searching are people asking why their activity light constantly blinks.
-- Marcus Kwok
I would not think that there is any way to directly control weather the HDD LED is on or off, but simply replacing a file with a large amount of data at certain intervals would work. Or if you are lucky your computers still have their PC speakers installed, meaning you could use Beep(int freq, int duration); (duration in ms) Or maybe you could use inpout32(); to control the binary outputs on a LPT/printer port, and then connect a LED and resistor to make it blink... [^]
//Johannes
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I would not think that there is any way to directly control weather the HDD LED is on or off, but simply replacing a file with a large amount of data at certain intervals would work. Or if you are lucky your computers still have their PC speakers installed, meaning you could use Beep(int freq, int duration); (duration in ms) Or maybe you could use inpout32(); to control the binary outputs on a LPT/printer port, and then connect a LED and resistor to make it blink... [^]
//Johannes
Johannes, Thanks for your reply.
Johpoke wrote:
simply replacing a file with a large amount of data at certain intervals would work.
This probably would work, but my concern with this method is that it might contribute to the hard drive failing sooner than otherwise. In this application, the device is intended to be in service for many years with minimal user intervention. For the units that we are replacing with this new unit, the hard drives were the most common point of failure.
Johpoke wrote:
you could use Beep(int freq, int duration);
This method might be a little too intrusive/annoying for the people working in the room.
Johpoke wrote:
Or maybe you could use inpout32(); to control the binary outputs on a LPT/printer port, and then connect a LED and resistor to make it blink...
However, this idea is very interesting. Thanks for the pointer!
-- Marcus Kwok
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Johannes, Thanks for your reply.
Johpoke wrote:
simply replacing a file with a large amount of data at certain intervals would work.
This probably would work, but my concern with this method is that it might contribute to the hard drive failing sooner than otherwise. In this application, the device is intended to be in service for many years with minimal user intervention. For the units that we are replacing with this new unit, the hard drives were the most common point of failure.
Johpoke wrote:
you could use Beep(int freq, int duration);
This method might be a little too intrusive/annoying for the people working in the room.
Johpoke wrote:
Or maybe you could use inpout32(); to control the binary outputs on a LPT/printer port, and then connect a LED and resistor to make it blink...
However, this idea is very interesting. Thanks for the pointer!
-- Marcus Kwok
ricecake wrote:
This method might be a little too intrusive/annoying for the people working in the room.
I was thinking the room might be like the server rooms ive been in. If that where the case you would have to put you ear to the case to hear the beeping. (or *overclock* the speaker ) Glad I could help :)
//Johannes
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ricecake wrote:
This method might be a little too intrusive/annoying for the people working in the room.
I was thinking the room might be like the server rooms ive been in. If that where the case you would have to put you ear to the case to hear the beeping. (or *overclock* the speaker ) Glad I could help :)
//Johannes
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I am working on an application service that will be running on a PC with no monitor attached to it. Is there a way to force the hard drive activity light to blink (maybe like 1 second on, then 1 second off) so that we can tell whether or not the service is running without attaching a monitor? The normal disk activity that occurs while the service is running happens so fast that the light just flickers so dimly that it is hard to see if it is even on. Thanks for any help, or pointers to resources that may be useful. The only things I could find from searching are people asking why their activity light constantly blinks.
-- Marcus Kwok
Well, the keyboard LEDs would work. You can control those with an interrupt, IIRC. Did that in TurboPascal once. As for the HD-LED: difficult.
Cheers, Sebastian -- "If it was two men, the non-driver would have challenged the driver to simply crash through the gates. The macho image thing, you know." - Marc Clifton
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Well, the keyboard LEDs would work. You can control those with an interrupt, IIRC. Did that in TurboPascal once. As for the HD-LED: difficult.
Cheers, Sebastian -- "If it was two men, the non-driver would have challenged the driver to simply crash through the gates. The macho image thing, you know." - Marc Clifton
I don't think you can mess with them that way in a modern OS. My turboPascal keyboard light toggler crashed under NT4(3.5????). There's got to be an API way to do it though.
-- Join the Campaign to Help Stamp Out and Abolish Redundancy The preceding is courtesy of the Bureau of Unnecessarily Redundant Repetition Department.
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Well, the keyboard LEDs would work. You can control those with an interrupt, IIRC. Did that in TurboPascal once. As for the HD-LED: difficult.
Cheers, Sebastian -- "If it was two men, the non-driver would have challenged the driver to simply crash through the gates. The macho image thing, you know." - Marc Clifton