Separate LED's for each hard drive?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Anyone know of a simple way to have a separate HDD active LED for each
disk? Also interested in moving or copying my case power LED and
CD-ROM LED, because my case is mounted sideways, and the front panel
is not very visible. Figure I'll just splice those in, but a single
LED to tell me that at least one hard drive is active seems like poor
information. I'd like to see which hard drives are active, and how
much. Pointers?

Tim

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Your motherboard does not have the circuitry to do that.

--
DaveW



"Persnickety Tim" <tarmstrong@kmts.canthespam> wrote in message
news:k9km605dc8vl8ss4vgcbvlugbutgg3kbp3@4ax.com...
> Anyone know of a simple way to have a separate HDD active LED for each
> disk? Also interested in moving or copying my case power LED and
> CD-ROM LED, because my case is mounted sideways, and the front panel
> is not very visible. Figure I'll just splice those in, but a single
> LED to tell me that at least one hard drive is active seems like poor
> information. I'd like to see which hard drives are active, and how
> much. Pointers?
>
> Tim

 

[overlord]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

All my SCSI drives (8 at the moment) have both LEDs mounted at the front of the drive
and front and rear connectors for LEDs. Don't know if IDE drives have them or not.
By connectors I mean 2 wire jumper pins. Bring up the specs on your drives on the
manufacturers web site and browse thru the pdf file or whatever and try to ID the right
pins, if they exist. Also you can get the drive mount bezels with either a red or green
LED with a short cable to connect to the pins on the front of the drive and mount in a
hole in the bezel, or the drive mount bezels that have a tiny colored plastic insert
mounted in the bezel to let the LED on the front of the drive shine thru.

Then again, my case came with 6 drive LEDs mounted behind plastic below the power
and sleep lights which are beneath the digital speed display.
I got this case from Circotech several years ago but I don't think they make this one
anymore. The only real server cases I see on their site are the short doublewide
cube cases.

Win2k polls all the drives multiple times both in and out of sequence when it boots up.
Needless to say it is interesting to watch....

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:21:56 -0600, Persnickety Tim <tarmstrong@kmts.canthespam> wrote:

>Anyone know of a simple way to have a separate HDD active LED for each
>disk? Also interested in moving or copying my case power LED and
>CD-ROM LED, because my case is mounted sideways, and the front panel
>is not very visible. Figure I'll just splice those in, but a single
>LED to tell me that at least one hard drive is active seems like poor
>information. I'd like to see which hard drives are active, and how
>much. Pointers?
>
>Tim

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[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:21:56 -0600, Persnickety Tim
<tarmstrong@kmts.canthespam> wrote:

>Anyone know of a simple way to have a separate HDD active LED for each
>disk? Also interested in moving or copying my case power LED and
>CD-ROM LED, because my case is mounted sideways, and the front panel
>is not very visible. Figure I'll just splice those in, but a single
>LED to tell me that at least one hard drive is active seems like poor
>information. I'd like to see which hard drives are active, and how
>much. Pointers?
>
>Tim

Pin 40 on each drive goes low with disk activity. You could break that
wire away from the cable, and conect that to individual LEDs, which
will be connected to +5V with a 220 ohm 1/4 W resistor.
(Except for CDRW drives, which often have dual colour LEDs, if that is
important to you).

There is generally nothing wrong with relocating the front panel
electronics.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Tim,
this is great info. Thanks.
What did you mean by except for CDRW, do you mean
they have a colour for read, and a different colour for
write?

Aart

> Pin 40 on each drive goes low with disk activity. You could break that
> wire away from the cable, and conect that to individual LEDs, which
> will be connected to +5V with a 220 ohm 1/4 W resistor.
> (Except for CDRW drives, which often have dual colour LEDs, if that is
> important to you).
>
> There is generally nothing wrong with relocating the front panel
> electronics.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 21:40:38 -0500, "~Aart" <bogus@nowhere.net> wrote:

>Tim,
>this is great info. Thanks.
>What did you mean by except for CDRW, do you mean
>they have a colour for read, and a different colour for
>write?
>


Often they do... it's easy enough to check while using yours?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 21:40:38 -0500, "~Aart" <bogus@nowhere.net> wrote:

>Tim,
>this is great info. Thanks.
>What did you mean by except for CDRW, do you mean
>they have a colour for read, and a different colour for
>write?
>

Mine does.

It shows yellow when there is a disc in the drive, Red when writing,
green when reading, dark with no disc in the drive, blinking yellow if
there is an error. Information that won't be relayed on pin 40.

>Aart
>
>> Pin 40 on each drive goes low with disk activity. You could break that
>> wire away from the cable, and conect that to individual LEDs, which
>> will be connected to +5V with a 220 ohm 1/4 W resistor.
>> (Except for CDRW drives, which often have dual colour LEDs, if that is
>> important to you).
>>
>> There is generally nothing wrong with relocating the front panel
>> electronics.
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Thu, 01 Apr 2004 17:42:57 -0500, Gary Tait
<classicsat@yahoo.cominvalid> put finger to keyboard and composed:

>On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:21:56 -0600, Persnickety Tim
><tarmstrong@kmts.canthespam> wrote:
>
>>Anyone know of a simple way to have a separate HDD active LED for each
>>disk? Also interested in moving or copying my case power LED and
>>CD-ROM LED, because my case is mounted sideways, and the front panel
>>is not very visible. Figure I'll just splice those in, but a single
>>LED to tell me that at least one hard drive is active seems like poor
>>information. I'd like to see which hard drives are active, and how
>>much. Pointers?
>>
>>Tim
>
>Pin 40 on each drive goes low with disk activity. You could break that
>wire away from the cable, and conect that to individual LEDs, which
>will be connected to +5V with a 220 ohm 1/4 W resistor.
>(Except for CDRW drives, which often have dual colour LEDs, if that is
>important to you).
>
>There is generally nothing wrong with relocating the front panel
>electronics.

Pin 40 is ground. Pin 39 is /ACT. See this document:
http://www.ent.ohiou.edu/~welker/ide.txt

The author writes:
"A low level on [the /ACT] pin indicates that the IDE device is busy."

I'm not sure how the mainboard's IDE controller would react if the
/ACT pin were cut. I suggest that a better method would be a circuit
such as the following:
+5V
___
1K LED1 |
master pin 39 o-+-/\/\---|<|---o +5V |
| 4K7
|-----|<|------| |
D1 & D2 |--------+--0 pin 39
|-----|<|------| controller
|
slave pin 39 o-+-/\/\---|<|---o +5V
1K LED2

Diodes D1 and D2 would be germanium signal diodes with low Vf. Pullup
resistor 4K7 may not be required.


- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Thu, 08 Apr 2004 18:22:20 +1000, Franc Zabkar
<fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> put finger to keyboard and composed:

>On Thu, 01 Apr 2004 17:42:57 -0500, Gary Tait
><classicsat@yahoo.cominvalid> put finger to keyboard and composed:
>
>>On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:21:56 -0600, Persnickety Tim
>><tarmstrong@kmts.canthespam> wrote:
>>
>>>Anyone know of a simple way to have a separate HDD active LED for each
>>>disk? Also interested in moving or copying my case power LED and
>>>CD-ROM LED, because my case is mounted sideways, and the front panel
>>>is not very visible. Figure I'll just splice those in, but a single
>>>LED to tell me that at least one hard drive is active seems like poor
>>>information. I'd like to see which hard drives are active, and how
>>>much. Pointers?
>>>
>>>Tim
>>
>>Pin 40 on each drive goes low with disk activity. You could break that
>>wire away from the cable, and conect that to individual LEDs, which
>>will be connected to +5V with a 220 ohm 1/4 W resistor.
>>(Except for CDRW drives, which often have dual colour LEDs, if that is
>>important to you).
>>
>>There is generally nothing wrong with relocating the front panel
>>electronics.
>
>Pin 40 is ground. Pin 39 is /ACT. See this document:
> http://www.ent.ohiou.edu/~welker/ide.txt
>
>The author writes:
>"A low level on [the /ACT] pin indicates that the IDE device is busy."
>
>I'm not sure how the mainboard's IDE controller would react if the
>/ACT pin were cut. I suggest that a better method would be a circuit
>such as the following:
> +5V
> ___
> 1K LED1 |
> master pin 39 o-+-/\/\---|<|---o +5V |
> | 4K7
> |-----|<|------| |
> D1 & D2 |--------+--0 pin 39
> |-----|<|------| controller
> |
> slave pin 39 o-+-/\/\---|<|---o +5V
> 1K LED2
>
>Diodes D1 and D2 would be germanium signal diodes with low Vf. Pullup
>resistor 4K7 may not be required.

Further investigation suggests that this circuit may have problems
detecting the slave HD during the POST. According to Seagate, pin 39
(DASP, Drive Active or Slave Present) is a dual purpose pin.

From Seagate's "ATA Interface Reference Manual":

(1) When drive is slave, this pin is used during power up to signal to
the master that a slave is present.

(2)At all other times, the signal is active when the drive is
executing a command, and can be used by the host I/O adapter to send
an activity signal to an LED.


- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.