[mrjones]

First time poster - Love these forums very insiteful.

Question1:

Can the mghtz of the CPU be displayed by an external meter? For example does DOC5 display the mghtz the CPU is running at? If so, does it rely on a SW prog. to do so? How are the leads connected to the mobo? Is there a way to send the mghtz to an external meter, without SW/DOC5 support? Can it be sent to an analog meter?

Question2:

Same as above however replace with CPU usage. Can the CPU in use % be sent to an external anolog meter or display device?

Why would you do such a foolish thing?:

Am thinking about a cool retro mod that would use an external analog meter (you know the vU meters that tick up/down) to display the mghtz or CPU usage. Temp is pretty easy, however CPU % in use seems a bit more difficult. Suggestions?

Peace,

Hannibal

[Digital Pimp]

first off, WELCOME TO THE FORUMS!

i'm not sure how you would display the Mhz/Ghz of the computer externally, older AT systems used a LED screen to show the speed, if you can find one of those then you could set the jumpers on the back to display the numbers you want, most of them only had 2 digits, some have 3, also some even have decimal marks, so could show your processor at 1.66 for example. te only bad part of that would be you having to change the speed everytime you changed your speed.

The digital doc 5 sadly dosent show the Mhz/Ghz of your PC.

as for your second question, try a serch for LCD mods, people have written programs to use them that show CPU usage and Mhz/Ghz ratings among oher things.

Hope that helps a bit,

Digital

[mrjones]

Digital,

Thanks, for the welcome. Have been lurking for awhile;

Right, Right I know what you're talking about, the old "TURBO" button? Thought about that. However I'm looking for somthing I can turn into an analog DC current so it will show up on a vU meter.

Like fan RPM. I'm pretty sure that mobo's use the voltage draw to set fan RPM. Right? That's how the rotobus works if I'm not mistaken. Less current less RPM etc.

I'm looking to put together a cool-retro gauge on the front of my computer that includes an analog meter. Know what I mean?
Ideally I would hot-wire the mobo somewhere that will show me the current draw for the CPU and then turn that value into a DC number and run it thru an analog meter.

Am I up in the night here?

Peace,

Hannibal

[bluedude2288]

WELCOME TO the fourms man, i would suggest using a lcd, i had one and i used a program called smartie to run it, and it had every thing you could ever imagine putting on an lcd heres a great guide, http://www.gideontech.com/guides/lcd/

[mrjones]

Blue,

Thanks for the welcome and the link (will read it shortly);

I'm trying for a retro look and don't want to use LCD if I can get away with it. This is kind what I'm after;

Picture:


I think it would be a cool mod to list temp, CPU usage or Ghz/Mhz on a panal meter with a backlit dial instead of a cold looking LCD screen.

Peace,

Hannibal

[bluedude2288]

Oh, I'm sure it can be done then, if you find the right meter, you just need to interface it to the parallel port, you'll probally need to find some sort of circuit to run it, and you need software to run it,
If you need anymore help, don't hesitate to ask, i am very good at programming and working with the parallel port

[bluedude2288]

one more question, what is this gonna show exactly, CPU USAGE or HOW MANY MHZ all together

[mrjones]

Blue,

Cool link. May be a worth considering. My plan is to model the gauges like a car speed-o-meter... for CPU in use, the fuel gauge for fan speed and temp gauge for temp.

Of course this would be using vU meters like the one above. Perhaps the parallel port solution would work, guess I was hoping to plug the meters into the mobo instead of a SW solution (mobo should work for temp and fan-speed)

However I don't know how to monitor CPU usage or Mhz directly from the mobo. Anyone ever tried this?

Peace,

Hannibal

[AmigoThree]

http://www.xoxide.com/pctachometer1.html

There is that, but I dont know if you wanted to do it yourself....

[mrjones]

Amigo,

There you go kid... nothing like the collective knowledge of all the geeks in the western hemisphere to come up with a solution in 20 mins.

I of course don't want to spend $60.00 bucks but that's pretty close to what I am after. Looks like they used an electronic tach from Sunpro and are send voltages via the serial port to make it work.

Great mod. and just what I'm after, however I was hoping for a little more elegant solution, at the very least conecting internally to the mobo somewhere. Are we sure you can't monitor CPU usage from inside the case or on the mobo?

I can't be the only one interested in doing this. Plus I have enough crap running in the taskbar as it is, don't want another .dll Know what I mean?

Thanks again for the excellant link. Funny did you notice the "* Patent Pending" line on the xoxide.com site? How do you patent a tachometer? I'm pretty sure it's been done before...
haha

:-)

Peace,

Hannibal

[Rudski]

I wish i could show u the link but I've seen in australia a RPM gauge that showed the usage but it was like a car where it went from 1000RPM to 9000 (red line)

It did connect to the parrallel port

I wish i could be more help

[bluedude2288]

for fan speeds, if you have speed monitoring fans, you should be able to just connect the fan to the meter, temps yeah to the mobo, but cpu usage, never heard of it connecting straight to the mobo! Also you need some kind of circuit if you want to connect it straight to the mobo, on the other hand if you use the parallel port all you need is software

[koby]

my Asus Ipanel shows MHz of cpu, bus, and system

[mrjones]

koby,

How does the iPanel connect to the mobo? I asume it's an ASUS only product. In other words you have to have an ASUS mobo to make it work. Correct?

Peace,

Hannibal

[koby]

yeah its only for ASUS motherboards, my mobo has a 20ish pin connector specifically for the ipanel... most all new asus mobos should have this ipanel out on them, its a really nifty deal

[PYROMANIAC]

an lcd would probly be the easiest thing, and you can show just about whatever you want with an lcd... if you want check out www.crystalfontz.com . thats what i do and i can show all sorts of stuff and you can tell it to show what you want... i cant find the good pics i have but here are some pics of my case with the lcd at the top of my tower...there are different sizes you can get also..mine hooks up via serial..the parallel ones are better
http://corpse-squadron.recongamer.com/pc005.jpg
http://corpse-squadron.recongamer.com/pc006.jpg

edit: the thing in between the cdroms is not the lcd...the thing at the very top of the case with the silver border and black center is..sorry i dont have any better pics, if i could find them i would show you