Hard drive activity light for IDE and SCSI

[Dave Ulrick]

Hi,

I've got a PC with three hard drives. The two SCSI drives are connected
to a SCSI adapter, whereas the third drive is an ATAPI drive connected
to the primary IDE controller. I've got the case's hard drive activity
LED connected to the SCSI adapter, so the light shows me when the SCSI
drives are active, but leaves me with no indication for the ATAPI drive.
Is there any kind of 'Y-adapter' arrangement I could use to connect the
activity light to both the SCSI and IDE I/O busses, thus reflecting
I/O activity to all of my hard drives on a single light, or am I best off
rigging up a second hard drive activity light for the IDE controllers?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[Andrew Z Carpenter]

message
I've got a PC with three hard drives. The two SCSI drives are connected
to a SCSI adapter, whereas the third drive is an ATAPI drive connected
to the primary IDE controller. I've got the case's hard drive activity
LED connected to the SCSI adapter, so the light shows me when the SCSI
drives are active, but leaves me with no indication for the ATAPI drive.
Is there any kind of 'Y-adapter' arrangement I could use to connect the
activity light to both the SCSI and IDE I/O busses, thus reflecting
I/O activity to all of my hard drives on a single light, or am I best off
rigging up a second hard drive activity light for the IDE controllers?

If it were me, I'd sacrifice the power-on LED for the cause.

 

[Dave Ulrick]

If it were me, I'd sacrifice the power-on LED for the cause.

Hey, that's a good idea. I'll consider doing that. I doubt that I'd
miss the power LED 'cause the machine makes sufficient fan noise to remind
me that it's on.

This brings another question to mind. It looks as though both the HDD
LED and the power-on LED have two pins. On my motherboard (a Supermicro
P6DBE), the power-on pins are documented like this:

Pin 9 PW_ON
Pin 10 Ground

As for the HDD LED pins, they're documented like so:

Pin 1 +5V
Pin 2 HDD active
Pin 3 HDD active
Pin 4 +5V

The manual goes on to say that you should connect your cable to pins
1 and 2. It has no explanation of why you'd use pins 3 and 4.

If I'm going to connect my case's power-on LED wires to the HDD LED pins,
what would be the correct orientation? My guess is that pins 1 and 9 are
"live" whereas pins 2 and 10 are ground. Is this correct? I'm sure
getting it backwards won't fry anything, but it would be nice to get
it right the first time.

Thanks,
Dave

 

[SteveH]

Hey, that's a good idea. I'll consider doing that. I doubt that I'd
miss the power LED 'cause the machine makes sufficient fan noise to remind
me that it's on.

This brings another question to mind. It looks as though both the HDD
LED and the power-on LED have two pins. On my motherboard (a Supermicro
P6DBE), the power-on pins are documented like this:

Pin 9 PW_ON
Pin 10 Ground

As for the HDD LED pins, they're documented like so:

Pin 1 +5V
Pin 2 HDD active
Pin 3 HDD active
Pin 4 +5V

The manual goes on to say that you should connect your cable to pins
1 and 2. It has no explanation of why you'd use pins 3 and 4.

If I'm going to connect my case's power-on LED wires to the HDD LED pins,
what would be the correct orientation? My guess is that pins 1 and 9 are
"live" whereas pins 2 and 10 are ground. Is this correct? I'm sure
getting it backwards won't fry anything, but it would be nice to get
it right the first time.

Thanks,
Dave

Hi,
You might want to take a look at DriveLED from o&o software, it's one way
round your problem.
http://www.oo-software.com/en/index.html

HTH
SteveH

 

[Dave Ulrick]

Hi,
You might want to take a look at DriveLED from o&o software, it's one way
round your problem.
http://www.oo-software.com/en/index.html

That looks really neat, and the price is certainly right! However,
the PC in question runs Linux rather than Windows. I'll have to see
if I can find something similar for Linux. Do any of you Linux users
know of software that would simulate one or more hard drive activity
lights on my XFree86 (more specifically, KDE) desktop?

HTH
SteveH

Thanks,
Dave

 

[JAD]

why not just make a pitail and LED setup, one color for each drive,even? mounting is a drill hole with hot glue

 

[Dave Ulrick]

Hey, that's a good idea. I'll consider doing that. I doubt that I'd
miss the power LED 'cause the machine makes sufficient fan noise to remind
me that it's on.

Well, I've just done the deed, and I'm quite happy with how well it worked
out. In fact, it's nearly uncanny how well it worked.

It turns out that the manual I was looking at was not correct for my
motherboard. In fact, the motherboard pin assignments are like this:

HDD LED
1 +5V
2 HD active
3 HD active
4 +5V
Power LED
5 +5V
6 +5V
7 Ground; LED control

The 3-pin power LED wire connector had wires only on the left and right
pins; the middle pin was not connected. By moving the 3-pin power LED
connector to pins 1-3, the power LED's wires just happened to coincide
with two of the +5V and HD active pins. The result: the quickest and
dirtiest IDE hard drive activity light imaginable. Thus, my power LED
shows IDE activity, and my HDD LED continues to show SCSI activity.
Way cool.

Thanks for the tip!

Dave

 

[Overlord]

I seem to recall that there used to be an antique program that would
use the scroll lock lights on the keyboard to indicate hard drive
activity. Don't recall the name now and it's quite possible it
wouldn't run on modern OS's but ya never know.
My case comes with 6 drive LEDs on the front of the case for
individual drives. I also have black vented bezels with drive LEDs on
the 8 drives that I actually have in the case. When 2K boots up it
does multiple sequential and random(?) drive accesses. I'm not going
to look for the file; I have enough flashing lights already.


...... the colors........

Hi,

I've got a PC with three hard drives. The two SCSI drives are connected
to a SCSI adapter, whereas the third drive is an ATAPI drive connected
to the primary IDE controller. I've got the case's hard drive activity
LED connected to the SCSI adapter, so the light shows me when the SCSI
drives are active, but leaves me with no indication for the ATAPI drive.
Is there any kind of 'Y-adapter' arrangement I could use to connect the
activity light to both the SCSI and IDE I/O busses, thus reflecting
I/O activity to all of my hard drives on a single light, or am I best off
rigging up a second hard drive activity light for the IDE controllers?

Thanks,
Dave

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postmaster@localhost
admin@localhost
abuse@localhost
postmaster@[127.0.0.1]
~~~~~~
Remove "spamless" to email me.

 

[Andrew Z Carpenter]

Well, I've just done the deed, and I'm quite happy with how well it worked
out. In fact, it's nearly uncanny how well it worked.

It turns out that the manual I was looking at was not correct for my
motherboard. In fact, the motherboard pin assignments are like this:

HDD LED
1 +5V
2 HD active
3 HD active
4 +5V
Power LED
5 +5V
6 +5V
7 Ground; LED control

The 3-pin power LED wire connector had wires only on the left and right
pins; the middle pin was not connected. By moving the 3-pin power LED
connector to pins 1-3, the power LED's wires just happened to coincide
with two of the +5V and HD active pins. The result: the quickest and
dirtiest IDE hard drive activity light imaginable. Thus, my power LED
shows IDE activity, and my HDD LED continues to show SCSI activity.
Way cool.

Thanks for the tip!

Dave

No problem, glad I could give you some inspiration.