{computer}: How to add a monostable to PC PWR/Reset button?

[FuZZ1L0G1C]

Hi all at EP.

Foreword:
I'm planning to design a "System Ready" beeper for my PC at home.
The reason is that it takes a frustrating 6-7 minutes from power-up to boot, load OS and do AV & Sys checks.
After about 7 minutes maximum the activity drops to normal.
Instead of waiting at the PC an audible beep would be better.
The OS beeps via soundcard when it loads <BIOS about 1 minute>, but continues checks another 5-6 minutes.

Proposed idea:
When PWR button is pressed, the <5 volt?> temporary pulse is buffered to feed the trigger of a 555 as a 5-7 second monostable countdown timer.
When set time elapses, a second monostable will enable an astable oscillator for 'X' set seconds to sound a 5 V buzzer / small speaker.

Now the Questions Part:
What is the typical current capacity of a typical tower system with a 500 W PSU?
The sticker states several Amps at 5 VDC but I suspect that the button is via digital circuitry, not 5 V PSU directly.
IE: will buffering the extra circuit likely create havoc?
The actual circuit will be designed as free time allows.

Looking forward to suggestions....

Thanks, Clive ("@ FUzZ1L0G1C").

 

[davenn]

Foreword:
I'm planning to design a "System Ready" beeper for my PC at home.
The reason is that it takes a frustrating 6-7 minutes from power-up to boot, load OS and do AV & Sys checks.
After about 7 minutes maximum the activity drops to normal.
Instead of waiting at the PC an audible beep would be better.
The OS beeps via soundcard when it loads <BIOS about 1 minute>, but continues checks another 5-6 minutes.

sounds like time for a rebuild !!

early last year my PC (WIN7) was taking up to 3-4 minutes to fully boot to desktop was driving me nutz
I cleaned out a lot of old files etc from the registry, it only made a minor difference, defragging did a little help as well

I bit the bullet and built up a new PC running WIN10. Used a 250 GB SSD (Solid State hard drive) for the C: drive and the only thing on it
is the OS and a few very minor progs. and my doc's
EVERY other signif prog and data/image etc etc files are on the 4TB D: drive ... all the common working progs etc

I have 3 other big HDD's dedicated to backups and other specific things eg one for movies/TV progs
another for all cameras image backups


THE FINAL POINT BEING

That 250GB SSD is FAST !! ... It boots to desktop in ~ 25 seconds

Tho what you want to do mite be a fun project, you are treating the symptoms and NOT the cause
Which is your system has just got too cluttered with stuff


Dave

 

[hevans1944]

@FuZZ1L0G1C: If you are too cheap (or cannot afford) to build a new system as @davenn suggests, just write a little program that loads and executes last, after everything else is done. Said program beeps your computer's speaker, or bangs on an I/O port bit connected to sound a klaxon, or ring a loud bell, or sound an air-horn... whatever gets your attention. Surely your PC is old enough to still have a serial RS-232 port and/or a parallel printer (Centronix) port? Either one of these will have an output bit you can use.

 

[bushtech]

Is OS Windows, Linux or rotten Apple? 6-7 minutes is too long. See if you can activate something that shows you on the screen what the computer is doing/loading. I think it is hanging on something.

 

[FuZZ1L0G1C]

Thanks for suggestions, guys.
The system is fairly "old" at 3 years, a core-2-duo Pentium with 4Gigs Dual Ram.
Recently spring-cleaned the 500GB boot drive and 250GB secondary which made little difference.
The external SSD is 1TB which I use mostly for seldom-used storage.
The slow-down seemed to surface after installing a new AV suite several months ago.
I'll pop in to our computer retailer / technician to diagnose the bottleneck.
.....Ports..... Mostly use USB2 for printer, phone/modem/monitor, Nvidia Geforce 620 VGA for LCD monitor, mouse and keyboard being mini-DIN.
The only one that may be RS-232 (or Centronics?) is a 25-pin female DIL (13+12) D-shell type.
Will check it out for interest.
Uses MS Win7 Ultimate.
Looked at "Task Damager" but DLL's etc meaningless to me.
360 Amigo app run recently to clean Registry errors after major removals so might have trashed something.

 

[bushtech]

Sounds like the AV program is set to scan during startup.I would switch that off and let the AV program scan sometime after boot up. If the computer stays on overnight then the wee hours of the night is a good time for it to do it's thing

 

[davenn]

Recently spring-cleaned the 500GB boot drive and 250GB secondary which made little difference.
The external SSD is 1TB which I use mostly for seldom-used storage.

swap the drives and get the SSD as you boot C: drive

What antivirus prog is it ?... it doesn't sound as tho it's working well

I use Malwarebytes ... trust it implicitly after it has saved my PC from several major attacks
I also use AVG which is a well known tried and true AV prog

neither of them slow down my boot up

Try bushtech's comment on temp disabling the AV prog and see what happens
better yet, do a System Restore to a date prior to it's install


Dave

 

[Harald Kapp]

Recently spring-cleaned the 500GB boot drive and 250GB secondary which made little difference.
The external SSD is 1TB which I use mostly for seldom-used storage.

Swap disks. Use the SSD as main dirve for booting, use the harddisk as external backup.

 

[davenn]

Swap disks. Use the SSD as main dirve for booting, use the harddisk as external backup.

ya gotta be quicker than that hahaha

 

[bushtech]

Dave

Second using a small SSD as bootup disk. Works great. I also use Malware and AVG, happy with them.
But I'm not saying temp disable, I'm saying switch off the setting that says scan during bootup

 

[AnalogKid]

You are correct about the power button. An "ATX" power supply has all of the main outputs plus a small internal "housekeeping" supply that always is on even when the system is off. It powers the circuit that watches the ON/Standby" switch/button and enables/disables the main supply when you push it.

You do not need to monitor the power button. If the timer circuit is just powered by any of the main supply outputs (+5 V, +12 V, whatever), it will start when the system comes up, time out after 5-7 minutes, and beep. If you use a self-oscillating piezo beeper instead of a speaker, this can be done with a single CMOS 555. However, I recommend using a counter circuit instead. A 5-6 minute timer takes a relatively large timing capacitor, and its accuracy will vary with room temperature and aging. A single-chip oscillator/counter like the CD4060 can deliver very long time delays with small capacitor values. Basically, for any given delay period the capacitor would be approx. 8000 times smaller than with a 555 circuit.

Schematics later, gotta run to the hospital.

ak

 

[Ian]

I definitely agree that having the SSD as the OS main drive would help significantly - if it's in an external enclosure, you may be able to open it nicely and find a 2.5" SATA drive in there, which should fit inside your case.

6-7 mins sounds like an awfully long time to boot up - my system is 6 years old and takes under 1 min to be usable from power on. Perhaps a clean OS install on the SSD would improve things significantly . Sounds like your AV software may be the biggest culprit.

A PowerShell script executed on startup could monitor for when your CPU load drops to under 10% (an estimate) and then beep the internal speaker, or sound something externally using via RS232 as suggested above. I'm a novice with PowerShell scripts, but I'll do my best to help if you go down the scripting route.

 

[AnalogKid]

How long of a beep?
A single beep that trails off like the ding of a doorbell is pretty easy.
Single beep or on-off beeping for a period?

ak

 

[FuZZ1L0G1C]

How long of a beep?
Single beep or on-off beeping for a period?

Hi AK.
Either/or OK as workstation/desk is in a corner of the same lounge.

 

[AnalogKid]

Select a piezo beeper and post a link to its specs; not a bare piezo disc, but an complete beeper that runs on DC.

ak