# Message LED control



## Ceceil Felias (Apr 17, 2008)

I've just about exhausted all of my resource, and Google's giving me jack as well.

I have a motherboard with a header for a Message LED, the kind that apparently blink when incoming calls or faxes or crap are received if you have a modem. I also have a spare LED connection on my case for what is apparently an overheat indicator. I'd like to be able to control said message LED so I can use it in conjunction with such, but I cannot find any way to do it, no matter whether I search for programs, source codes for such, or even basic calls to such a thing.

Does anyone here have any idea how to control it, even if it means the use of a bogus modem driver?


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## net-cat (Apr 17, 2008)

My first inclination is to say "I don't think that does what you think it does." But I've seen all manner of strange things built into motherboards.

So, my next inclination is to say, "Give to me all you model numbers."


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## Ceceil Felias (Apr 17, 2008)

Motherboard's a Gigabyte GA-K8N SLI.

I've taken a look at the manual, and it lists the specific header's purpose under THREE simultaneous things -- Message LED (which is mirrored on the motherboard)/Power LED (which is odd because it's 2-pin and there's a seperate 3-pin power LED header)/Sleep LED. I dunno if this time Gigabyte did the same thing, but ASUS has message LEDs on their motherboards which blink when there's phone or fax activity. I'm assuming, since Gigabyte has no mention otherwise of what said Message LED's supposed to do, but there's always that little bit of doubt...

Madness. D:


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## CyberFoxx (Apr 17, 2008)

Those message LEDs are normally controled through ACPI, and under Windows it's normally handled by some sort of driver/app that came with the motherboard. (Under Linux it's a simple matter of doing an "echo 1" to the proper /proc entry to turn on the LED)

Under Windows though, if you have all the proper drivers for the motherboard's chipset installed, the fax/voicemodem/whatever software should automaticlly detect the message LED, if it has support for them. Cool thing about these LEDs is that some chipsets even support fading the message LED, so you can have it fading in and out.


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## Ceceil Felias (Apr 17, 2008)

Yeah, that's what I figured... I just want to use the message LED for other purposes, in this case overheat indications, and I can't find the way to access said LED myself in any way, shape, or form. >.< I suppose if I must I could start looking into figuring out how the fax/voicemodem/whatever software does it, or get a crash course on driver disassembly and go from there. Maybe with one of my spare LEDs and my gaming computer's ASUS motherboard first, since that has less importance and the risk of screwing myself over by doing that is lower. Hell, the motherboard's still under Newegg's warranty, I think. -3-


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## indrora (Apr 20, 2008)

I would suggest that A: the 3 pin power LED header is _most_ likely the keying header -- either that or for a 2 state LED. (they DO exist.)
As for this Message LED, i'd hook up an Ohmeter to it (or an LED ) and test it In-case running Linux. Poke some shit at the ACPI bus. if it REALLY is ACPI based, then you're in the park, as you can do ACPI work with most any language now, especially .NET stuff...


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## Ceceil Felias (Apr 20, 2008)

indrora said:
			
		

> I would suggest that A: the 3 pin power LED header is _most_ likely the keying header -- either that or for a 2 state LED. (they DO exist.)
> As for this Message LED, i'd hook up an Ohmeter to it (or an LED ) and test it In-case running Linux. Poke some shit at the ACPI bus. if it REALLY is ACPI based, then you're in the park, as you can do ACPI work with most any language now, especially .NET stuff...


I know about the power LED, that was just irrelevant and mentioned in regards to an inconsistency within the manual. 

I'll have to burn a LiveCD for Linux, but giving it a few pokes that way works -- in line with typical message LED behavior, it's on when nothing's happening, though lacking a modem I can't check to see if it does anything else. But I will give the Linux test a shot.


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