Is there a way to adjust the blinking of the power light in standby?

[mb]

I recently built a HTPC and I have it set to go in standby mode when not in use. The blue power light on the case (nmediapc 2000b) blinks so fast in standby that it is actually kind of annoying.

Is there any way to adjust the speed of the light blinking? I'd love to have it be a slow glow. I've tried googling this but couldn't find anything related. I have a feeling it isn't (easily) possible so I may just not even use the light at all.
I'm not even sure what sets the speed of the blinking... if it's hardwired into the light, or if it's programmed that way in the bios or even OS. But I do know it blinks about 2-3x as fast as my laptop when it is in standby.

 

[DominionSeraph]

It would have to be a function of the motherboard given that the CPU is powered down in standby. (The RAM state is just saved.) There's probably no easy way to disable the light -- the power comes along the same wires that send the short to the motherboard to tell it to turn on. (I think)

If the light is bothering you just cover it up with some nail polish or paint.

E: No, it looks like it's a different set of wires. I just pushed my power button and the light stayed on. That doesn't help you with your blinking problem but it does mean that there should be a separate set of wires to control the light and you could unplug them to turn it off completely.

 

[BoomerD]

I have a Coolermaster HAF case. It did that same flashing at first. The LED's on the HAF cases are so bright, NASA uses them to land space shuttles at night...in thick fog.
Turns out, there was something in the BIOS that fixed it...but I'll be damned if I remember what it was. I might have just disabled "sleep/hibernation mode."
If all else fails, a piece of black electrical tape works wonders. :biggrin:

 

[mb]

Yeah I can just pull the power led cable to disable the light altogether. I was really hoping to find a way to make it not blink so rapidly in standby. I kind of like having the light, but if there's no way to slow down how fast it blinks in standby then it'll have to go.

 

[corkyg]

Put it on the floor under the desk and forget about it.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Personally, I find that either nail polish or silly putty (!) are a godsend in situations like these.

 

[sm625]

You can take the signal, which is probably just 5 volts, and run it through a very simple flip flop circuit, which would simply cut the frequency in half for every flip flop you run it through. You can get chips with 4 or 8 flip flops. It would make a good easy and practical electronics project if you're interested in learning that kind of stuff. I have buckets full of 74LS175's that could be used to do this.

If you're really interested in this stuff then you can build a timer cicuit to reset the flop if the light goes out and stays out when you take it out of standby, which could happen if you used a flip flop in this way.

 

[destrekor]

I had a similar issue with my new system, the motherboard produces a sleep LED that is insanely rapid on my Corsair Carbide 400R. I couldn't take it, so I disabled Hybrid Sleep in the Power Settings (Windows)... I couldn't find anything to edit in the BIOS that appeared to be referring to case LEDs.

It's a great solution, especially since bootup is so fast (on my SSD w/Win7). Somewhat of a negative, is that there is no LED during OS hibernation. Regular sleep mode may be better on my system... I haven't tried it, but perhaps the rapid blink is only during Hybrid Sleep (default on most Windows installs on hardware that supports it) and is slower during regular sleep.

 

[mb]

You can take the signal, which is probably just 5 volts, and run it through a very simple flip flop circuit, which would simply cut the frequency in half for every flip flop you run it through. You can get chips with 4 or 8 flip flops. It would make a good easy and practical electronics project if you're interested in learning that kind of stuff. I have buckets full of 74LS175's that could be used to do this.

If you're really interested in this stuff then you can build a timer cicuit to reset the flop if the light goes out and stays out when you take it out of standby, which could happen if you used a flip flop in this way.

Hmm, I was afraid something like this might be the solution. I'd probably melt my PC if I attempted something like that

I had a similar issue with my new system, the motherboard produces a sleep LED that is insanely rapid on my Corsair Carbide 400R. I couldn't take it, so I disabled Hybrid Sleep in the Power Settings (Windows)... I couldn't find anything to edit in the BIOS that appeared to be referring to case LEDs.

It's a great solution, especially since bootup is so fast (on my SSD w/Win7). Somewhat of a negative, is that there is no LED during OS hibernation. Regular sleep mode may be better on my system... I haven't tried it, but perhaps the rapid blink is only during Hybrid Sleep (default on most Windows installs on hardware that supports it) and is slower during regular sleep.

I've tried it with and without hybrid sleep disabled and it doesn't seem to make a difference. In both settings the light still blinks just as rapidly, the power consumption is the same, and the resume time is the same (I have the OS on an SSD).


I guess I'll just dim the light to see if that makes the rapid blinking less annoying. If not, I'll just unplug the header for it.

 

[corkyg]

You could also replace the LED with a less powerful one in a more subdued color. Red is the least intrusive.

 

[mfenn]

The mobo is what's applying power to the LED to make it blink. If there is no option in your BIOS to change the frequency, you'll need to adopt one of the "low-tech" solutions proposed here.