How to wire in a new function button to motherboard?

[bb12jo]

HI!
I would love to have a dedicated button on my case that would start up a function or program on my computer. I can't seem to find anything on the internet because when I type in "How to wire a button to computer", I get how to wire a power button which is not what I want. So basically the question is, is there some header I can use to get input from to so the computer can be programmed to start a function? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[gangrel]

Extremely doubtful. The motherboard has nothing to do with loading a program; it's at a much lower level. This is the kind of thing you use programmable keyboards and/or those keyboard special keys for.

 

[bignastyid]

Buy a keyboard that has programmable keys.

 

[bb12jo]

Extremely doubtful. The motherboard has nothing to do with loading a program; it's at a much lower level. This is the kind of thing you use programmable keyboards and/or those keyboard special keys for.

No no no....I mean I need input pins so my motherboard can read if the pin is high or low so then it can process what it needs to do. Like can I use the reset pins and then see if reset pin is high then launch program.

 

[MarkW]

You are ahead of the game. Intel is considering making some Xeon chips with FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) chips on the package. This would allow someone or some company to have programmers write some code that runs in memory until it is debugged, and then upload that same code into the FPGA chip, and the Xeon would run it from there. The advantage is that it would run much faster, and it would start up almost instantly.

So they are considering doing that. But I have not heard them say "We are going to do this" yet.

 

[unksol]

It's called "USB". That's one of the many things it's for.

If you can't program...
www.benshoof.org/blog/panic-button/

 

[MarkW]

I thought that was what programs were for. You don't need some mechanical thing. You just need to write a simple program. It would help if you knew a programming language.

 

[gangrel]

Dude, the problem is, until you get that kind of custom functionality, nothing on the motherboard can launch a program. To get a program to launch, you're talking an input from a device, picked up by the operating system. Generally, it'll be on disk, so the OS translates to a disk read request.

And even when we have Xpoint, or an FPGA chip, you can't do anything without a trace on the motherboard from the pin to the input. These are all compeltely dedicated signal lines; modigying one of them is probably impossible, and at best *extremely* tricky...as in, an expert, with all the right tools, would screw this up 100 times more often than he'd get it right.

 

[bb12jo]

It's called "USB". That's one of the many things it's for.

Could you please expand on what you mean? I want the button (that has two leads) inside the case.

 

[unksol]

That doesn't make much sense. You can do anything with the computer(like launch a program) until it's turned on and loaded an OS. If you want it to do something when you turn it on program the start up options. If you just want a button on the case that launches a program once it is on wire it to an internal USB header the instead of an external.

And obviously it's more than just two pins and a button.

 

[bb12jo]

I thought that was what programs were for. You don't need some mechanical thing. You just need to write a simple program. It would help if you knew a programming language.

I know how to program in a couple different languages and yes it would be super easy to do so, but I have an ignition switch for a turning on my computer. The switch has two other unused states so I thought I could find a way to wire it to the motherboard so it I turn the key one of the unused states, it would maybe backup something.

 

[MarkW]

No. The power switch does one thing. It shorts out two pins. That never changes.

In some BIOS's, you can set that to mean turn me on, turn me off, or reset, depending on a setting in the BIOS. Never forget that the BIOS is what controls everything on the motherboard. That is why when you turn a device off in the BIOS, Windows never even knows it exists.

So what you are saying you want to do would at a minimum require changing the BIOS. And modifications to the motherboard (which i do not think is possible).

Write a program. That way you have zero chance of bricking the motherboard, and you can use the keyboard or mouse to run it.

 

[belezeebub]

You could use a Raspberry pi or arduino both have pins and polling build in you could put any of a large number of data collection devices on them and write a script or some code to do a function on the main OS other then that as others have said you can't change the Motherboard easily