Re: Wake PC on Sound Event

cedars123 wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have an Asus P5 and use my PC to automatically record analogue phone
> calls via the 'mic in' at the back of the PC (purely for training
> purposes).
>
> I would like to get my PC to power on when there is sound input via the
> 'mic in', so that my Pc will turn on when there is a phone call.
>
> Since the APM allows 'power on' via PCI devices, I assume that this
> includes a sound card.
>
> 1. Is it possible to get my PC to power on when there is sound input
> via the 'mic in'?
>
> 2. If so, do I need a sound card, or is what came with the MOBO
> enough?
>
> 3. What settings need to be made in the BIOS and Vista to get PC to
> power on (I notice that Vista allows you to run scheduled tasks that
> wake PC up on trigger event such as a hardware event or application)?
>
> 4. If a sound card is needed, does it require any specific features?
>
> 5. Do I need anything else like a special power unit or software?
>
> It would be really cool if I could get this working.
>
> If anyone has any ideas how I get this to work, or how to get my PC
> recording phone conversations without using up loads of power the whole
> time, that would be great.
>
> Thanks.

It sounds like an intriguing idea, but I don't think sound
cards make use of PME. At least, I've never heard of one
doing it.

At one time, we had "Wake On Lan". The computer had a three
pin header, the LAN card had a three pin header, and if you
wanted the LAN card to wake the computer, you used a WOL
cable to join the LAN card to the motherboard. That was one
earlier example of an explicit hardware interface for waking.

In one of the more recent versions of PCI standard, they
decided it would be fun to incorporate that function, into
the PCI slot connector itself. By doing that, the user
no longer needs to find and plug in the cable. Every
PCI slot has the function, and multiple cards can be inserted
into the computer, all of which could have access to the PME
signal.

So, with a modern computer, you can get a LAN card that has
PME on its PCI connector, a motherboard that supports PME,
and then the LAN card wakes the computer.

If you were a designer, and wanted to add that function to a
sound card, it would be a relatively simple matter to trigger on
an audio level, and assert PME. I don't know the entire sequence
of events that follows assertion of PME, so cannot comment in
any further detail there.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/PCIpm.mspx

You could have a look at your computer, and see what other features
would do something equivalent. For example, say you have an RS-232
serial port on the computer. Say one of the pins on the connector
is "RI" or "Ring Indicator". And in the BIOS, you see a setting
called "Wake On Ring". That would monitor the RI pin and look
for a state change.

Purchase an external modem with RS-232 interface. You don't have
to do much with it, except connect it to the phone line, and see
if it'll assert RI for you. If it can, the modem could be used
to wake the computer. Again, I cannot comment on the side effects
f doing this (such as whether the modem will attempt to answer
the phone or not, and what Hayes Command Set function would be
needed to "neuter" the modem). The above Microsoft article
implies that PCI devices are scanned, until the thing with an
asserted PME is found, and then the driver for the device
is informed. In this case, it would be the driver for the
RS232 port, that would be triggered, and I don't know what
happens in response. (I seem to remember, you can make
the serial port refuse to answer on a ring, so maybe you
get awakened, but nothing more has to happen.)

So you'd have two things connected to the phone line. You'd
have your current phone tap, that is delivering an analog
signal to the sound card or equivalent. You would also have
your RS232 modem, using it to monitor the Ring Indicator. To integrate
all of these function properly, there are bound to be important
details I'm missing.

One thing I'd be concerned about, is the sound recording application
and how it works. Say you start a recording in the morning at 8AM.
You hang up the phone. (Something now has to put the computer to
sleep...) Now, what happens to the file that was open when you
did sleep command ? Is the file committed, and a
new file started ? Or is all of the audio recording you ever
did, sitting in a file that has not been committed to the
file system. Now, imagine the power goes off to the computer.
Everything since 8AM could now be lost, of your audio recordings.
There could be 1GB of data written to the disk, but because
the file was not "saved" or closed off, the file is not
considered to be there in the file system.

It is for those reasons, I'm not sure you have everything
you need, to make a fully automated phone recording device.
There might be more highly integrated, dedicated phone
recording devices, that would make the job seamless.

Paul

cedars123 wrote:
>> It sounds like an intriguing idea, but I don't think sound
>> cards make use of PME. At least, I've never heard of one
>> doing it.
>>
>> At one time, we had "Wake On Lan". The computer had a three
>> pin header, the LAN card had a three pin header, and if you
>> wanted the LAN card to wake the computer, you used a WOL
>> cable to join the LAN card to the motherboard. That was one
>> earlier example of an explicit hardware interface for waking.
>>
>> In one of the more recent versions of PCI standard, they
>> decided it would be fun to incorporate that function, into
>> the PCI slot connector itself. By doing that, the user
>> no longer needs to find and plug in the cable. Every
>> PCI slot has the function, and multiple cards can be inserted
>> into the computer, all of which could have access to the PME
>> signal.
>>
>> So, with a modern computer, you can get a LAN card that has
>> PME on its PCI connector, a motherboard that supports PME,
>> and then the LAN card wakes the computer.
>>
>> If you were a designer, and wanted to add that function to a
>> sound card, it would be a relatively simple matter to trigger on
>> an audio level, and assert PME. I don't know the entire sequence
>> of events that follows assertion of PME, so cannot comment in
>> any further detail there.
>>
>> 'PCI Power Management and Device Drivers'
>> (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/PCIpm.mspx)
>>
>> You could have a look at your computer, and see what other features
>> would do something equivalent. For example, say you have an RS-232
>> serial port on the computer. Say one of the pins on the connector
>> is "RI" or "Ring Indicator". And in the BIOS, you see a setting
>> called "Wake On Ring". That would monitor the RI pin and look
>> for a state change.
>>
>> Purchase an external modem with RS-232 interface. You don't have
>> to do much with it, except connect it to the phone line, and see
>> if it'll assert RI for you. If it can, the modem could be used
>> to wake the computer. Again, I cannot comment on the side effects
>> f doing this (such as whether the modem will attempt to answer
>> the phone or not, and what Hayes Command Set function would be
>> needed to "neuter" the modem). The above Microsoft article
>> implies that PCI devices are scanned, until the thing with an
>> asserted PME is found, and then the driver for the device
>> is informed. In this case, it would be the driver for the
>> RS232 port, that would be triggered, and I don't know what
>> happens in response. (I seem to remember, you can make
>> the serial port refuse to answer on a ring, so maybe you
>> get awakened, but nothing more has to happen.)
>>
>> So you'd have two things connected to the phone line. You'd
>> have your current phone tap, that is delivering an analog
>> signal to the sound card or equivalent. You would also have
>> your RS232 modem, using it to monitor the Ring Indicator. To integrate
>> all of these function properly, there are bound to be important
>> details I'm missing.
>>
>> One thing I'd be concerned about, is the sound recording application
>> and how it works. Say you start a recording in the morning at 8AM.
>> You hang up the phone. (Something now has to put the computer to
>> sleep...) Now, what happens to the file that was open when you
>> did sleep command ? Is the file committed, and a
>> new file started ? Or is all of the audio recording you ever
>> did, sitting in a file that has not been committed to the
>> file system. Now, imagine the power goes off to the computer.
>> Everything since 8AM could now be lost, of your audio recordings.
>> There could be 1GB of data written to the disk, but because
>> the file was not "saved" or closed off, the file is not
>> considered to be there in the file system.
>>
>> It is for those reasons, I'm not sure you have everything
>> you need, to make a fully automated phone recording device.
>> There might be more highly integrated, dedicated phone
>> recording devices, that would make the job seamless.
>>
>> Paul
>
> Thanks for the response.
>
> I have been doing a little research in the meantime and discovered that
> Wake on Ring was a feature used back in the modem days and as you
> explain that it may be useful for my purposes.
>
> I think that you have identified most of the potential difficulties
> with using this system and I am wondering if it may be easier just to
> find some way to run my pc on a reduced power state. Although this wont
> be as efficient since the PC will still be 'on'.
>
> However this appears to be far from straight forward as well.
>
> My idea would be to create a BIOS profile or a Vista profile where the
> GPU was disabled and the CPU underclocked and turn off all non essential
> hardware and software and hope that the PC can run in this state without
> requiring fans.
>
> The problem is that I am not sure how much hardware and software can be
> turned off for the voice recording software still to run.
>
> Also I do not know how to under clock my system, disable the GPU, or
> identify and turn off non essential hardware and software.
>
> Ideally I would just download a programme do to this! but none exists
> as far as I can see.
>
> I dont have the time or courage to work through the Wake on Ring
> solution right now, but I would like to explore the power down option a
> little more as I think that this will require less technical know how.
>
> Any help would be much appreciated.
>

There are some pictures here, of some of the Advanced settings
underneath Vista Power Management.

http://www.watthackers.com/wp/power-...windows-vista/

I still think the Wake On Ring idea is worth experimenting with.
You just need to grab an old modem with RS-232 interface, and
connect it to a motherboard that has an RS-232 serial port and
also has Wake On Ring in the BIOS.

If your computer doesn't have an RS-232 serial port, a PCI
card can be purchased. Setting "Wake on PME" in the BIOS,
would then allow the card to Wake On Ring. You'd want to check
the product documentation before buying, to make sure that
WOR is a feature supported by the product. (A Wake On Ring on
the RS-232 interface, has to result in the assertion of PME,
in order to wake the computer. So the product documentation
should mention that WOR is supported.)

I expect something like a USB modem would have the
infrastructure for this as well. A USB device powered from
+5VSB, can monitor for external events, and wake the computer
based on that. If the USB modem supports a fax function or
voice mail, then it probably has a waking function. What
I don't know, is whether it'll attempt to go off-hook
and screw up your regular phone, when it detects ringing.
In theory, you should be able to disable functions like
that (might be as simple as not installing the software
for the USB modem).

No matter how you do it, it looks like a job for a hacker :-)

Paul