How to access laptop battery temperature in Windows? - windows

I want to get the battery temperature in Windows, and I have tried DeviceIoControl function (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372698(v=vs.85).aspx) on the BatteryTemperature.
I have tried other parameter like BatterySerialNumber, and it returns the serial number, but while I want to get the temperature, the function returns FALSE. And GetLastError returns S_FALSE.
My enviroment is Win7 Enterprise SP1, I developed on VS2008+SP1, total C++ code, my laptop is HP Elitebook 2570p. Can anyone give some suggestions on this topic. I have searched Google and donot find any help topic, or should I write some driver code to get the temperature? Or this laptop battery doesnot support this function?
Thanks very much.
PS. If there are any other tech which can get the temperature is welcome, not only in C++.

S_FALSE returned by GetLastError is also just 1, which is also ERROR_INVALID_FUNCTION. Extract from MSDN:
If the particular type of data requested is not available for the current battery, then ERROR_INVALID_FUNCTION is returned.
This means your battery has no temperature sensor or manufacturer who written the battery driver decided not to provide this information to Windows.

You can check the temperature of the system board and processor with a utility program.
As far as checking the temperature of the battery goes..I suggest an infrared thermometer. (most people don't have access to such specialized equipment). I suggest using a notebook cooling pad.
You could also use a program called "speed fan" which you can control the speed of your computers fans but i'm not sure if it will cool your battery much...
if you want to try out "speed fan" here is the link:http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

Related

PicKit3 and PIC16F1829 programming, MCLR voltage

I just started with microchip world.
I'm about to buy a PicKit3 and i've seen it can outputs from 1.8V to 14V MCLR.
The pic i will use is the PIC16F1829 and it should work with MCLR # 5V.
In the datasheet it seems i would need a zener/shunt to limit the voltage.
First of all isn't there a board ready to play with?
Can i use LVP? If so using MPLab 8 IDE how do i change in LVP?
Is the pin connection the same?
Since i haven't bought it yet i would rather avoid burning a pic
Regards,
Notes at the bottom of page 345 in the PIC16F1829 data sheet (DS40001440E) recommends using a voltage limit circuit when using the ICD2 device programmer.
According to Microchip this is "not required" when using the PICkit3.
Get a few extra PIC16F1829 just in case.
You ask about boards ready to use, take a look at the Curisotiy Nano boards
https://www.microforum.cc/topic/9-microchip-xpress-evaluation-boards
These are ready to use and do not need any programmer. You can simply send a file to these devices over USB. They are also have debugging capability.
In terms of the 14V on MCLR, the device is designed to handle whatever pulse will be generated by the PICkit3, so you do not need any protection for the PIC against that. In fact limiting the voltage on that pin will prevent the device from programming so you definitely do not want to do that. If you are however using this pin to connect to other parts on your board the other parts probably will need protection.
You can most definitely use LVP, just be careful, it is possible to use LVP to disable LVP, and then the only way to get it back on is to use HVP!
Lastly in the IDE under programming options you can change the mode there (Use low voltage programming mode entry)
In the IDE i've set the voltage appropriately and everything went ok on its own.
I didn't have to enable anything fancy

How to identify PC (motherboard) in win32 api? [duplicate]

How to uniquely identify computer (mainboard) using C#(.Net/Mono, local application)?
Edition. We can identify mainboard in .Net using something like this (see Get Unique System Identifiers in C#):
using System.Management;
...
ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher("select * from Win32_MotherboardDevice");
...
But unfortunately Mono does not support System.Management. How to do it under Mono for Linux? - I don't know :(
Write a function that takes a few unique hardware parameters as input and generates a hash out of them.
For example, Windows activation looks at the following hardware characteristics:
Display Adapter
SCSI Adapter
IDE Adapter (effectively the motherboard)
Network Adapter (NIC) and its MAC Address
RAM Amount Range (i.e., 0-64mb, 64-128mb, etc.)
Processor Type
Processor Serial Number
Hard Drive Device
Hard Drive Volume Serial Number (VSN)
CD-ROM / CD-RW / DVD-ROM
You can pick up a few of them to generate your unique computer identifier.
Please see: Get Unique System Identifiers in C#
You realistically have MotherboardID, CPUID, Disk Serial and MAC address, from experience none of them are 100%.
Our stats show
Disk serial Is missing 0.1 %
MAC Is missing 1.3 %
Motherboard ID Is missing 30 %
CPUID Is missing 99 %
0.04% of machines tested yielded no information, we couldn't even read the computer name. It maybe that these were some kind of virtual PC, HyperV or VMWare instance, or maybe just very locked down? In any case your design has to be able to cope with these cases.
Disk serial is the most reliable, but easy to change, mac can be changed and depending on the filtering applied when reading it can change if device drivers are added (hyperv, wireshark etc).
Motherboard and CPUID sometimes return values that are invalid "NONE", "AAAA..", "XXXX..." etc.
You should also note that these functions can be very slow to call (they may take a few seconds even on a fast PC), so it may be worth kicking them off on a background thread as early as possible, you ideally don't want to be blocking on them.
Try this:
http://carso-owen.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-to-get-my-motherboard-serial-number.html
Personally though, I'd go with hard drive serial number. If a mainboard dies and is replaced, that PC isn't valid any more. If the HDD drive is replaced, it doesn't matter too much because the software was on it.
Of course, on the other hand, if the HDD is just moved elsewhere, the information goes with it, so you might want to look at a combination of serial numbers, depending what you want it for.
How about the MAC address of the network card?

Linux UART driver - debugging time taken for __init call

I am a bit new to the Linux kernel and our team is trying to optimize the boot-up time for the device. It was observed that 8250 UART driver takes more than 1 second to complete the __init call. Using printk's and going by the generated console time-stamps prefixed to every log message, I was able to narrow down the function call which takes the extra time:
ret = platform_driver_register(&serial8250_isa_driver);
Being a novice, I was unsure about what more could I do from a debugging standpoint to track down the issue ? I am looking for pointers/suggestions from some of the experienced Kernel developers out there.. Just curious as to what other approach would the Kernel developers, use from their "Debugging Toolbox" ?
Thanks,
Vijay
If I understand correct, the register function is doing stuff with that struct (maybe polling addresses or something). You would need to see if any of the functions defined within are being called by register.
To more answer your question, does the platform you're running on have an 8250 ISA UART? If not, that could well explain why it's taking so long to init (it's timing out).

Bluetooth RSSI/Inquiry scan on Mac - proximity detection to iPhone without connecting?

I have to dash away from the computer frequently, and I want to trigger some commands to run when my iPhone is close enough/far enough from my iMac (next to it vs. 2-3 metres away/other side of a wall). A couple of minutes latency is fine.
Partial solution: proximity
I've downloaded reduxcomputing-proximity and it works, but this only triggers when the device goes in to/out of range of bluetooth, but my desired range is much smaller.
(Proximity polls [IOBluetoothDevice -remoteNameRequest] to see if the device is in bluetooth range or not.)
Enhancement: rawRSSI
I've used [IOBluetoothDevice -rawRSSI] to get the RSSI when I am connected to the iPhone (when disconnected this just returns +127), but in order to save the battery life of my iPhone I'd rather avoid establishing a full bluetooth connection.
Am I correct in thinking that maintaining a connection will consume more battery life than just polling every couple of minutes?
I've overridden the isInRange method of proximity here to give me a working solution that's probably relatively battery intensive compared to the previous remoteNameRequest: method:
- (BOOL)isInRange {
BluetoothHCIRSSIValue RSSI = 127; /* Valid Range: -127 to +20 */
if (device) {
if (![device isConnected]) {
[device openConnection];
}
if ([device isConnected]) {
RSSI = [device rawRSSI];
[device closeConnection];
}
}
return (RSSI >= -60 && RSSI <= 20);
}
(Proximity uses synchronous calls - if and when I fit it to my needs I will edit it to be asynchronous but for now that's not important.)
Under Linux: l2ping - inquiry scan?
This SO post references getting an RSSI during an 'inquiry scan' which sounds like what I want, but it talks about using the Linux Bluez library, whilst I am on a Mac - I'd rather do it without having to stray too far if possible! (I have considered using a VM with USB pass-thru to hook up a second bluetooth device... But a simpler solution would be preferable!)
I see there is a IOBluetoothDeviceInquiry class, but I am not sure if this is useful to me. I don't intend to learn bluetooth protocol just for this simple problem!
The commands
For interest, and not particularly relevant to the solution, here are the Apple Scripts I currently trigger when
in range:
tell application "Skype"
send command "SET USERSTATUS ONLINE" script name "X"
do shell script "afplay '/System/Library/Sounds/Blow.aiff'"
end tell
out of range:
tell application "Skype"
send command "SET USERSTATUS AWAY" script name "X"
do shell script "afplay '/System/Library/Sounds/Basso.aiff'"
end tell
Though these are likely to get longer!
You are correct that making a connection will cost more energy. However, I'm not aware of APIs on mac OS that will give you access to the RSSI from inquiry scan packets. You could get access to the raw packets from your BT adapter using Mac OS PacketLogger. See this post Bluetooth sniffer - preferably mac osx
You could programmaticly put your device in discovery every couple of minutes, capture the inquiry scan packets with the packetlogger, and parse out the RSSI. You can use WireShark to help you understand how to decode the packets and find RSSI.
Your simplest option is probably to just periodically create a connection, measure RSSI, and then tear down the connection.
In terms of tradeoffs for your use case doing a continuous or periodic inquiry will consume same or even a bit more energy as doing a periodic connect / read RSSI and disconnect. Depending on the use case it sometimes may be more efficient to maintain the connection in a low power mode (sniff with 2.56 sec interval) and remain connected if the device is in range. And use RSSI to monitor proximity (although it is not accurate as interference due to objects change rssi drastically even though the device might be in proximity)

Is it possible to use midiOutLongMsg to play a chord? (Win32 API)

This guys says yes:
http://web.tiscalinet.it/giordy/midi-tech/lowmidi.htm
Same with a really old book from 1998 (Maximum MIDI).
MSDN doesn't mention it.
I'm not getting any sound.
I fill a char buffer with status|note|velocity|status|note|velocity...
Set lpData, dwBufferLength, and dwFlags of a MIDIHDR struct
call midiOutPrepareHeader (MMSYSERR_NOERROR)
call midiOutLongMsg (MMSYSERR_NOERROR)
Still no sound! Spamming midiOutShortMsg is working but will that work for slower machines? Did they change the functionality?
Thanks.
I'm an idiot! I figured it out: Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth does NOT support sending multiple short messages in midiOutLongMsg. The MIDI Mapper DOES!
midiOutShortMsg should be plenty fast, even on slow machines. MIDI interfaces themselves (hardware that is, but some software will limit themselves) run at 31,250 baud. This of course is ignoring any slow code you may have wrapped around where you call midiOutShortMsg.
Anyway, technically you should also be able to get away with one status byte, if the following notes use the same status byte. So, if you want to do note on/off (using velocity 0 for off) and those notes are on the same channel, you could do this:
status|note|velocity|note|velocity|note|velocity|note|velocity
This is called running status.

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