Antec Fusion Black IMON LCD

[smi402]

{This thread now contains detailed HOW TO procedures for getting the Volume Knob, IR Remote, LCD display and VFD display working on Antec Fusion, Silverstone GD01-MX, Thermaltake, Ultra Bay and other cases equipped with the IMON VFD or LCD device (Model ffdc). The procedures are directed towards Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 Linux and have been shown to work on either _i386 and _amd64 installations. See Part 1 procedures in Post 12 of this thread for getting the Volume Knob, MCE IR Remote and IMON IR remote responding, Part 2 procedures (in Post 18 ) for displaying images on the LCD device and Part 3 procedures (also in Post 18 ) for displaying output on the older VFD devices.}


I have been trying to get the IMON LCD on my Antec case working for the past 2 weeks without success. There are many related threads on this forum and at Codeka, but I am starting this new thread because I find that, for many, the necessary lcdproc installation procedures appear to have just worked without too many problems, but many others seem to get to the point I am at, the display still doesn't work and the thread goes dead. I am sure it would be useful to many if we could get a reliable "fix" to this problem.

My hardware is:
Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L(Rev 1.0) motherboard
Core2Duo Proocesor.
Gigabyte GeForce 8500 GT video card
Antec Black 430 case with IMON LCD screen and IR receiver
Logitech Harmony 525 remote controller

Software is Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 installed from an alternate AMD64 disk. Kernel 2.6.24-19-generic. Mythtv frontend installed. I want to use this machine as a dedicated mythtv frontend - the frontend video and audio work fine using a separate Ubuntu Hardy based server as the backend.

There appear to be at least 3 different models of the IMON LCD used on the Antec Black case. I have the the ffdc model.

frank@MC:~$ lsusb
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 04d9:0499 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. 
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 15c2:ffdc SoundGraph Inc. iMON PAD Remote Controller
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000  
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000

lirc was installed from the package lirc_0.8.3-0ubuntu_amd64.deb as detailed in:
http://mythbuntu.nl/tag/hardware
The /etc/lirc/hardware.conf for Soundcraft iMON IR/LCD and the mceusb based /etc/lirc/lircd.conf files provided in that site were used and the Harmony 525 remote set up to simulate the Microsoft Media Centre remote. The lirc_imon and lirc_dev modules load, /dev/lirc0 and /dev/lircd are created and both the volume knob on the Antec case and the Harmony remote control work very well with this lirc configuration.

frank@MC:~$ lsmod | grep lirc
lirc_imon              21644  1 
lirc_dev               17896  1 lirc_imon
usbcore               170416  6 usbhid,lirc_imon,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd

frank@MC:~$ ls -l /dev/lirc*
crw-rw---- 1 root root 61, 0 2008-09-01 22:02 /dev/lirc0
srw-rw-rw- 1 root root     0 2008-09-01 22:02 /dev/lircd

The software used to drive the IMON LCD display is lcdproc. The required software patches and installation instructions are detailed by Dean at:
http://codeka.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=22
I have followed these instructions carefully and compiled lcdproc patched with the lcdproc-0.5.2-imonlcd-0.3.patch without problems. Running LCDd creates the required /dev/lcd0 device.

frank@MC:~$ ls -l /dev/lcd*
crw-rw---- 1 root root 180, 0 2008-09-01 22:02 /dev/lcd0

The output from LCDd when run in the foregound and lcdproc run in a separate terminal appears to produce the correct output:

frank@MC:~$ sudo LCDd -f -r 4
LCDd version 0.5.2 starting
Built on Aug 31 2008, protocol version 0.3, API version 0.5
Using Configuration File: /usr/local/etc/LCDd.conf
Set report level to 4, output to stderr
LCDd 0.5.2, LCDproc Protocol 0.3
Part of the LCDproc suite
Copyright (C) 1998-2007 William Ferrell, Scott Scriven
                        and many other contributors

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.

Server running in foreground
Listening for queries on 127.0.0.1:13666
imonlcd: using Device /dev/lcd0
imonlcd: allocating 192 bytes for framebuffer.
imonlcd: sending command: 5000000000000040
Key "Escape" is now reserved in exclusive mode by client [-1]
Key "Enter" is now reserved in shared mode by client [-1]
Key "Up" is now reserved in shared mode by client [-1]
Key "Down" is now reserved in shared mode by client [-1]
screenlist_switch: switched to screen [_server_screen]
Connect from host 127.0.0.1:35546 on socket 5
Client on socket 5 added added screen "C"
Client on socket 5 added added screen "I"
Client on socket 5 added added screen "M"
Client on socket 5 added added screen "L"
Client on socket 5 added added screen "T"
Client on socket 5 added added screen "N"
screenlist_switch: switched to screen [N]
screenlist_switch: switched to screen [C]
screenlist_switch: switched to screen [I]
screenlist_switch: switched to screen [M]
screenlist_switch: switched to screen [L]
screenlist_switch: switched to screen [T]
screenlist_switch: switched to screen [_server_screen]
screenlist_switch: switched to screen [N]

The screenlist_switch then continues to loop until LCDd is stopped:

Server shutting down on SIGINT
imonlcd: closing, showing clock.
imonlcd: sending command: 502D081701086C80
sock_send: socket write error
screenlist_switch: switched to screen [_server_screen]
Key "Escape" was reserved in exclusive mode by client [-1] and is now released
Key "Enter" was reserved in shared mode by client [-1] and is now released
Key "Up" was reserved in shared mode by client [-1] and is now released
Key "Down" was reserved in shared mode by client [-1] and is now released
Exiting.

However at no stage do any images appear on the LCD screen. The blue backlight of the LCD remains on (even when the machine is shut down). I installed WinXP on a separate partition and the driver from the disk that accompanied the case and when booted into Windows the LCD displays information about the operating system and hardware so the LCD does work. Interestingly, after shutting down WinXP the backlight goes off but when rebooting again the LCD now displays the correct time (in a rather ugly font). This display remains on when Ubuntu is booted and also after the machine is shut down so it must be sourcing the time from the BIOS and not through the operating system. If the power to the case is turned off however, the display goes black and the time does not return until WinXP is run again and then closed down - I suspect that WinXP is initiating something in the display that activates the display and the clock is then retained even after WinXP is shut down - very strange - haven't a clue what driver it could be using when there is no operating system running!!

I have also recompiled the 2.6.24 kernel with the CONFIG_USB_DYNAMIC_MODULES=y option as suggested in a couple of the posts in Dean's installation thread. This did not get the display working for me, but appears to have for some others.

So, the modules are being loaded, lirc (using lirc_imon) works fine with my Harmony Universal remote and the Antec volume control, but I have not been able to get lcdproc to display anything on the LCD screen yet. I feel that I am very close but there must be some small point I have missed or not interpreted correctly. Others appear to be experiencing similar problems with this device so any help that can be provided would be really appreciated. Thank You in advance!

[smi402]

Some Joy at last!

I have found that the lirc_imon module takes a parameter is_lcd (islcd in earlier versions). Setting the is_lcd parameter to 0 apparently selects the older VFD (Vaccuum Fluorescent Display) versions of the IMON display. whilst setting is_lcd=1 selects the newer LCD versions of the display. So, by removing the lirc_imon module and then reinstalling it and setting is_lcd=1 immediately brought my ffdc model LCD display to life.

frank@MC:~$ sudo rmmod lirc_imon
frank@MC:~$ sudo modprobe lirc_imon is_lcd=1

To make this permanent add an option to /etc/modprobe.d/options

frank@MC:~$ cd /etc/modprobe.d/
frank@MC:/etc/modprobe.d$ sudo nano -w options
Then add the following lines to the end of the options file 
# Set lirc_imon option to use LCD device
options lirc_imon is_lcd=1

By setting this option the display now changes from the "ugly clock" and cycles through the settings defined in the lcdproc configuration file when lcdproc is run. mythlcdserver also works as it should, displaying channel information, mp3 information, recorded video info etc on the LCD screen. I also find that on my system the LCD display works when this parameter is set irrespective of whether CONFIG_USB_DYNAMIC_MINORS is set when compiling the kernel or not - happily this means that on my machine the LCD display now works with the standard Ubuntu Hardy 2.6.24-19-generic kernel so it is not necessary to recompile a kernel to set CONFIG_USB_DYNAMIC_MINORS=y.

I wonder whether it is possible that the fact that the IMON LCD display works immediately for some users but others appear to have considerable trouble and frustration could be due to which default setting of is_lcd had been in the lirc configurations that they used - if it was is_lcd=0 it would not have worked for LCD devices, but should have worked for VFD devices; if it was is_lcd=1 it should have worked with LCD devices without further configuration. Any comments on this may be useful to others having similar problems.

Whilst I am thrilled to have made this progress I am still not completely out of trouble. There are still problems in initiating the LCD device - it only appears to work if power is connected to it AFTER the operating system is booted up. Must be some timing problem but I need to investigate this further. Once I have done so I will post my findings back on this thread. In the meantime I have a working system and others may find the information of value

[caish5]

I have the same case here. I'm just using it with a normal hardy install (no Myth).
I would love it if soemone could come with a relatively simple way to get it to display something. Anything really. Something i could just cut paste into a terminal would be good. I've tried a couple of guides but got nowhere.

[smi402]

caish5,

Please run the following commands in a terminal and post the outputs here:

uname -r so we can see which kernel you are running

lsusb so we can see which model LCD is in your case

lsmod | grep lirc so we can see which lirc modules are loaded

If possible, I will then try to guide you through a procedure that should get it working. I also found that it can be very frustrating but, as I have indicated, I now have the ffdc LCD device working on my system. Yes it would be nice to have a script to run that just installed the correct binaries and configurations, but the proliferation of various models and the ongoing patch work going on with the lcdproc code probably makes a generalized installation procedure difficult at present.

Which remote control are you using and do you have the IR transmitter and volume control knob working yet?

Frank

[caish5]

thanks,

OK lsusb gives..

Bus 002 Device 003: ID 15c2:ffdc SoundGraph Inc. iMON PAD Remote Controller

uname- r gives..
2.6.24-19-generic

lsmod | grep lirc gives ..

lirc_imon 17156 1
lirc_dev 15732 1 lirc_imon
usbcore 146028 9 hci_usb,usbhid,dvb_usb_dtt200u,dvb_usb,lirc_imon,e hci_hcd,uhci_hcd

[caish5]

Oh and i don't have a remote. (Unless the one from my DVB usb thing can work)

I haven't got the knob working either.

[smi402]

caish5, that all looks encouraging - it is the same LCD model as mine and the modules are loaded. Sorry for pestering you further but it would help to gather a little bit more info before trying to guide you through a similar installation as mine.

1. What version of Hardy are you running - is it amd64 or i386

2. The present "standard" Hardy installation will install lirc_0.8.3~pre1-0ubuntu7.1 which apparently will not support the IMON LCD model we have. Do you have this installed or have you upgraded to lirc_0.8.3-0ubuntu1. If so, did you remove the original ~pre1 version prior to installing the more recent one? (The Synaptic Package Manager will tell you which version is currently installed).

3. If lirc is working correctly we should try and get your volume control knob outputting something through irw (even though you don't have a remote) before getting into the LCD configuration. We may have to install different lirc configuration files, but for now please let me know if you get any output in the terminal when turning the knob after running:

sudo /etc/init.d/lirc restart

irw

If not we will need to fix this for a start to be sure you have a working lirc_imon module - hopefully fixing this will be no big deal

4. I come from the ancient UNIX world so still use old-fashioned tools like locate to determine where things are installed. Do you have mlocate installed on your system? If not it would be useful to install mlocate using Synaptic and then run:

sudo updatedb

It will take a little while to compile the directory database the first time it is run so please be patient.

I am glad to be able to try and help. I am in Brisbane Australia so there may be timezone differences that delay replies if you are not located close by.
Frank

[smi402]

Sorry caish5, one more thing - I am assuming you have the LCD's blue backlight displaying in the case and this remains on after shutting the machine down and only goes off when you turn off the switch on the power supply at the rear of the case. Is this correct?

Frank

[caish5]

Thanks for helping Frank.
I'm actually going to put my new mobo in first. So i'll reget all the info when it's done and then you can assume clean Hardy install.
Then i wont have to do this twice.

But for the record i'm using i386 and i'm in brisbane australia too, what a freaky coincidence!!! St Lucia to be precise!

[smi402]

Yes, what a freakish coincidence - I'm just next door at Kenmore but worked with CSIRO on the St Lucia campus for 40 years. Amazing when you think that Ubuntu is probably the major worldwide Linux distribution now and this is an International forum.

Yes, put your new motherboard in and do a clean install of Hardy but DO NOT install lirc until you get back to me as this will minimize the possibility of having competing lirc installations on your system. Also run the tests I have suggested and post the results again so we can see what is happening with your new installation. After your reinstall please use Synaptic to install mlocate as this may prove a very handy tool in locating various essential files and then ensuring the locations and permissions etc are correct.

I note the number of views of this thread are rising quickly so it is obviously a topic of interest to many users. My apologies to those viewers if there is now some delay whilst caish5 completes his new configuration.

Frank