There seems to be plenty of LCD screen that fit onto the front of a desktop pc which display time, sometimes temperatures and fan speeds. I'm looking to expand on this and create an LCD screen that can be used to monitor the system performance such as memory and cpu usage.
The current LCD's take their data from temperature headers (some boards have them) and usually fan speeds directly from the fans themselves, to include system performance stats we need to be able to get that information out of the operating system and onto the LCD screen.
A great way of doing this would be through the serial (COM) header on the main board, most desktop computers don't have a physical serial port anymore but they do usually have a header on the main board. Since the LCD is to be mounted onto the front of the desktop case, we can connect directly to that header inside.
This is an overview of the system I have in mind:
Python script on PC >>> COM port >>> Arduino >>> LCD
An Arduino acts as the main system holding the drawing functions for the LCD. When the Arduino wants to refresh the data on the screen, it polls the COM port which signals a Python script on the PC to collect the performance figures and send them back to the Arduino. The Arduino can then update the LCD.
It would be a great way for gamers, content producers and others who put their computer under heavy load to keep an eye on their systems performance.
I'm waiting on an LCD coming but have gotten on with the software aspect to test whether it is possible to get the information we need using Python. Since I don't have the LCD yet I used pygame to replicate it.
and a video of it in action...
Here is the Python script I used:
import sys
import psutil
import threading
import pygame
import pygame.locals
#SETUP PYGAME
pygame.init()
pygame.display.set_caption('sysmon')
#CREATE COLORS
backgroundColor = (100,100,100)
tbackgroundColor = (0,100,100)
titleColor = (255,255,0)
labelColor = (255,0,0)
labelYellowColor = (255,255,0)
#CREATE FONTS
titleFont = pygame.font.SysFont("monospace", 25)
labelFont = pygame.font.SysFont("monospace", 15)
#CREATE DRAWING SCREEN
WIDTH = 400
HEIGHT = 300
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((WIDTH, HEIGHT), 0, 32)
screen.fill(backgroundColor)
pygame.draw.rect(screen,tbackgroundColor,(0,50,400,250))
#CREATE AND DRAW STATIC LABELS
titleLabel = titleFont.render("SYSTEM MONITOR", 1,titleColor)
screen.blit(titleLabel, (100, 0))
coreLabelValue = "cores: " + str(psutil.cpu_count(logical=False))
coreLabel = labelFont.render(coreLabelValue, 1, labelColor)
screen.blit(coreLabel, (0, 30))
threadLabelValue = "threads: " + str(psutil.cpu_count())
threadLabel = labelFont.render(threadLabelValue, 1, labelColor)
screen.blit(threadLabel, (100, 30))
memTotalLabelValue = "total mem: " + str("%.2f" %(float(psutil.virtual_memory().total) / 1073741824)) + "GB"
memTotalLabel = labelFont.render(memTotalLabelValue, 1, labelColor)
screen.blit(memTotalLabel, (220, 30))
cpuUsageLabel = labelFont.render("cpu_usage", 1,labelYellowColor)
screen.blit(cpuUsageLabel, (100, 100))
memUsageLabel = labelFont.render("mem_usage", 1,labelYellowColor)
screen.blit(memUsageLabel, (100, 130))
#DEFINE A THREAD OBJECT
class ConstantThread(threading.Thread):
def run(self):
#use a while loop to keep the thread and app alive
while True:
#grab the system data and convert to a string
cpuuse = str(psutil.cpu_percent(interval=0.5)) + "%"
memuse1 = str(psutil.virtual_memory().percent) + "%"
memuse2 = "("+ str("%.2f" %(float(psutil.virtual_memory().used) / 1073741824)) + "GB)"
#send the system data to be drawn to the screen
updateScreen(cpuuse,memuse1,memuse2)
#if the exit button on the pygame window is pressed, close the app
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == pygame.locals.QUIT:
pygame.quit()
sys.exit()
#FUNCTION TO RESFRESH ACTIVE LABELS AND REDRAW SCREEN AREAS
def updateScreen(cpuuse,memuse1,memuse2):
pygame.draw.rect(screen,tbackgroundColor,(200,50,200,250))
cpuLabel = labelFont.render(cpuuse, 1, labelYellowColor)
screen.blit(cpuLabel, (200, 100))
mem1Label = labelFont.render(memuse1, 1, labelYellowColor)
screen.blit(mem1Label, (200,130))
mem2Label = labelFont.render(memuse2, 1, labelYellowColor)
screen.blit(mem2Label, (260,130))
pygame.display.flip()
thread1 = ConstantThread() #create the thread instance
thread1.start() #start the thread
sys.exit()
If you want to try it out remember to use pip to install pygame and psutil first
The next stage is to get the Arduino to communicate with this script through the COM port which I can get on with while waiting for the LCD to arrive 
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