Customizable PC Boot Speaker

This project came to me when I built my first gaming computer in 2014. I was sitting at my freshly built computer with its shiny black 750 Ti and thought "man... it would be cool if this made a spaceship noise when I turned it on". But to my disbelief I couldn't find a company who sold a device that did this. So, I forgot about it and moved on. But, now I'm in college and have built probably close to 30 systems at this point and feel that I understand what's going on them to take a crack at making this device. I'm majoring in electrical engineering but as anyone who has gone to engineering school will tell you, you don't get to do actual hands on building until your in 300+ level classes or at least not at my university. So, I thought what better way to prepare myself for these classes than to design a device that says "My Name Jeff" when I turn my computer on. So going into this I need you to know that I had never even picked up a breadboard before, but despite this I have designed a working device that I would like to share with all of you. If my terminology is off in someway please let me know and I will correct it!

One of my goals for this project is to make it as cheap as possible. Originally I was going to use an Arduino but decided that it was a little pricey for something I'm gonna stick in a computer case and forget about. But after several revisions to the device I found a MUCH cheaper option that reduce the total cost to below $20.

The links Below are amazon affiliate links. If you're thinking about purchasing these products please consider using the links below to help support me!

The part List goes as follows:

DFPlayer Mini:

2 Pack: https://amzn.to/30TAPFQ

5 Pack: https://amzn.to/30TAPFQ

Valefod DC 5V Relay Module:

2 Pack: https://amzn.to/30TAPFQ

4 Pack: https://amzn.to/30TAPFQ

10 Pack: https://amzn.to/30TAPFQ

Push Button Switches:

200 Variety Pack: https://amzn.to/30TAPFQ

120 Pack: https://amzn.to/30TAPFQ

Micro SD Card and Reader:

8 Gb Micro SD Card: https://amzn.to/3jOBUGf

Micro SD Card Reader: https://amzn.to/36Sjqkt

Speaker:

I cant find any 4 Ohm 5 Watt speakers on amazon so you might have to look around a bit. I ripped mine out of an old pc speaker I found in my garage.

This is the same watts and ohms as mine: https://www.aliexpress.com/i/32908965381.html

Breadboard and Wires: https://amzn.to/30TAPFQ

Before we fill a breadboard up with wires I think its important that we understand how the PC turns on. A motherboard has a series of pins like the ones in Figure 1. These pins are connect to the computers case via cables and allow us to turn the computer on/off, reset the computer, see an LED when the computers turned on, see an LED when the computers reading from its hard drive, and hear beeps to troubleshoot in the event of a problem. The only one of these we will need as you can guess is the on/off button. This button when pressed in allows a connection that shorts the two pins and makes the computer turn on. Our goal is to hijack that press so that it triggers our device and still turns the computer on.

To hijack the 5V that were gonna need to power our device were gonna have to tap into the 24 pin connector shown in Figure 2. The two wires we need to tap into are any of the 5V ports and any of the Ground ports. Some people might want to cut these cables and splice in our cables but I too scared to tear into my Power supply's cables like that. So I found a janky work around! I stripped the plastic head off one of my breadboard wires as shown in Figure 3. Then I jammed one into the back off one of the 5V ports and the jammed the other into the back off one of the ground ports as shown in figure 3-1. Id definitely prefer this method since you don't run the risk of messing up your power supply by splicing.

Now here is where its gonna get a little complicated. Only due to me being bad at explaining so I will include lots of pictures. Now, I implore you to study Figure 4 carefully before we start building. It will be your map on this journey!

BEFORE STARTING THIS MAKE SURE THE COMPUTERS POWER SUPPLY IS TURNED OFF. I made this mistake once and fried a DFPlayer.

1. First, Ill run the 5V and ground from the power supply that I hijacked earlier to the breadboard "+" and "-" side channels. Ill also connect the side channels at the top of the breadboard. This step is highlighted in Figure 5.

2. Next, Ill start to put down all the larger components with plenty of space between them. This step is highlighted in Figure 6.

3. Now, Ill wire up the DFPlayer Mini. So ill connect the VCC Pin on the DFPlayer to the 5V rail and the either one of the GND pins to the ground rail. This step is highlighted in Figure 7.

4. Next, Ill wire up the speaker. So ill connect the SPK_1 Pin on the DFPlayer to the "+" terminal on the speaker and the "-" terminal on the speaker to the ground rail. This step is highlighted in Figure 8.

5. Now ill wire up the volume buttons. The first step of this is to run two wires from the ground rail to one side of each button. This step is highlighted in Figure 9. Then I run wires from the other side of the buttons to the IO_1 and IO_2 pins on the DFPlayer. It doesn't matter which button you put to what pin but IO_1 will decrease volume and IO_2 will increase the volume. This step is highlighted in Figure 10.

At this point you can test everything is working by turning on the power supply and the light on the DFPlayer should light up. IF YOU TEST MAKE SURE TO POWER OF THE POWER SUPPLY BEFORE CONTINUING!

The only thing left to do now is to wire the part that will allow the computers switch to trigger the DFPlayer.

1. First we need to run two male to male cables in an empty area of our bread board. These wires will run from the breadboard to the computers power switch. Then directly across from them on the board plug in two male to female cables. These wires will run from the breadboard to the computers motherboard. The space we've created in-between the sets of cables is where we will hijack our IN for the relay. So between two of the wires we will connect a male to male to the IN port. This step is highlighted in Figure 11.

2. Next we can hook up the power to the to the relay. We connect the DC+ to the 5V rail on the breadboard, the DC- to the ground rail, and the COM to the ground rail. This step is highlighted in Figure 12.

3. The final step is to connect a male to male wire from the NO port on the relay to the IO_1 pin on the breadboard. This step is highlighted in Figure 13.

Were almost there...

The only thing left to do is plug in the cables that go to the motherboard and computers power button.

The cables that go to our motherboard will plug into the pins labeled PWRSW. (this name can vary from board to board but it should be something like "power switch")

The cables that go to the power switch simply plug into the female end your computer cases power button.

Now that everything is hooked up and ready to go the only thing left to do is upload an mp3 to the micro sd card and plug it into your DFPlayer. Now you should be able to play that sound whenever you boot on your computer. Some systems will require you to hold the button in for a half a second to full second to trigger the device.

Please send me videos of your device in use! I would love to see all the things you guys can come up with. My instagram is @tuckytoodz.

Credits:

I would like to give a special thanks to Sean Honeycutt of Auburn University and Noah Maxwell of The University of Alabama in Huntsville for answering my questions and helping me troubleshoot this project along the way. I could not have made this without their help.

The Future of This Project:

The next step for this project will be designing a PCB to mount all the components on. After that I would I would like to design a 3D-printable case to hold it all. As learn to make and eventually design these I will update this page so you can have access to them.