Settimer or Alarm?????

Which would be the best way to interrupt ReadConsoleInput(),
SetTimer() or Alarm(). I am using ReadConsoleInput() and need to break out of it every so often to update the screen. Any suggestions?????

Thanks,
Kendal

I have searched the manual and have not been able to figure out anything. I am trying to compile under DevC++ as a C program. This will actually be a console program. My main concern is CPU usage. I wanted to use readconsoleinput because for some reason it does not use as much CPU usage as a continuous loop. But about every 30 seconds I need to break out of the readconsoleinput to update the screen even if there has been no user input. In DJGPP there was available a routine called alarm() that was very useful. I know for windows they basically made available settimer(). Settimer() has to have a handle to a window, so it is strictly a window routine. As for alarm, it does not seem to be define in the any of the header files or the library of Dev-C++. Any suggestions?????????????????

Thanks,
Kendal