Can a PC be set to boot up upon receiving stand-by power?

[Wade007]

Technical question about how to easily turn on a home arcade cabinet with "one button" including boot up of the PC.

Is there a way to have one's computer boot up automatically WITHOUT pressing the "on" button when the computer receives passive or standby power?
In other words, can a Windows 7 computer be set to boot up simply by plugging the power cord into the wall socket?

The reason I ask is that once I get my arcade cabinet set up, I'd like to NOT have to open up the cabinet to push the start button on the computer each time. I want it to be more or less invisible to the user with only an external switch (remote or otherwise) to be the master control.

The current idea would be to use a "smart power strip" where the CPU would be the 'master' and the other components (speakers, monitor, marquee light, etc) would be powered up only when the CPU received power. They sell these smart strips (see link below) and even have remote to go on the outside of the cabinet, but it doesn't get around the idea of having to still turn on the computer so it will boot up. How to apply the "boot up" command to a switch?

http://catalog.bitsltd.us/catalog/SMART/SCG3.html

Does that make sense? I can only control when power is available to the CPU with a smart strip, not the boot up directive (without pressing the on button).

Setting the BIOS to resume/restart after power failure won't work because I plan to have Mala shut down the system normally when I'm done playing. This won't register as a "power failure".

Onboard settings of the CMOS?

Otherwise is there a way to hard wire the ON button on a computer to a type of light switch on the outside of the arcade cabinet? Any ideas? What are you all doing with this situation for your cabinets?

Thanks.

[lilshawn]

the bios should have something along the lines of a "on AC loss" section where you can have it go on/off/last state setting.

if not. a capacitor (100uF 10 or 16 volts) across the power button leads on the motherboard header will cause it to boot up. (be sure to meter out the pins and find out which pin is putting out 5v and place the + lead of the capacitor on that pin.)

[SavannahLion]

Might be a little confusion let's clear some of it up.

There are no CMOS settings. It's just a type of technology. So CMOS battery is really a device that keeps the BIOS settings "alive".

the bios should have something along the lines of a "on AC loss" section where you can have it go on/off/last state setting.

if not. a capacitor (100uF 10 or 16 volts) across the power button leads on the motherboard header will cause it to boot up. (be sure to meter out the pins and find out which pin is putting out 5v and place the + lead of the capacitor on that pin.)

Based on the OP's post, I'd say what he really is looking for is a way to extend the power button outside the case. With a smart strip, the most obvious solution is to use an arcade button. Chop the old switch ofd and wire the leads to the common and NO tabs on the arcade button. Don't use a light switch, it won't work without modification or extra circuitry.

[PL1]

Otherwise is there a way to hard wire the ON button on a computer to a type of light switch on the outside of the arcade cabinet? Any ideas? What are you all doing with this situation for your cabinets?

This thread and many others like it describe how to wire one switch to control the computer and monitor using a smart strip.

Put "smart strip" into the forum's search function for the best variety of options and opinions.


Scott

[lilshawn]

Might be a little confusion let's clear some of it up.

There are no CMOS settings. It's just a type of technology. So CMOS battery is really a device that keeps the BIOS settings "alive".

the bios should have something along the lines of a "on AC loss" section where you can have it go on/off/last state setting.

if not. a capacitor (100uF 10 or 16 volts) across the power button leads on the motherboard header will cause it to boot up. (be sure to meter out the pins and find out which pin is putting out 5v and place the + lead of the capacitor on that pin.)

Based on the OP's post, I'd say what he really is looking for is a way to extend the power button outside the case. With a smart strip, the most obvious solution is to use an arcade button. Chop the old switch ofd and wire the leads to the common and NO tabs on the arcade button. Don't use a light switch, it won't work without modification or extra circuitry.

In other words, can a Windows 7 computer be set to boot up simply by plugging the power cord into the wall socket?

  what's not to get.

the bios should have a setting...if not, some hacking with a cap involved.

[SavannahLion]

Did you read all of his post or just that one sentence? It doesn't happen often but you need to place his question into context.

My answer covers his final question since you already covered the previous questions. My comment about confusion covers his CMOS comment. Anything else that needs to be covered?

[lilshawn]

Did you read all of his post or just that one sentence? It doesn't happen often but you need to place his question into context.

My answer covers his final question since you already covered the previous questions. My comment about confusion covers his CMOS comment. Anything else that needs to be covered?

i see, i see, fair enough...I must have glazed over that part. My bad. I think I had to do a #2 when I wrote that post.

relays are the best way i know of. It's how we turn our jukeboxes amplifiers on and off with the computer.

you could buy a smart strip, or you go a whole other direction and DIY. you wire up a momentary switch (arcade button on top or wherever) to the power button of the computer to turn it on... BAM, ON! easy...you are doing a script to shut it down. cool. done. computer is set.

you buy a few 12 volt relays rated for 10 amps (about $2 each) and wire up your AC powered items (monitor/marquee light/other power supplies) to the relays. http://www.reuk.co.uk/buy-12V-10A-RELAY.htm

(I can draw it out if it sounds confusing or you are unsure how you would do that)

the relays are powered by the 12 volts coming out of the computers power supply when it's on...in turn activating the relays to turn on the rest of your AC powered items.

everything gets killed when you shutdown. computer shuts down and powers up like a normal computer.

[leapinlew]

One additional comment.

I haven't seen a laptop that had this option. All my desktop boards do and flipping the switch on the wall sends power to all the machines and they all bootup, but any machines I built with laptops require the laptop to be powered on by pressing the power button.

[Wade007]

Thanks everyone for your input, suggestions and comments. Feel free to post other comments as they occur to you.

I'll do some experimenting based on this info along with some more research and let you know how it turns out.

[SavannahLion]

One additional comment.

I haven't seen a laptop that had this option. All my desktop boards do and flipping the switch on the wall sends power to all the machines and they all bootup, but any machines I built with laptops require the laptop to be powered on by pressing the power button.

When you think about, that makes sense. The power on after power fail hails from server-centric computers. These types of machines have features to maximize up time.

Laptops are for a different market and hence, it doesn't logically make sense to have that feature.

[Unstupid]

One additional comment.

I haven't seen a laptop that had this option. All my desktop boards do and flipping the switch on the wall sends power to all the machines and they all bootup, but any machines I built with laptops require the laptop to be powered on by pressing the power button.

When you think about, that makes sense. The power on after power fail hails from server-centric computers. These types of machines have features to maximize up time.

Laptops are for a different market and hence, it doesn't logically make sense to have that feature.

Not to mention the fact that since they are laptops they pretty much always have power supplied since they run on batteries!   

[leapinlew]

yeah, but why not add the feature or more likely, why remove it?

Besides, whats a server nowadays? A virtualized piece of software which could and often does easily run on a laptop.

[SavannahLion]

Why is this even a discussion? The whole "virtualized" business is just marketing. Servers, and their requirements, are very real and very distinct from those of laptops. Businesses have invested billions in massive systems consisting of hundreds or thousands of headless boards interconnected together running off of multiple power sources. The fact you can buy a board for a 100 quid with some of the big iron or farm features is just a byproduct of the SOHO market. Seriously, when did you find a need for ECC RAM in anything you built for home or any arcade cab?

Laptops and their ilk are clearly from the other direction. Things like headless operation isn't even an option (not in my laptops anyways) because they're not expected to operate without their built-in screens. I have rarely seen laptops that are built like desktops meaning that they're not meant to extensively modified by the end user. In other words, no laptop manufacturer designed their laptop knowing that leapinlew was going to build a cab out of it.

Servers are designed for maximum up time and horsepower. Laptops are designed for portability and power preservation. Given current technologies and business demands, those requirements have mutually exclusive demands. I have no doubt we'll see more and more convergence of the two schools as the technology improves, but for right now... well... there are other tricks you can do.

In any case, while hacking my own laptop, I did note some spots that, now that I think about it, would make it reasonably easy to add in such a feature to a laptop.  I can't imagine any other laptop being more difficult than what I found. If you wish, we can knock some ideas together and see what sticks.

[lilshawn]

Seriously, when did you find a need for ECC RAM in anything you built for home or any arcade cab?

Seriously, when was the last time you seen desktop ECC RAM offered for sale?! 

[SavannahLion]

Seriously, when did you find a need for ECC RAM in anything you built for home or any arcade cab?

Seriously, when was the last time you seen desktop ECC RAM offered for sale?! 

It's kind of like a dildo. You won't know where to get one unless you're kinky that way.

Probably the last time I went to a store to buy pc components. Online or direct is where it's at.
Frys
Newegg

Though, anyone buying ECC for any decent operation would likely purchase it on contract direct. So pick the manufacturer, they'll have it.

But neither is my point, my point, should you fail to see it, is not every feature will be found all the way down through computing families even if individual board components support it. Those that do, will have the demand for it. Power on is one, RAID (at least partially) is another. ECC has no market outside of data critical computing, doesn't help price are grossly inflated. Meh. That's life. Hot swap has been fulfilled to a degree but I've yet to see internal hot swappable UPS/PSU, RAM, or CPUs.

[leapinlew]

Why is this even a discussion? The whole "virtualized" business is just marketing. Servers, and their requirements, are very real and very distinct from those of laptops.

marketing? I don't know what kind of IT work you do, but many of my laptop users use virtualized servers to run tests, sandboxed apps, etc.

You're right in that I don't know why we are having this discussion. I just wanted to know why a laptop wouldn't have the option to power on after AC power loss. You know, sometimes the power is out for more than 4 hours and when a laptop turns off the only way to turn it on is to press a button.

All I'm saying is, it would be nice to have the option. I didn't go on a tirade on what a ridiculous notion it is.

[M.Lanza]

Don't most pc's have a boot from network option in the bios?
I assume that you could send a small amount of current to the
ethernet port to get a notebook pc to boot from standby, right?

[lilshawn]

Don't most pc's have a boot from network option in the bios?
I assume that you could send a small amount of current to the
ethernet port to get a notebook pc to boot from standby, right?

wiki copypastea of the WOL protocol cause i'm lazy.

The magic packet is a broadcast frame containing anywhere within its payload 6 bytes of all 255 (FF FF FF FF FF FF in hexadecimal), followed by sixteen repetitions of the target computer's 48-bit MAC address, for a total of 102 bytes.
Since the magic packet is only scanned for the string above, and not actually parsed by a full protocol stack, it may be sent as any network- and transport-layer protocol, although it is typically sent as a UDP datagram to port 7 or 9, or directly over Ethernet as EtherType 0x0842.[7]
A standard magic packet has the following basic limitations:
Requires destination computer MAC address (also may require a SecureOn password)
Does not provide a delivery confirmation
May not work outside of the local network
Requires hardware support of Wake-On-LAN on destination computer
The Wake-on-LAN implementation is designed to be very simple and to be quickly processed by the circuitry present on the network interface card (NIC) with minimal power requirement. Because Wake-on-LAN operates below the IP protocol layer the MAC address is required and makes IP addresses and DNS names meaningless.

[Wade007]

OK, back to the question at the beginning of my post...

Good news!! I found the solution. This may not work for everyone, but it will work for my computer BIOS configuration:

Luckily for me, my BIOS allows the PC to auto start after it looses AC power. Not just if there is a power outage but if I “unplug” the computer from the wall and then simply replug it in.

Under “Power Management/AC Recovery” I set it to be ON, which means that the system powers on after AC power is restored.

I tested it a couple of times after doing a normal shutdown of Windows. After the computer shutdown I then unplugged the computer, counted to 10 and then plugged it back in. Boot right back up automatically without me having to push the power button on the computer. Worked like a champ.

So I don’t think a special switch is even needed now. I was ready to rewire the start switch to my computer.

All I need now is a remote switch to power a smart power strip where my computer is the “Master”.

Belkin Conserve Energy Strip
OR
The “SUG7” powerstrip with remote from Bits Limited:
http://bitsltd.net/wireless-usb-surge-protector

My computer will now boot up once it receives power from the remote after sitting in a non-AC power state and then in turn will power up the monitor, speakers and marquee lights which will have already been “turned on” and are just waiting for power.

-Wade

[MTPPC]

Don't buy the belkin. If your computer keeps USB devices powered up, the belkin will not behave consistently and their is no adjustment like on the smart strip brand. I think that SUG is not necessary. I think you want a scg3 and then just extend your PC powerbutton to an arcade button on top of the cabinet.