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One-button power on/off with IPAC2?
fkane:
Built a cabinet with a single red button on the side intended to power it on and off. It's wired to an IPAC2.
Works fine if I assign this button to "sleep/wake" (apart from leaving the button lights on through my pac-drive). But, I'd rather have it actually power down. When I assign this button to "power" through the IPAC2's software, I'm able to power down OK. But, pressing it won't cause it to power up - even though it seems the USB bus still has power. I set my BIOS to allow power-up from a USB keyboard, but somehow the BIOS knows the IPAC2 isn't a "real" keyboard - it will only power up when I plug in a real USB keyboard and hit a key.
Anyone else run into this and have a solution? I'm using Mala as a front-end if that's relevant. Bonus points if anyone has a way to turn off my Pac-Drive / LED Blinky powered button lights on sleep or power down as well. I know I can configure Mala to cleanly shut everything down when it gets a certain keystroke, but the problem is getting that same keystroke to power the system back up since it's one button.
MastarArcade:
Hi Fkane,
I too am using an IPAC, and haven't yet done this on my system, but I was thinking about it. One thing that I noticed on my motherboard is that even if I set the system to power on via Key Press (albeit USB or PS2), there are jumpers on my motherboard (ABIT IC7-G), which need to be toggled in order for this function to work in addition to making the changes in BIOS. This might not be your issue, but it may be something to look in to.
fkane:
It works fine with a real USB keyboard, so I suspect it's not a jumper issue.
I suppose I could just cut my computer's wires to its own power button and wire them instead to my big red button. Would that work - is there anything special about a computer power button?
fkane:
Argh. When powering off using the case's power button, Mala prevents Windows from shutting down. Seems it is not responding to the close command Windows 7 is giving it. So, wiring my button to the case's power button wouldn't do the job either.
I think I need to have my power button tell Mala to shut itself down and then shutdown the computer - that should be possible if I leave it connected to the IPAC and tell Mala about whatever key it emulates. But, the trick is getting that same button to power the system back up. In principle that would work if the "wake on USB keyboard" BIOS function worked with the IPAC, but it doesn't on my system.
Does power on via USB keyboard press work for anyone with an IPAC, or is it something weird about my system?
Malenko:
cant you exit mala with P1 start + p2 start then shut down windows? Optionally, cant you set MaLa to shutdown windows on exit?