How to solve Power On/Off Problem?

[GameAddict]

Hi, this is my first post here, first thing i have to say is sorry for my english

I am currently building a Mame Arcade Machine into an Killer Instinct Cabinet. I choosed to use a TV, an I-PAC Interface and, of course, a PC... The thing i'm thinking about for a time now is how to power on/off everything with on switch. How did you solve this problem? I mean normally you have to shut down the PC from Windows. I hope you could understand what i'm looking for Thanks a lot!

[Mameham]

That's probably the A #1 reason why I chose to go with an actual PC monitor over TV... powerstrip... just turn the whole thing off...



Just open up the power strip, replace the cheap plastic switch with a 110v rated toggle switch from Radio Shack attached to a piece of lamp cord, attach the switch to the cabinet... presto!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're always told to never shut down a PC "hot"... but I've never really had a problem with it... and since you're running windows, if you go to http://www.annoyances.org you can learn how to disable the Scandisk that comes up every time you "improperly" exit windows...

The only problem is the TV... see, mine needed you to manually switch from "antenna mode" to "video input mode" every time it lost power... which is quite annoying for a closed cabinet... that's why I dumped it... if you have the same problem... I can't help you.

[Minwah]

How about using a frontend which can power your PC down? (mine does it: mamewah.mameworld.net).

It just means you'll have to use a switch to turn the main power to the PC/monitor/marquee etc on/off as Mameham has done

[Howard_Casto]

Any good front-end gives you the option to shut down your pc upon exit.  If your running 98 you can even make a shotrcut to shut down the pc and add it to your gamelist. It's no big deal really.  Btw a forced shutdown is bad for a pc because it clutters your harddrive with temp files and tends to fragment the disk of long periods.

[SteveJ]

...... The thing i'm thinking about for a time now is how to power on/off everything with on switch. How did you solve this problem? I mean normally you have to shut down the PC from Windows. I hope you could understand what i'm looking for Thanks a lot!

Here's a link that might be helpful. This was a topic of discussion recently.

http://home.bendcable.com/werstlein/

This takes the approach of wiring a pushbutton switch to the computer. Then, as the computer is powered on, it fires a relay which will in turn powerup a power strip.

This is the route that I took. I didn't do a full power outlet, I just wired the relay directly into my power strip in place of its power button.

There are several other threads within this forum on this topic. You can search for words like "Power Switch" and " Power Relay" to find them.

Best of luck!

Steve

[Minwah]

I had of course forgot to mention how to turn the power on in my previous comment  My m/board allows the PC to be turned on by pressing space (P1 button 3).  If you can't do this then a separate push switch is required.

The relay thing above sounds like the best solution to me, I'm going to have a go I think

[Zipper]

I use hot keyboard to 'force' shut down my PC with a single keypress.
I've mapped that to a shifted key on my i-pac.

http://www.hot-keyboard.com

I think i got the link from this board originally.
Don't know if it helps your problem.

[GameAddict]

Thanks to all of you! I think i will either use the solution with the relay, or, since  I use Win98 I'll just put a Shortcut to the desktop. Because I will not only run Mame but also the U64 Emu for Killer Instinct (cause I have an KI Cabinet) I cannot put it into a frontend...
Or maybe, if i can get a motherboard with the possibility to shut down the PC via space bar, i will use it. Seems to be the solution with less work..

[Mameham]

a forced shutdown is bad for a pc because it clutters your harddrive with temp files and tends to fragment the disk of long periods.

Fragment squagment... that's why I use DOS... no temp files... Windows is such a sloppy messy ---smurfette---.

[Radeyes]

Any good front-end gives you the option to shut down your pc upon exit.

[Sasquatch!]

Here's a link that might be helpful. This was a topic of discussion recently.

http://home.bendcable.com/werstlein/

WOW, that is helpful!  Thanks for the info!

[jets]

I was reading thru the faq and cam across this thread. The Quickest and easiest solution I found was the smartstrip power strip found at http://www.bitsltd.net/smartstrip/information.htm

[Lilwolf]

the smartstrip (plus the powermite or something... there is a smaller verions for 15 bucks or so) is a GREAT solution.

you have the power button from the computer on the outside of the cab and you press it... when the pc comes up it turns everything else on...

[krick]

Check out this thread...

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,20611.0.html

[Fat_Trucker]

the smartstrip (plus the powermite or something... there is a smaller verions for 15 bucks or so) is a GREAT solution.

you have the power button from the computer on the outside of the cab and you press it... when the pc comes up it turns everything else on...

Thats ideal.

I'm doing my first cab and have managed to pull most of the info I need from trawling the FAQ and some other sites. This was the only issue I was anticipating trouble with......solved.