Powering off from groovymame

[Edglaf]

Just a question,

I am running Groovymame in Groovyarcade, I’ve managed to set up things so that CRT screen, CPU, marquee lights, and PC speakers, are turned on just by pushing a single power switch (I even manage to set my motherboard bios with “resume after power failure etc), so it works beautifully.

However, when one is fed up with playing and it`s time to go to bed…, Can I securely power off the whole cabinet the same way while running advmenu or groovymame (not loading) without causing damages to the installation or to the sata hard disk?

Up to now I’ve been shutting down in a “civilized way” by pressing the PC power off button, and afterwards I switch off the whole thing (otherwise the other elements remain on).

thanks!

[krick]

Here's the easy way to do it where there is really only one button that controls everything...

First you need a "smart" power strip like this...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JPDYYSM
...this is just one example, there are many on the market to choose from.

You plug your PC into the "control" outlet.
You plug the rest of your cabinet into the "switched" outlets.

Then, you get a momentary push switch like this...
https://www.radioshack.com/products/spst-3a-pushbutton-switch
...and you wire it up to the power button on the PC.

When you push the button, the PC turns on, then everything plugged into switched outlets on the power strip will turn on.

When you push the button again, the PC shuts down (safely and correctly), then everything plugged into the switched outlets will turn off.

EDIT: At least, this works in Windows.  I assume that other operating systems would also have the same shutdown hook linked to the power button.

[buttersoft]

+1 to Krick's post. That's what I do with my cabs. Then turn the power off too, when not in use, of course. But it allows you to power everything off and close down windows so problems don't arise.

[Edglaf]

Thanks to both of you,

I'm not using Windows but groovyarcade, arch Linux based distro.does it apply equally?

[Edglaf]

Risky trials return, up to now (after having done it 3 times), satisfactory results:

I've switched off while in advmenu. When the power is back the boot time seems to be the same. Cannot see if a chkdsk-windows-like application es performing HD sectors, cluster or whatever integrity tests because i'm using a scart TV without arcadevga. I suppose it does not.

While in groovymame, sudden swith-off and later power back shed identical results.

I figure out that once everything is loaded into ram memmory and the HD is not working in reading/writing processes, apparently, one can switch off securely this way?

If anyway a hardware-software damage may result from this action, what if I burn the whole install into a DVD? would this discard risks as broken-files creation is just not possible?

CLues, advices and opinions are highly appreciated