How do I bypass a "soft" switch?

[Magnet_Eye]

I have this PC in its case in my cab, and it has the dreaded soft switch! I have one switch to turn on my power supply, which turns everything on, but the pc doesn't go unless I hit the soft switch. How do you by pass this so it all fires up with one switch?!

Eh?

 

[BobbyG66]

What PC do you have? Model#?

I have not heard of a soft switch before.  It may be possible to bypass or "short" the switch, BUT it is probably their for a reason. You don't want to start a fire or damage your PC.

You may want to check online for others that have that PC and see what they have done, or even contact the manafacturer as see what they reccommend.

Good luck.

[Minwah]

Just leave the PSU switched on all the time.  Then all you have to do it hit the power button.

[Magnet_Eye]

The PC is inside the cabinet, which i keep closed...the power supply switch is outside, but then i have to open the coin door everytime to push the stupid soft switch on the pc case! annoying! I tried to set the bios to turn on the thing with any key press, which would work, if not for the lame ass soft switch case!

So, maybe i should rip apart the case?

[PedroSilva]

Hi,

Most newer boards have an option on the setup to bypass that.

Look for "Power On Behaver", ou "Power On Setting" or something like that ...

[Trenchbroom]

Yes, look in the motherboard BIOS settings and look under Power Management Functions (or something along those lines) and it should give you an option to have the computer reboot after a power failure.  

[Goz]

Or you could run an external switch at the back of the cab.

Shouldn't be too hard.

[_Iz-]

The "soft" switch is your friend, don't bypass it, allow it to do the work for you.

Easiest way is to relocate the "soft" switch (really a momentary contact switch, an arcade button and it's microswitch are perfect replacements). Mount the arcade button in a discrete location, pull the original case switch wire off the motherboard and wire the new arcade button in it's place. I used a 2 wire spdif cable, cut one end off, stripped the wires and extended them to reach the contacts on the microswitch. Connect to NO and Ground. The other end with it's original connector will fit the motherboard location perfectly, just like the original case switch.

Next, get one of the "smart" power strips. Plug the PC into the control outlet and eveything else into the switched outlets.

You can now turn the computer on with the arcade button and when the smart power strip sees that the computer is on it turns on everything else.

If you are running win98 or higher, briefly pressing (don't hold) the computer power button will tell windows to do a proper shutdown (just like if you clicked start -> shutdown) and power off the computer. When the smart power strip sees the computer is off, it will turn off everything else.

This method is preferrable because it allows the computer to startup and shutdown properly, the way it was designed to.

You can get the smart power strip at sears or from an online retailer...

[slicer_d]

Yeah I second IZ thats a great way to do it all.  If you are using a pc monitor you could just skip the smart strip part because most monitors go into power save mode when they have no signal anyway.  Thats what I'm going to do for my cocktail cabinet anyway.

[Felsir]

The "soft" switch is your friend, don't bypass it, allow it to do the work for you.

-----8<---- SNIP! ------- 8< -----------------------------------

This method is preferrable because it allows the computer to startup and shutdown properly, the way it was designed to.

You can get the smart power strip at sears or from an online retailer...

Very usefull post IMHO, stuff for a FAQ methinks.
I hadn't concidered this option but now I'll probably go this route with my cab.