Why your cabinet should use a Smart Strip.

[spauldingd]

This might be old news to many, but it surprised me so I wanted to share it in case it can be of use to anyone.

I haven't built my cabinet yet, but I am getting everything all set up just like it will be once it is in my cab.  The latest item I bought was a SmartStrip power strip.  I wanted to turn on my cab with "one button" and I figured this was the easiest way to get it.

The benefit that I didn't expect made the purchase even more worthwhile.  Into my power strip I have connected the speakers, monitor and marquee light.  What surprised me was that when my computer goes to sleep, that drop in power causes the devices in the slave plug-ins to lose power.  This is awesome!  That means I never really need to shut down my cab, just put it on standby.  If I want to play a quick game, I just hit a button and the PC wakes up, the speakers, monitor, and marquee light come on, and its game time in about 3 seconds!

I have no affiliation with the company, and the item is on the expensive side ($30), but I bought 2.  One for my cab and one for my main system so I will hopefully recover some of the expense by using less electricity in the long run.

http://www.smartstrip.net/

[Lilwolf]

Its great for some... not needed for others.

If you have in your bios that you can turn the computer on with power (not the terminology they use, but some have it).  Then you just need a simple power strip where you can take the button outside.

But for those who can't... its great.

[spauldingd]

My BIOS has that, but I liked the idea of the strip shutting off power to the peripheral devices once the PC got shut down, I don't want to stand there and wait for it.  The way my PC sleep mode works, I will probably just leave it on all the time and I will be able to play in no time at all and when not in use, it will use some, but very little power.

I was so surprised by the sleep-mode behavior with the smart strip, I just wanted to share that as I think its a perfect application for it if you have 3 other things plugged in as I have.

[crashwg]

I'm wondering why you bought the smartstrip in the first place if you didn't know it was going to do that?  Or did you just not know standby would have the same effect on the smartstrip as shutting down?

[spauldingd]

That is right, I bought the smart-strip to make my PC act like a relay to turn off all the extra stuff in the cabinet.  The surprise was that going into stand-by mode would do the same thing.  Perhaps this was common knowledge, but I hadn't seen it discussed.

So, I tapped a momentary switch into my PC power button wires so I can turn the cab on with one button.  In my XP power settings, I set it to go on standby whenever you push the power button, so with one touch I can instantly go in and out of standby which in turn shuts down my speakers, marquee light and monitor.  It looks like the entire cab wakes up and is ready to play in about 3 seconds.

Again, probably obvious to some, but for a rookie like me, it is a feature I didn't expect to have in my cab.  I'll keep it on standby all the time.

[Gideon]

Hmm... It's a damn shame that smart strip isn't programmable.

[Acids]

Hmm... It's a damn shame that smart strip isn't programmable.

That just sums up what BYOAC is all about, inovation.
We seem to want everything to be programable to fit every possible outcome.

Cool Aint it.