Anyway to power on computer with a key or mouse press?

[simplygriff]

I'm using XP and am wondering if there is a way to use a key press or mouse button press to power on the computer without rewiring the power button?  I know I can wake it from sleep but don't really want to leave the machine on all the time.

[Goz]

That depends on your motherboard.  Check BIOS settings under advanced / power. Should have option like power on with LAN, Key stroke, etc. I know most ASUS mobo's support this feature that were made in the last two years.

-Goz

[simplygriff]

I'll check into that.  Thanks for the info.

Does anybody know anything about this for a new Dell?
-G

[blue]

If it

[Alucard90]

I dont know, OEMs limited the bios alot. I have an old HP comp, when i found out it was  an asus mobo  and it said it had overclocking jumpers , looked and they had complete removed them.  
Usually in OEMs bios all you can do is set time and change boot priority

[Pasqualz]

To access Dell Bios, turn on your computer and wait for the Dell splash screen, then press <F2>. This should bring you to the Bios setup program.

[simplygriff]

take advantage off all the free Dell tech support the offer and give them a call.

Now there's a thought.  Maybe I'll give them something to do.

[simplygriff]

What about setting it up to come on via a power strip?  This would be a perfectly workable option for me.  Do I need to set this up in the BIOS or is this something I can do in XP?  I saw something on the Dell forums about an Auto Power Recovery option or something.  I'd check here at work but all these machines have Win98.

[blue]

"power strip"

Do you mean like a multi-plugin power bar?
That would work in that it will supply current to the PS when you turned it on, but you'd still need to hit the power button the on case to turn on the mobo.

One thing i can think of doing is
(assuming that you are trying to turn your computer on while it is in a cab.) Rewire the power button to the computer to outside the case. Either extant the wires to the outside or totally replace the power button. The problem with this is that you'd have to open the case to do it and i think that might void you warrenty with Dell. Don't know if you'd need that or not.

[simplygriff]

Yeah a "multi-plugin power bar."

The more I think about this I think this would only work if the computer was on when the power was turned off.

I don't want to re-wire the power button yet since I've still got a year warranty.

Any other options?

[SpamMe]

Check you bios. You may have a 'power on ps/2 keyboard' option, or something to that effect. As far as the power strip, look for an option like 'boot after power failure' or something similar.

[moloch]

I found an old computer case and ripped out the power button and reset switch wires with the small black pin connnectors still on. I then wired that through a 4 wire molex connector to two arcade buttons. I replaced the power on and reset connectors to the mother board from my case with the ones I had made and now I have 2 real arcade buttons to power on and reset my computer. The molex connector allows me to quickly disconnect the case and pull the computer out of my cabinet just in case.

[simplygriff]

There's another idea.  How about just wiring a button to a molex connector like the  original power button and still keeping the original button and wiring intact.  This should be able to keep the warranty intact by not destroying any original parts.

Was this basically what you did moloch?

[SoundDoc]

The short answer to your question is No.

Dell motherboards don't support power on from mouse, hotkey, f1, etc... This goes for all Dell motherboards, the Dimension (even the XPS), OptiPlex, and the Precision desktops.

The only options that are supported by the Bios are for power on after AC loss, and for wakeup from Lan.

The only thing I can suggest is as others have, wire onto the powerbutton connection on the motherboard. It wouldn't require modifying your machine, as long as you did it right.

You would need a button, some wire, and a 2 pin connector to swap with that of the cases power switch on the motherboard. You could use a spare cab Pushbutton, some spare wire, and a 2 pin header connector.

Depending on which dell motherboard it is, they usually place the power connection on the far left/front of the pin headers.  Its well marked.
You could even use a old cd-rom audio cable (cut down to 2 pins) in a pinch as a proper plug, but ripping one  out of a junk machine is far easier.
You would just extend the wires up to the button on your cab.
I highly doubt Dell would even blink about this. Its not against warrenty to open your system, and since your not cutting anything, simply swapping a plug, they would never know.

To top it off, a current sensing power bar (don't have the link handy) would power up the rest of your cab when it sensed the pc turn on.

SD

[SoundDoc]

Heres a better link to what I was suggesting:
http://joelsgadgets.com/computeronpushbutton.html
and the link I just pulled it from where the same idea was being discussed:
http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=19682;start=msg164607#msg164607

sd

[simplygriff]

Right on.  That's what I think I'm going to do.  Thanks for the info everyone.

[SirPeale]

Don't forget, most retail computer cases may have a label on them to determine if you've opened the case or not.  Doing so may void your warranty immediately.

There is a way to get your computer to power on on application of A/C current.  It's mentioned in the FAQ thread in the top of this forum.

[simplygriff]

A future member sent me this link for various computer mods some of you may want to check out.

http://forums.bit-tech.net/forumdisplay.php?s=65b00b0aaba3c567844d33a51428d4be&f=48

-G