Motherboard in Box Question

[xezol]

Looking to build a control panel with a CPU motherboard inside it and I was wondering what people do to get the motherboard to power up? I've never powered one on without a case button. Any help is greatly appreciated.

xezol

www.xezol.com

[Howard_Casto]

Your going to need a power switch regardless of what you mount the board in.  In modern pc's anything can be used as a switch, even a arcade button.  Also modern pc's don't like it if this button is held down if that is what you were thinking about.  They have various power managment features, many of which are activated by holding down the power button for X number of seconds.  Also any version of windows newer than 98se will shutdown if the powerbutton is held down.

[SirPoonga]

What HC said.

here's an example.  Look at the shelf of my cabinet on my website.  The center button in the middle of the shelf is my power button.

It's just a normal arcade buttons.  If you open up a computer (as HC said, the modern computer, atx style) you will see the powerswith wires to the motherboard, not the powersupply.    Also like HC said, computers have power management stuff now so directly turning off the powersupply like older computer is bad.

Also, to turn the computer off, you hold that button for X seconds.  Though most new computer will automatically power down when you shutdown windows (if you use windows in your cabinet).  Many pc monitors (if you use pc monitor in your cabinet) have an auto shutoff too.  My monitor goes into a standby mode when the computer turns off.

Then you have computer cases like mine, AT/ATX compatible, it has both style switches, ahhhhhh.

[SNAAAKE]

you can use arcade buttons to power up your pc.
Just cut the 2 wires that goes to your pc power up button and splice them with the arcade button.When i sold some mame machines before,i had arcade buttons starting the PC.

luck luck

[BobA]

I have a button attached to the MB power on button but recently I have found that I can set my bios in the power management area to turn on power with "any button".  This means that any key on the KB or Ipac will turn on the PC.  This option was grouped in with the Power On by lan, modem ring etc features.

All I do now to turn on my box is touch any key on the control panel.

Might be a bit too much for some.

BobA

P.S. It has to be a fairly new MB to have these features.

[JustMichael]

xezol, don't forget you will have to include a pc power supply big enough to power the motherboard and cpu. That is going to increase the weight of your control panel.  You will probably need fans to move the air in and out of the control panel otherwise the cpu will fry.  You will also have to build the control panel tall enough for the underside of the controls, motherboard and pci/agp cards (like video and sound, unless you are using onboard ones).

[nullb0y]

yeah whaqt just michael said!