Cab External Power Button Question

[slapaham]

I'm positive that my PC cannot power on with the press of a key on the keyboard. However, I have some leftover bits and pieces from an old PC. One of these bits was the wire to the power button on the case. I had ripped it out and it was simply a black rectangular block plug that I guess plugs into the motherboard (?) and 2 wires coming from it - yellow and red - would it possible to attach a crimp to these 2 wires and attach a push button to it. Then unplug my existing wire to power button on my PC and replace it with this and mount it outside the cab. If so, which colour wires would attach where on the microswitch or would it not matter?

Any help would be very much appreciated!

[Franco B]

Sure no problem, it's a commonly done thing.

The button on your PC is a momentary NO SPST switch, just like a standard pushbutton + microswitch setup.

Just connect the wires/crimps to the NO and ground terminals of your buttons microswitch.

[slapaham]

Cheers Franco - appreciate the help. 

[garnerb350]

Slapaham...I went through the same thing...I found an old wire ( with black plug) and I have an Dell 4600...The colors were all different and what I did was take my flashlight and gave a good look over and traced my wires ...On my PC you have the switch, and 2 LCD lights...( 6 lines total....they plugged into the MB) the Power switch I had on the PC I think had a blue and brown wire...I knew that these 6 lines were for switch and lights so I knew if I disconnected them , no harm would happen to the computer...I then plugged the extra line in the slots and hooked them up to the pushbutton...BAM! works like charm...I didnt splice into the lines because if I needed the PC for future use...no harm was done to the pc....

[dkubarek]

I know this isn't what you're asking, but I set my computer (XP SP2) to standby at 30 minutes. It leaves the hard disk on (if you tell it to) and you just have to push any buttons or wiggle the joystick and the front end pops up 2 seconds later. It wastes more power, so it gets shut down when not in use, but I made it for 3 nephews and at 2 months, it's not very often getting to shut down (and only standby due to school constraints). It's nice when people not familiar with it walk over, wiggle a stick and see all the games pop up, tho.