Question about shutting down XP

[BurgerKingDiamond]

I want to know wheter it's ok to just turn off my MAME computer without shutting down Windows XP first. I have a seperate ATX PSU with the pins jumped so that it turns on when I turn on the Power Strip that it's plugged into. This seperate PSU (when I first built the cab I had an extra and didn't feel like decasing my PC to use it's PSU) powers my marquee light, and coin lights. Now I want to trim down some of the components in my cab, so I want to get rid of the extra PSU, and decase the PC and use it's PSU to power marquee/coin lights in addition to PC itself. When I jump the certain pins to make the PSU come on when ever it's plugged into power, the PC will boot up, correct? When I want to shut eveything down I want to just turn off the Powerstrip so that everything turns off at once. Will it harm the PC to do this repeatedly without shutting down XP first?

[Encryptor]

If you're just turning off the pc while Windows is still running it will most definitely have bad consequences sooner or later. On most newer pc's you can just hit the power button on the pc and Windows will shut itself down. Just turning the pc off is never a good idea. Probably sooner rather than later you will corrupt some Windows files and your pc will no longer boot.

Encryptor

[BurgerKingDiamond]

Thanks. I figured it wouldn't be good.

[markronz]

There are a few other posts about this topic, one as recent as yesterday I think.   I posted one myself maybe 6 months back.  But no, it's definitely not good to just turn off your PC that way.  I made two different cabs before I figured that out.   For me, my MAME default cfg file kept being reset.  I suspect it was because it was in use when the PC shut off, and it caused it to get corrupted.  Then MAME would create a new one.    Then eventually the PC had all sorts of boot up problems due to hard drive corruption.   So again, I would not recommend just powering off.

What I did, and many others, is three things.
1.  First set up Windows so that when you push the power button, it is set to shut down windows.
2.  Extend the PC's power button so that it's a button on the back of the cabinet, or where ever you want it.  You can just use a normal push button for this if you want to.
3.  Get yourself a smart power strip.  These have one "controller" plug.  You plug the PC into the controller.  When you shut down the PC, the power strip can tell this, and it automatically shuts down all the devices plugged into the other plugs on the power strip.   It works out pretty slick.

As for running all your lights and everything else off the same power supply as your computer.   I personally tend to avoid this just because my computers don't have an excessively big PSU in them.  So I don't want to over tax it, or accidentally short it out some day ruining the computer.  I used a real arcade machines power supply from twisted quarter in one machine.  I've all used a normal wall wart power plug (if all the volts match and there's only a few things).   But that's all personal preference.  I understand the desire to want to eliminate extra components.  So if you have a power supply you thing is good enough, and you're comfortable with combining the two, the go for it.

[BurgerKingDiamond]

There are a few other posts about this topic, one as recent as yesterday I think.   I posted one myself maybe 6 months back.  But no, it's definitely not good to just turn off your PC that way.  I made two different cabs before I figured that out.   For me, my MAME default cfg file kept being reset.  I suspect it was because it was in use when the PC shut off, and it caused it to get corrupted.  Then MAME would create a new one.    Then eventually the PC had all sorts of boot up problems due to hard drive corruption.   So again, I would not recommend just powering off.

What I did, and many others, is three things.
1.  First set up Windows so that when you push the power button, it is set to shut down windows.
2.  Extend the PC's power button so that it's a button on the back of the cabinet, or where ever you want it.  You can just use a normal push button for this if you want to.
3.  Get yourself a smart power strip.  These have one "controller" plug.  You plug the PC into the controller.  When you shut down the PC, the power strip can tell this, and it automatically shuts down all the devices plugged into the other plugs on the power strip.   It works out pretty slick.

As for running all your lights and everything else off the same power supply as your computer.   I personally tend to avoid this just because my computers don't have an excessively big PSU in them.  So I don't want to over tax it, or accidentally short it out some day ruining the computer.  I used a real arcade machines power supply from twisted quarter in one machine.  I've all used a normal wall wart power plug (if all the volts match and there's only a few things).   But that's all personal preference.  I understand the desire to want to eliminate extra components.  So if you have a power supply you thing is good enough, and you're comfortable with combining the two, the go for it.

Yeah that was me. I posted in two sub-forums so I would get a quick answer. Thanks