Unusual case idea: extra power switch

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:18 am

Hey SPCR, long time no word. I haven't been posting or paying much attention to SPCR because I haven't been buying any new computer parts in a long time, but although I'm extremely out of the loop on everything, something came to mind that I though I probably ought to mention.

Okay, so although all of SPCR's techniques make it possible to make a PC inaudible from even right next to your head, tucking a PC away can help a lot(and sometimes is a good idea for other reasons anyway), but that can make certain parts of it particularly hard to get at. So I thought that a case having an extra power button or two at the top, back and/or side would be nice feature. Or, maybe even go further and have a power button that can be pulled away from the case and attached wherever.

(Although now that I think about it, this kind of thing would be rather easy mod anyway.)

RoGuE · Post by **RoGuE** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 7:47 am

I think the reason you dont see that is 99% of the people buying the case will have no use for that second power button.

Like you said yourself, its a quick mod. all you really need to do is splice into the power button wires and make em longer. and pretty much, the sky is the limit for where you put that switch..bearing in mind you have a long wire coming out of your case should you decide to move it lol.

HOW SWEET WOULD IT BE to recess the power button into the top of your desk..like up by the base of your monitor. you could even get fancy and make it a military style toggle switch w/ cover lmao

*day-dreams* ......wow ...im a geek.

Matija · Post by **Matija** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 8:45 am

Or you could use your keyboard to turn on the PC.

RoGuE · Post by **RoGuE** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 1:33 pm

Matija wrote:Or you could use your keyboard to turn on the PC.

lol...but wheres the fun in that?!?

honestly tho, if you were interested in turnin on the pc from your seat..like matija said..use the keyboard lol

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 4:58 pm

RoGuE wrote:I think the reason you dont see that is 99% of the people buying the case will have no use for that second power button.

Well, yeah, but they could just put it on one or two specific cases and explicitly mention that this makes them easier to tuck away. I mean, why does it have a power button in the first place?

RoGuE wrote:Like you said yourself, its a quick mod. all you really need to do is splice into the power button wires and make em longer. and pretty much, the sky is the limit for where you put that switch..bearing in mind you have a long wire coming out of your case should you decide to move it lol.

I wouldn't really want to do that, I wouldn't want to wreck the original switch, I mean, you can simply unplug it, and it's probably not the best kind of switch to attach somewhere else.

Matija wrote:Or you could use your keyboard to turn on the PC.

Nope, doesn't work. It worked on a pentium 2 I had ages ago, but not on what I have now. And this is with a PS2 keyboard, is this ever even possible with a USB one?

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Wed Jul 08, 2009 9:58 pm

mathias wrote:And this is with a PS2 keyboard, is this ever even possible with a USB one?

Yes, and has been for years. Some keyboards even have a little "sleep" button which will turn your PC off too. Turn off, turn on, all from the keyboard.

mark19891989 · Post by **mark19891989** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:11 am

nutball wrote:
mathias wrote:And this is with a PS2 keyboard, is this ever even possible with a USB one?
Yes, and has been for years. Some keyboards even have a little "sleep" button which will turn your PC off too. Turn off, turn on, all from the keyboard.

in the bios of my pc, i can set it to turn on with the ps2 keyboards space bar, but i have no options for usb keyboards

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:04 pm

mark19891989 wrote:in the bios of my pc, i can set it to turn on with the ps2 keyboards space bar, but i have no options for usb keyboards

That doesn't necessarily mean that wake-on-USB won't work. I have a couple of motherboards with similar BIOSes that work fine with USB keyboards despite lacking an explicit option. If you're running XP there are windows driver options which may also need tweaking to get it to work.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:34 pm

bit cord... splitter for Motherboard header... switch... soldering iron... I definately like the idea as I am bit paranoid with my Solo's front buttons...

porkchop · Post by **porkchop** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:59 pm

i've tried setting up my kb to turn on/off my pc- but the bios only shows options to wake up from sleep/suspend and not when it's shut down.

i'm under the impression it only works when the pc is on standby- am i wrong?

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:44 pm

porkchop wrote:i'm under the impression it only works when the pc is on standby- am i wrong?

Depends what sort of shut down you're talking about. I posted this in a different thread. Keyboard can wake the PC from S1, S3 and S4. S5 requires pressing the power button.

It doesn't really help that there's a confusing array of names for these states (sleep, standby, hibernate). If sleep=S3 and you can wake from that you should be able to wake from hibernate (S4) too.

jimmyzaas · Post by **jimmyzaas** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 3:37 pm

The nicer way would be a wireless/infrared remote to turn the sucker on. I think some of the htpc cases have that remote.

some boards don't support wake from USB keyboards because the bios turns off the usb ports. I know my gigabyte board doesn't. Your best bet would be to put it to S3 sleep. That usually works well with USB keyboard. I however had major issues with S3 and thus will not use it again.