Some BIOSes on ATX computers have an option what to do on power resume (stay off, switch on, same state as before power outage) so you could use that 'power for individual sockets' thing. If you don't have that option you can force the computer on by bridging two wires on the PSU mainboard connector (usually green an black).

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

If you don't have that option you can force the computer on by bridging two wires on the PSU mainboard connector (usually green an black).

I second that. The easiest quick&dirty solution would be a bent paperclip shoved into the backside of the ATX connector (at the green and one of the black cables) 😊

5u3 wrote:

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

If you don't have that option you can force the computer on by bridging two wires on the PSU mainboard connector (usually green an black).

I second that. The easiest quick&dirty solution would be a bent paperclip shoved into the backside of the ATX connector (at the green and one of the black cables) 😊

<GULP> 😖 I was hoping for something a little more "clean". If I had to, I could start engineering a DIY type solution... A linux box (for remote management), a handful of relays, momentary switches, and some fancy coding (maybe a Apache/web front end). But that's a lot more than I was hoping to take on.

Only an idea...

Grab yourself a OneClick powerstrip http://www.oneclickpower.co.uk/home.htm (hopefully you'll find an equivalent for the US?) and equip each PC with a NIC that supports Wake On LAN. You can then use a magic packet creation tool to wake the machine up by directing it at the NIC's MAC address.

I've got one of these power blocks and I notice that my NIC (onboard Intel chipset) is still powered when the PC shuts down (link light on my switch is on). I've not tried WOL on mine as yet but it should work.

The german computer magazine C't had a DIY project for that: A web-interfaced powerstrip 😁 Here is the link.
Unfortunately the article is available in german only, and it uses 230V mains power...

This topic spurred me into thinking how I could make use of the WOL feature....

Having spent a little time with it I now have the ability to remote wake up my PC across the Internet. The router doesn't actually support WOL but with a bit of command line tinkering I was able to configure it so that it would be able to forward the magic packet to my PC's NIC 😁

Just need to configure some SSH or perhaps the MS VPN server now?!

He has AT computers - which don't support WOL. For an AT computer with PCI slots (I dont think there is a ISA nic wit WOL) you could build WOL support yourself without too much effort (I think), but without PCI you have nowhere to put your nic.

Doh! I forgot WOL required an ATX feed! Earlier PCI cards had WOL cables that attached to mobo headers so 'maybe' something could be jerry rigged?!

Doesn't all this assume the PC in question has the capability of going into standby for the OneClick to work properly? I'm not even sure they make a US 110V version.

I'm starting to think about building a spare linux box (like a PPro or something), run Apache and build a simple web-front end, then have the web page call CGI's or PHP's which will send signals to a parallel port device. This imaginary parallel port device could use the 8bit parallel port data as an address for which machine to toggle power. Then each PC would just need an AC relay for AT PSU's or a momentary switch (to short the PWR-Switch signal line on the Mobo header) for ATX).

There are ready-made solutions around but they are quite expensive - http://www.dataprobe.com/power/index.html

Reckless wrote:

There are ready-made solutions around but they are quite expensive - http://www.dataprobe.com/power/index.html

Yeah, those are link the ones I see in our datacenters for our servers. No if I only had $690 to blow. 😢

Those would do the trick, though... Especially if I configured the ATX machines to boot-up on a power cycle via that bios setting. That would eliminate needing to worry about the ATX power switch signal.

QBiN wrote:

Some of you know that I have a retarded (read: extensive) collection of old systems.

And some of us don't know 😉 Could you list them in System Specs forum? 😀

robertmo wrote:

And some of us don't know 😉 Could you list them in System Specs forum? 😀

Already did. 😀
My Collection of Oldskool Fun

A couple of things have changed. I'll go update that thread.