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Acorp 5ALI61 (Ali Aladdin V) Baby AT with ATX power - Instant power off

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First post, by lloydie_p

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Hi All,

Can any one confirm if the Super Socket 7 Acorp 5ALI61 (alternate names Ford Lian AGP-ALI, RedFox AGP-ALI) revision: F (any) motherboard power button instant off in the BIOS actually works for them when using/powering the board via its 20pin ATX connector? The Windows 98 Shutdown (APM) will automatically power down this system as expected so oddly some sort of instant off is possible.

Before anyone asks, I know I can hold the ATX power button for ~5 seconds for a power down, but as retro systems/code loves to lockup and we tend to be swapping/testing components during builds this 5 second wait becomes tedious quickly.
I don't know if my board is iffy but ctrl-alt-delete (warm reset) doesn't always work as expected depending on the type of lock up or DOS program running (granted not sufficiently tested), I have a Tekram Socket 7 Intel TX based ATX motherboard and baring the lack of AGP its operation is "standard", for starters its instant off is instant and ctrl-alt-delete seems to work as I've come to expect!

I used to build white box systems back in the day, but if I recall correctly (?) these el-cheapo VIA and ALi boards always had weird BIOS functionality issues (i.e. ctrl-alt-delete doesn't respond/work until POST completes and the OS starts booting) ? That said I don't recall working with branded boards like the ASUS P5A (Ali Aladdin V) so I have never been certain if these functionality issues were just due to cheaper boards or fundamental to the Chipsets.

Not sure where to share ...but if any ones wondering, FYI you can swap (used a TL866II programmer) the 2mbit rom (EPROM/ BIOS) on the revision: F version of this board with a 1mbit rom and use 128KB BIOS versions i.e 1.x BIOS Versions, seems stable with 1.4 - 1.5 but no performance testing done. Unfortunately this test still didn't help my ATX instant power off behaviour.

Lastly, caution don't use the Clear CMOS jumper with this board powered on, on my board it seems to create a direct short circuit (no limiting/pull down resistor), thankfully it seems I powered off in time as the board still works but one of two diodes near the battery heated up so much it de-soldered it self from the board!

Otherwise any Ideas appreciated.

Thanks

Reply 1 of 2, by Horun

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Not sure but ATX PSU are different than AT, so using an ATX PSU on some newer AT boards may not allow a true "instant off" like an AT supply would.
Ctrl-Alt-Del only works for non-hardware system lockup resets afaik, even old 486 could have a hardware issue that a soft reset does not work but the rest button should.
that is all I can think of in 30 secs 😀

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 2 of 2, by lloydie_p

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Horun wrote on 2022-08-16, 02:10:

Not sure but ATX PSU are different than AT, so using an ATX PSU on some newer AT boards may not allow a true "instant off" like an AT supply would.
Ctrl-Alt-Del only works for non-hardware system lockup resets afaik, even old 486 could have a hardware issue that a soft reset does not work but the rest button should.
that is all I can think of in 30 secs 😀

Thanks man, but why bother leaving the options in the BIOS? I'm just trying to get consensus that this is known behaviour on these AT boards with the dual power option (AT and ATX power connector) or does it just come down to the board/vendor. That way hopefully I can at least look out for an SS7 AGP board (VIA/ALi) that doesn't cost an arm and leg where the instant off works. Regarding CAD resets I can only say comparatively, compared to my other TX based Socket 7 board, for example the ALi seems to lockup/not respond to CAD where the TX doesn't ... its just apart of an increasing list of wired behaviour on this ALi based board, Win98 hanging during installation until I figured out I needed to disable legacy USB support is another "behaviour", likewise this setting didn't cause any similar Win98 issues on my other Socket 7, PII/PIII and P4 Boards . I don't want to give the Acorp 5ALI61/Ali Aladdin V a bad rap based on this/my board vendor, as it might just be a lemon, but if consensus says otherwise I'll go with that.

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