Front Power Switch

[jrazor247]

When I press the power switch on the front of my case, it is only closed for the amount of that I hold it down. So starting the computer is just briefly touching the contacts together. Do motherboards expect the switch to stay closed during system operation?

[yoshi68]

Re: Front Power Switch

No it is only meant to be a momentary switch. Your motherboard will have a loop in it to keep the power going once the initial moment you hit the switch

[Psycho101]

Re: Front Power Switch

No it is only meant to be a momentary switch. Your motherboard will have a loop in it to keep the power going once the initial moment you hit the switch

Indeed. I agree.

It used to be the case that a PC had a push and click power button that would stay in when the rig was on and you'd push again to instantly cut the power.

the last PC I had that had that kind of switch was a Pentium 166 on a TX motherboard.All modern PC's can be powered off by software as well as by the power switch. for this to happen the power button needs to be how it is now. If it were not then software wouldn't be able to power anything down. The power button in a modern PC now simply sends a signal to the PSU to start up, which in turn starts up the rest of the rig. This is why there is always power flowing on the +5VSB (5 volt Stand By) PSU rail.

[MadMax2911]

Re: Front Power Switch

When I press the power switch on the front of my case, it is only closed for the amount of that I hold it down. So starting the computer is just briefly touching the contacts together. Do motherboards expect the switch to stay closed during system operation?

I learned another neat trick when Overclocking sometimes the system will become unbootable and need the BIOS settings cleared. The fastest way to do this is to use the reset SW on the case and reroute it to the Clear BIOS or Clear CMOS pins on the MOBO. It saves time when you have to reset and then take parts out to get down to Clear CMOS pins.
max out

[Psycho101]

Re: Front Power Switch

Yes, that's a good tip. I have my reset switch hooked up like that too.

If I have AHCI enabled then for some reason my USB keyboard (yes I do have USB KB enabled in BIOS) will not register me pressing the delete key to enter setup. It would register [F12] boot menu just fine, so no issue with DOS/non Windows KB settings. When I needed to enter the BIOS I had to use the reset to cear CMOS, and IDE mode would be active rather than AHCI, thus allowing me to get into the BIOS.

Seems that the POST process moves on so quick with AHCI on that the USB KB or even the whole USB controller hasn't initialised yet.

The fix for me was to enter a 5 second Hard Drive Delay in the BIOS options. Now the KB is initialised before the first POST screen finishes and I can enter the BIOS in AHCI mode.

[jrazor247]

Re: Front Power Switch

Yes, what you all said makes sense. I think I will use the PSU switch as on off, setting BIOS powers on setting accordingly. Use the case power switch for reset, and the reset switch for clear CMOS. If I wasn't having issues, I would just leave it on all the time. Thanks

[Chike]

Re: Front Power Switch

Using the PSU switch BIOS settings will be probably lost after long shutdown.
The switch used to rest CMOS is the reset switch not the power.

[Psycho101]

Re: Front Power Switch

Yes, what you all said makes sense. I think I will use the PSU switch as on off, setting BIOS powers on setting accordingly. Use the case power switch for reset, and the reset switch for clear CMOS. If I wasn't having issues, I would just leave it on all the time. Thanks

That's not going to work. You need the power button connected to the power pins on the motherboard.

What issues are you having that you'd need to set it up in such a strange way?

If you want zero power going through the PC when not in use, you can simply use the PSU switch for that purpose after powering off propperly. If you're shutting down the OS first, it will automatically power down the PC anyway.

[jrazor247]

Re: Front Power Switch

I was having very poor graphics issues. Investigating, I found my system only pulling 220 watts while playing crysis. Investigating further, the BIOS voltage dips to 2.7 volts, and then up to 4 volts. BIOS no longer auto-detects CPU and memory settings properly. I probably won't set up the switches as I mentioned, it was just an idea.

Flashing BIOS F11C, a text screen after post claimed to have flashed HDD and backup bios. It seemed strange, none of the past versions did so, and F11D and F11E did not either.

[Psycho101]

Re: Front Power Switch

Your problem definitely isn't switch related. To completely rule it out, use the reset button as the power switch and see if it makes any difference.

As for your BIOS issues, do acomplete CMOS clear. Find a jumper from an old HDD/DVD ROM/CD drive and place it over the clear CMOS pins. Remove the battery and wait for a hour. Then put the battery back in and remove the jumper. Go to the BIOS and load optimized defaults, save and exit. Even a full BIOS flash sometimes doesn't clear everything.

How are you measuring power consumption? If it's using software then it's not accurate. If you're using a plug in watt meter then they are more accurate but not exact.

Which voltage are you refering to when you say dips to 2.4V then up to 4V? Is that the 3.3V rail or the 5V rail? If either then again, how are you measuring the voltage? The only reliable way is with a DMM. Even PC Health readings are only approximate. I've found them to be +/-0.06V on CPU, VDIMM etc and sometimes more than 0.2V out on PSU Rails.

[jrazor247]

Re: Front Power Switch

I used a DMM to check the 3.3 power at the pin according to the datasheet for the MX chip.
I used a killawatt wall socket meter to measure what the PSU is pulling. If its 80% efficient, 220 watts at the wall is about 180 watts output. The most I've ever seen it pull was 360 watts at the wall while running occt GPU and CPU. I don't trust that program is good for the life of hardware, so I only it ran it for like 30 min total to get a clear idea of what are the max load temps and watts of GPU and CPU.
My bios does have a virus that prevents a complete flash using the FLASHSPI.exe, for which I don't know any switches to completely reprogram all BIOS code. The BIOS disallows DMA access to hardware, and so I can't even perform a Secure Erase of the disks. I have shelved the computer for now, but I heard AWDFLASH.EXE may work and has lots of options for more complete flashes.

[Psycho101]

Re: Front Power Switch

Yes, AWDFLASH.exe may allow the reprogramming of all BIOS data blocks. If you PM Lsdmeasap he may also have a method. There are ways and means that aren't generally discussed here as they're a last resort and unless really needed, can break things if not performed correctly.

If your PSU is showing those voltages with a DMM then it's most likely the unit itself that's fault not any components. Setting up the switches differently certainly won't help as there's no current going through them, they're merely triggers to allow the +5VSB to connect and turn on the PSU. Replacing the power supply should be top priority on that machine.

OCCT should be safe to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year as long as the PC is stable and well cooled. It will not reduce the life of parts any more than anything else that fully loads the PC. Your power consumption figures seem fine. People grossly over estimate the amount of power a PC draws. Mine with two GPU's oc'd, CPU OC'd etc etc probably draws barely 420W from the busines end of the PSU while gaming (on average). A game won't be using the CPU at as intense a level as a stress test program will. The task manager may show 100% CPU Usage, but there are different intensities of 100%, it depends what instructions are being used, cache etc.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Front Power Switch

The flashSPI Switches can be found using the /? switch, If I remember right there is only a few.

The boot block is all that it is skipping over, and I think one of the switches will allow you to flash the full BIOS be clearing the DMI during the flash.

Qflash should also flash it all, just disable keep DMI Data

I am not sure what you are meaning about secure erasing your disks, but you should not have any issues doing that. How are you trying and with what programs? What errors or issues are you having with that?