Remote Power Button?

[Zarathustra[H]]

Hey all,

I am plotting my next rig, and I am considering having a water cooled case concealed under the desk, with an external CD/DVD drive custom mounted to the desk, so that all you see is a desk with a monitor on it, and a CD drive within easy reach.

I am trying to figure out how to tackle the power button.

It whould be fairly easy to - with standard buttons from any electronics catalog - make my own that will plug into the power button connector on the motherboard but this might wind up looking ugly as off the shelf power buttons are rarely attractive.

Does anyone know of a commercially available external to the case power button extension? If it looks nice I may get it instead.

Thanks,
Matt

 

[criccio]

Flush mount a LED vandal switch with a custom long cable. Power switches are pretty simple, its only 2 wires.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Ohh, those look nice. I'd never heard of them before. Thanks for the suggestion.

Does anyone by any chance have a wiring diagram or specification of sorts of the power switch specification?

In other words, what is the motherboard expecting to turn it on, just a brief short of the two wires? and a second brief short triggers a shutdown signal? Extended short forces power off?

 

[Cheeptech]

PC power switches are momentary interrupt switches.. 2 wires that are basically shorted allowing current to flow through the circuit triggering the board. There is no real concern for polarity for the switch itself, and the LED in a vandal switch would typically be powered by the Power LED header in the motherboard front panel connector, usually located on the same connector block that the power switch connects to.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

PC power switches are momentary interrupt switches.. 2 wires that are basically shorted allowing current to flow through the circuit triggering the board. There is no real concern for polarity for the switch itself, and the LED in a vandal switch would typically be powered by the Power LED header in the motherboard front panel connector, usually located on the same connector block that the power switch connects to.

Excellent. Thank you.

It's been a while since I connected all of these (my last build was in a shuttle XPC case, so everything was pre-connected).

I remember peering over the motherboard manual and connecting all the little power button and led cables used to be my least favorite part of a build

 

[chronic9]

is there a maximum length of cable that be used for this?

i kinda like the idea of hiding my next computer too.....

finally get rid of my Wave master case...

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

is there a maximum length of cable that be used for this?

i kinda like the idea of hiding my next computer too.....

finally get rid of my Wave master case...

From the description of how the power button works, within reason I dont think it would matter how long it is. its just looking for a simple short, its not trasferring a signal.

If you had the means, you could probably install it in your neighbors house or across town

 

[chronic9]

haha. i would just used a speaker cable, since its nice and isolated for the power button....