Connectors / Power switches

[rsbriggs]

After a power outage long enought to take down the UPS backups, I find myself poking random pins on random jumper blocks on motherboards where I don't remember the location of the power jumpers to try to get boards turned back on.

Does anyone know of something like a Radio Shack part number of a connector that fits the jumper block pins, so I could rig up some power switches (for those boards that won't auto-power up, or that I need to turn off/turn back on) ?

[IronBits]

I've pulled the wires from an old case and used them before.
Just strip the wires at the other end of the connector, touch it together and up it comes. I suppose you could buy a push button thing and solder it on the bare wires. ;)

[rsbriggs]

Ahhh - good idea.
Except I don't have any old, not in use cases :(
Grrr....

[meep]

Flat Head Screwdriver works nicely... bridge the gap :)

[rsbriggs]

You kind of missed my point. Given two dozen different motherboards with different jumper block connector configurations and different power positions on the connectors - my point is that I don't want to randomly poke around with a screwdriver.

IB's idea was a good one, but expensive. The local thrift store sometimes has junk computers that can be purchased for as little as $10.00 (but very rarely. Usually their inventory consists of some old junk gateway 386 boxes that they want $99 for and burned out 15" CRT monitors that they want $79 for.)

Salvaging the switch wires from the case, and assuming that I might get at most 4 useful sets of connectors per case, that makes them at least $2.50 each. Less that that if they happen to have USB connectors - which are probably good for at least couple of pairs, even if you have to cut them up...

[meep]

The other option is to set the bios to restart on power failure. So no button press is needed once power is resumed...

[rsbriggs]

Thanks for the suggestion, but...

That doesn't work on all boards, especially older ones that either don't have that setting, or boards that just don't obey it after a power failure. But my question is about power switch connectors specifically, not about BIOS settings - powering them up is a big pain, but only 1/2 the problem, the other is powering them down cleanly.

Here is why I need power switches on these 20 or so boards:

We've had several power outages that have lasted more than 10 minutes (which is about all the UPSes can keep their banks of 5 computers powered up), and are likely to have many more before the summer is out. All these boards are VNC controlled, but the network doesn't behave nicely when the power goes down - I am unable to put an UPS on the DSL modem, main wireless router, and three 24 port switches, so I can't get to them with VNC during a power outage.

If it's just a short outage, I don't care - that's what the UPSes are for. But if it's gone on for 5 minutes, it will probably continue on longer than the UPSes can support the computers, and I'd really like to start doing a clean shutdown of everthing. The BIOSes are set to shut down Windows when the power switch is pressed for 4 seconds, but there aren't any for me to press - thus my question.

In the five minutes I have between the power outage and when the UPSes are going to start failing, I have enough time to hit all the power buttons (if they had any) on everything to shut them down cleanly. I don't have enough time to poke around all the connectors on everything (some of which can't be reached very easily), mostly in the dark, hoping that I'm holding the power switch contacts closed, rather than shorting +5 to ground instead.

That's why I need some sort of connector that fits, so I can rig up power switches....

[Bok]

I also just pull switches from old cases. I've got about 10 of them I use or a screwdriver if there isn't one handy, yeah in some cases if I don't know which pins to connect I just drag the screwdriver down the whole row :)

I'm sure RadioShack must have something you could use though...

Bok

[rsbriggs]

About the closest they have are the jumpers... http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&product%5Fid=276-1512

Guess I'll have to start either start buying old junk cases, or go hunting at mouser or digikey for something..

[Helix_Von_Smelix]

dab a bit of the your wife/girlfriends nail polish on the top of the pins.

I use my girlfriends, hope the wife dosen't find out:blush: :blush:

just kiddin':cheers: :cheers:

[rsbriggs]

Unfortunately, the wife doesn't use glow-in-the-dark nail polish :p

[IronBits]

If it's Windows OS based, you can use the psexec and shutdown utils.
psexec \\computername shutdown now

www.sysinternals.com :D

[PCZ]

Solder an electrolytic capacitor across the startup pins.

1000uf should be enough.

[Merlin45]

Do like I have done.

Modify your UPS units and add several batteries to them instead of their standred 1 or 2.

My APC1500 came with 1 battery and only allowed up to 29 mins of backup time on my AMD64-3000 under full load. It now can withstand 3 hours of no AC. I just added 1 lawnmower battery to it and have it placed under the house. UPS recharges it when it does get used. its a cheap way to increase you UPS lasting power. And it only costed $22.79 to do it. ( note that it now handles 3 systems for 3 hours on backup under full load.)

As for using a replacement for the pins. I found that old warn out chipset fans connectors work great too.

But if you dont have any of them around.

Use old jumpers. You can get them at every computer store or repair shop. Most of the time if you go to a repair shop you can get them for free.......

Just pull out the copper connector inside it and glue in your wires. Or leave the copper connector inside, your choice.....


Hope I was some help......

[rsbriggs]

Yeah - that does give me an idea or two. D'oh... Next time I scrap a power supply, I need to salvage all the wires connectors out of it, and the internal fans - they connect via one of those very same fan connectors you mention. Three wire, you can cut the middle connector and end up with a good pair of jumpers. I just threw out three of them last week.

The jumpers isn't a bad idea, either - should be possible to cut the center connector and solder a wire to each side... They're about $1.70 per pack of 10 at Radio shack.

many thanks to everyone for the ideas :notworthy

[rsbriggs]

Bingo! The perfect thing to make power connectors out of?

You cut up IDE drive cables - the connectors cut easily, and you can get 12 connectors, complete with a pair of wires out of each one...

[Shish]

Flat head screw driver does it for me.
As none of the pins have much current on them and only led outs, just drag it across the pins until it fires up if you`ve forgotten.

Couple of server boards I have (old PII and PIII Xeons) which were a bit more complicated just got a couple wires soldered on the pins and it`s touch and go.