ATX power supply (PC) twist to make question

Hello Graham,

I don’t know if this helps but I have done similar projects, for example put a PC in an arcade machine or an old juke box. What has worked best for me was to install a surge strip and wire its plug to the power switch. I would then simply plug the PC power cable in the surge strip and the go in the BIOS and set the PC to automatically turn on when it receives power. If your using the original power switch it may not be designed to carry that much power. In that case you may have to use a relay or transistor.

The reason I like the surge strip way better is because for these types of projects is that I usually have additional speakers, lights, or even a monitor in the box that I want powered on and off as well. Not just a computer.

To answer your original question though, I would test holding the power button in on the actual mother board you intend to use. Since they implemented the soft power on functionality I think almost all computers treat holding the button down as additional functionality such as hibernate or forced power off. I would not want you to end up with a computer that continually reboots.

Dave

 

IMO you would be better off putting a large momentary switch in there, you can still use the original turn knob dial on the momentary switch, but instead of turning it you just give it a slight push in... Appearance the same, function slightly different...