# On/Off?



## ceresone (Oct 7, 2005)

The power button on my tower has decided to give me problems, it want's to slide inside the housing. I have everything plugged into a power strip, so thats how I've been turning it on and off. Am I hurting anything doing this?


----------



## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

by totally cutting the power, eventually the battery that allows the pc to holds it's settings will die. then you may have to set things up again if you are not using the default BIOS settings.


----------



## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

THe BIOS is seldom battery powered its ususally EEPROM, The clock is usually the only thing battery powered on modern mother boards. 


As long as she is propertly shutting down the computer and letting it power itself off (or shutdown to an off request ) then the power strip is fine.


----------



## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

Gary in ohio said:


> The BIOS is seldom battery powered its usually EEPROM, *The clock is usually the only thing battery powered on modern mother boards.*
> 
> 
> As long as she is properly shutting down the computer and letting it power itself off (or shutdown to an off request ) then the power strip is fine.


 Yes that is about it. 
I have been doing this power-strip shutting off the entire machine (only when it is completely Shutdown) and after SIX Years my battery finally needed to be replaced, I did that, and the CLOCK was the ONLY thing that needed to be reset.~! Real easy now I am set for another 6 years but I will have a new puter before that.


----------



## ceresone (Oct 7, 2005)

Therin lies the problem--and it sounds as if I'M causing one.
The only way I can avoid using the tower button (on/off switch) is to shut off/ turn on the computer by the power strip. Couse I can turn it off the right way-but then I can't turn it on, without using the button.
So, I'm guessing, by what Meloc said, I'm setting myself up for bigger problems.
(Is whatever holds the "button" in place just worn out?)


----------



## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

Are you not using the Shut down Part?? Where you click on the Start Menu click on turn off computer, and then a prompt comes up and asks you what you want to do? Restart,* Shutdown*, etc?
Isn't That the way you been shutting down the computer?? 
Doing the powerstrip saves electricity that is why AFTER the computer Does Shut Down on its own, then I kill the power strip.
If you are just Killing the power while the Computer is up and running, it IS hard on it to do it that way and may cause problems.


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

ceresone said:


> So, I'm guessing, by what Meloc said, I'm setting myself up for bigger problems.


I'm with Gary in this one. I think continuing to use the power strip switch will be fine.

I'm not seeing rechargeable batteries on mainboards any longer. I haven't see those since the 486 days. Today you mostly see Lithium CMOS batteries that are roughly the size & shape of a nickel, and my understanding is that they are not rechargeable.


----------



## Manny (Dec 26, 2003)

If you are willing to open up the computer you might find that it would be an easy chore to fix the switch. I had this happen on one of my computers and when I opened it up I found that the switch mechanism was held in with a form of "hot" glue. I used my hot glue gun to reinforce the mounting of the switch parts and it has been ok now for over a year. As long as the switch will still open and close you can use gobs of hot glue to hold it in place. I think the switch only switches around 5 volts so there is no problem with shorting or leaking through the hot glue. This would sure beat what you have to go through now.


----------



## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

this was updated last month, but who knows? you guys know more than i do.



"A *CR2032 CMOS* battery is not designed to be rechargeable; that is, to be able to go from being fully charged to being fully discharged and then recharged repeatedly. However, it does receive a trickle charge when the computer is switched on. This extends the life of the battery considerably if the computer is used regularly. Such a battery can last up to five years or more. However, it discharges completely in a few weeks if the computer isn't used, because it keeps the CMOS BIOS chip powered up. The motheboards are shipped from China with the CMOS jumper it its disconnected position to prevent the battery from discharging. 
Most motherboard vendors and PC manufacturer's set the jumper in its enabled position when the motherboard or PC containing the motherboard is sold. However, motherboards can be sold with the jumper in its disabled position, which renders the PC that uses a motherboard in that state unable to retain customised settings. A dead or disabled CMOS battery usually produces an invalid-settings or settings-lost message at startup, not a blank screen. The user would then have to enter the BIOS and enable and save its default or failsafe or optimal setting every time the PC starts up. 
With ATX motherboards, the power supply provides power to the CMOS chip if the PC iitself is switched off but is attached to the mains supply, which is switched on. A user who unplugs the PC from the mains or switches the power off at the mains supply, will shorten the life of the CMOS battery. "

http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/BIOS.htm


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

MELOC said:


> However, it does receive a trickle charge when the computer is switched on. This extends the life of the battery considerably if the computer is used regularly.


I actually wasn't aware of that. Thanks.

But the fact remains that he still intends to use the computer regularly, which should be enough to keep the battery up.


----------



## backwoodsman7 (Mar 22, 2007)

MELOC said:


> "A *CR2032 CMOS* battery is not designed to be rechargeable ... However, it does receive a trickle charge when the computer is switched on ... However, it discharges completely in a few weeks if the computer isn't used ... A user who unplugs the PC from the mains or switches the power off at the mains supply, will shorten the life of the CMOS battery. "
> http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/BIOS.htm


The ONLY part quoted above that's not complete BS, is the first phrase. Lithium batteries DO NOT receive a trickle charge from the motherboard, and they DO NOT go flat in a few weeks if the computer isn't used. Whoever wrote that doesn't know what he's talking about, and is mixing in some things that apply to the rechargeable batteries some motherboards used to use.

When I need a battery for a motherboard, the first place I look is in all the old computers lying around here. Most of them are in the 8-10 year old range, haven't been powered on in YEARS, and most likely still have their original battery. Half of these batteries are still good, and I usually get a couple years' use out of them. And my computers always get line power turned off with a power strip or UPS after they're shut down.

But, thanks for the reminder of how easy it is to find bad advice on the internet.

Many computers have a setting for what you want it to do when the power comes on, the choices being stay off, power on, or last state. I usually set it to come on when the power is turned on. That setting is there so you can make it do what you want if you turn off AC power with a power strip.


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

backwoodsman7 said:


> The ONLY part quoted above that's not complete BS, is the first phrase. Lithium batteries DO NOT receive a trickle charge from the motherboard, and they DO NOT go flat in a few weeks if the computer isn't used.


That's always been my understanding.


----------



## lharvey (Jul 1, 2003)

My two cents.

Shutting down a computer by basically just cutting the power, by outlet strip or ripping the power cord out of the wall is begging for disaster.

When shutting down, there are certain steps the OS needs to perform before powering off.

It is the exact same thing as loosing the power every day. Eventually you will crash and that's that.

The only time you should do a cold boot or shut down is in an emergency when all else fails.

Sounds to me that this is a Win98 machine which really makes the point moot at this point. It's old and out of date anyway.

Unless you use the steps that Backwoodsman said.


----------



## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

And if th is what you are doing the best in the world you should be doing then is just LEAVE the bugger ON Never turn it off. You can set it to go to "Sleep" But leave the machine running, 24/7. The is a specific order in which programs shut down, and Windows has many on the back ground that you do not see. Shutting down at any point time by using a power strip may just Leave one or more Programs hanging in mid air, and bingo you will crash the machine at some point in time.
Leave it ON never shutting it down would then be a better option. IMO.
Heck at work we Made parts for the hard drives those robots were ALL controlled by computers and Never never shut down even when the unit was not working. UNLESS the unit was going to be for an Extended period of time like Months.~! But that was the only case, other then that they ran 24/7 365~!! For Years and Years some were old Windows 95 some even older then that and still working just fine.


----------



## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

i won't argue if it is possible to trickle charge a NiCad, the important issue is if the system will lose any settings if it is totally disconnected from power. in a sense, gary is correct. some, or even many pc's have a flashable bios. i should have stated that the cmos can be cleared with a loss of power and that could result in the use of default settings from whatever bios the system has...flashable, non-flashable...whatever. if the user has settings that are not the default settings (it happens often in custom built machines), a loss of power can clear the cmos if the battery is dead. if that happens, the default settings programmed on the bios chip, whatever bios chip, are used. if they don't jive with what your setup requires, you may then need to change settings to get things running properly again. this is how i understand it to the best of my knowledge and according to dozens of pages of bogus info on the web concerning bios, cmos and the use of jumpers to clear the cmos. apparently the clock is not the only thing that requires energy to retain settings. so, if a person were to rely on the battery by disconnecting the power on a routine basis, eventually the battery will die and the cmos settings will be lost resulting in the use of default settings, again from whatever bios you have.

there is lots of interesting reading if you google all of the terms...eeprom, bios, cmos, battery...and if you believe any of it.

as to the switch, the hot glue sounds like the best advice given by anyone. i have rigged switches for several machines. i built a few ATX machine in AT cases and had to rig a switch to the motherboard instead of the 115v switching directly to the power supply. the only problem is that with some cases, you have a real hard time getting the front panel off. some are screwed on and others have tabs that can break if you don't have 4 hands to "jimmy" all of the tabs when you try to remove it. then again, others allow direct access to everything you need. the only way to find out is to try.


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

MELOC said:


> i won't argue if it is possible to trickle charge a NiCad


But they haven't used NiCad CMOS batteries since the 486 days (they didn't work very well in that application). They use Lithium CMOS batteries now.


----------



## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

dude...whatever. if you want to argue, talk to the hand. it's about power loss not charging batteries.


----------



## aaronwesley94 (May 23, 2008)

:rotfl:


----------



## beorning (Apr 14, 2006)

I'll second the hot glue fix. I've used hot glue to secure power switches more than few times when case modding. It holds up pretty well. 

If the button is too far gone for the hot glue fix and you aren't terribly concerned with appearance, you can remove the actual power switch from the button mechanism and feed it out the hole in the case that the button occupied so it's accessible. The switch is usually held to the button assembly with plastic tabs and is pretty easy to seperate.


----------



## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

beorning said:


> I'll second the hot glue fix. I've used hot glue to secure power switches more than few times when case modding. It holds up pretty well.
> 
> If the button is too far gone for the hot glue fix and you aren't terribly concerned with appearance, you can remove the actual power switch from the button mechanism and feed it out the hole in the case that the button occupied so it's accessible. The switch is usually held to the button assembly with plastic tabs and is pretty easy to seperate.


Better yet, get a new case. Heck, they start at only $20. It's a job to transplant everything into the new case, but everyone will think you got a new computer!


----------



## backwoodsman7 (Mar 22, 2007)

MELOC said:


> so, if a person were to rely on the battery by disconnecting the power on a routine basis, eventually the battery will die


Sorry, but this is simply not true. I'd really rather just let it slide instead of having to get confrontational about it, but there are a lot of folks who come here for help from supposed experts. When someone talks as though he knows what he's talking about, then spreads misinformation, it's those who don't know any better who get hurt. A forum like this works a lot better if folks have the humility and good grace to admit it when they're wrong.

(Well, technically it is true -- the battery will die eventually no matter what you do. But removing AC power won't affect its lifespan at all.)

This thread has strayed pretty far from the original poster's question. Several have assumed she's just turning off the power without first shutting down Windows; that may be true, but she never said it. I think her question has been pretty thoroughly answered at this point; to state it concisely, as long as the operating system is first shut down via the menu, there's no harm at all in turning off the power with a power strip.


----------



## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

i am curious ceresone, what system do you have?


----------



## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

These batteries now days are nothing more then the SAME ones that go into watches, calculators, hearing aids, the Same ones, and Those Are Not rechargeable. These are just plain ordinarily cell type batteries. That last many years with or with out the computer running or not. geesh, what about all the computers that in boxes? 
Mine lasted over 6 years even though I have been shutting it off completely either via a power strip OR just plain unplugging it. Even going on vacation for 2 months at a time it was unplugged.
I replaced it and only had to set the clock and that was it.


----------



## ceresone (Oct 7, 2005)

Meloc, I AM running a old system, but I do have to maintain it, as I simply dont have the money to replace it.
I'm using a Gateway 450, with 98SE. I bought it new in 1998--so--I know, it should probably be retired. My DIL bought a Dell, with Vista, last year, and has had nothing but trouble.
And , right, I was turning it off at the power supply, instead of going thru the shut-down. I say, WAS, before learning that was a no-no. Thanks Everyone.
(I' can't figure out if the front panel comes off alone--so think I best not try to open it to fix my switch)


----------



## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

you will most likely have to remove the side panel to gain access to the front panel. they often just snap in place with a few plastic tabs. as old as it is, those tabs may be brittle. you may be able to actually see the switch if you remove the side panel and look in there. i doubt it will hurt anything to take a peek inside.

hmm...i am thinking i may have two of those cases right now. my first pc was a gateway, maybe a 450 or 400, purchased new in 1998. mine ran win 98. i will try to take a look at one of them and see what i can find out about it.


----------



## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

i have the gateway g6-400 case apart right now. it looks like mine has a plastic button assembly that pushes in to touch a seperate switch. the actual button i push is only a plastic lever that pushes in and "actuates" the actual switch. it touches a tiny plastic, rectangular "rod" or whatever, and that is the actual switch. and don't you know it...mine is a bit sticky too. it still works, but i can feel it is not moving freely like when new. perhaps it is just dust or dirt building up that is making the plastic lever hang.

from the look of my case, you may be able to remove the front panel of the case without too much trouble. all i had to do was remove the side panel to check things out, but really all i needed to do was pop the front panel off from the top and wiggle it GENTLY while lifting. it has two tabs on the bottom that sit on the metal case. they don't snap in, they are like little claws that sit in the sharp egde of the metal case. the top part of the front panel has 2 metal spring clips that simply pop free when you pry the panel at the top. so i was able to pry the top of the front panel and pop the spring clips free, and then i was able to wiggle the panel while lifting to remove the panel.

the little plastic tabs/clips/feet are made so that you sort of have to lean the front panel away from the pc (from the top down), and then wiggle and lift. the back tab/clip/foot was a little tight, so i was very careful to wiggle it gently so it didn't break.

if yours is the same, you may find it is only dirt. you may also find that the whole plastic lever assembly has popped loose from the front panel. you may also find it is cracked.

that said, if you look at the pc with the front panel removed, you will see the little rectangular switch actuator sticking out. you can use it simply by pushing it, just as you would have used the button with the front panel on.


----------



## aaronwesley94 (May 23, 2008)

Ugggg....those gateway essentials always had power buttons breaking. If you can't repair that button with hot glue, and don't want to see the button hanging out of the front, here is a completely new front panel with button for 9 dollars plus shipping. http://cgi.ebay.com/GATEWAY-GP-Esse...1QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247


----------



## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

just thought i would share some pics of the inside of the front panel to help ceresone if she pulls the panel. there are pics of the button assembly, the metal clips and the feet of the panel.


----------



## ceresone (Oct 7, 2005)

Thanks, everyone, and a seperate Thanks to Meloc...


----------

