Turn on power through network?
 

Greetings,
We have a computer lab, where students use the computers and they keep turning them off, not through shut down (we have that root'ed) but just click the power button on the case.
With everything else we can deal with, but when the power goes out, that's it..
Is there a way to make the computer turn on through the network?

Thanks.

Had this problem myself, though with Windows XP systems. I ended up solving it by disconnecting the power switch from the mainboard. I then used a small momentary switch in its place, but accessible only via a fine pointed item through a tiny hole in the side of the case. Welcome home Araldite!

In the end, the soft power switches were never really used as I configured the system BIOS to go to "full on" after a power outage. If anyone turned off the mains or we had a power failure, then switching on the system would result in a fully on system. The only way to stop the systems running was to perform a shutdown or find a pointy thing!

Carl.

I've heard of "wake-on-lan" ethernet cards once... you can search for this technology.

most newer servers (compaq at least) ship with "Lights On" boards that allow this... my supposition would be that a device like this would be necessary to do hard power resets...

or you could of cours replace the power switch with a momentary key operated switch :)

I would use wake on lan. Many NICs are equipped with this functionality so long as your MB bios is capable of WOL (wake on lan). WOL is enabled through PCI 2.2. So if your MBs are PCI 2.2 enabled, all you need is some NICs with WOL capabilities. The way it works is you configure the NIC to "wake" up the system to a magic packet or ping, or whatever, when the NIC receives it it will power on the system. Pretty easy stuff actually and it works great. Look into WOL, this is the way to go. Locking down the power switch is a pretty ghetto way of approaching it.

ghetto.... LOL - that is one of my favorite sayings...