[aaric]

Ok here is my secenario any ideas or help is greatly appeciated....i have an old celeron 667 chip and mobo that i am trying to make work. It came out of an emachine computer which took a tumble off of a desk and smashed the power button. Now i cant power the computer up but i have everything need for it but a switch to turn it on. i also even have what looks to be a 9 pin harness that connects to the mobo and this wire used to connect to the switch. so basically i need to make a switch somehow that will be very cheap.
I also have an AT power supply with the switch connected to it and an ATX power supply you use a parts. I am taking any ideas into account and dont mind ruining some stuff to get it done. I will splice that ATX and AT wires together whatever will work.

Thanks in advance and please dont say buy a cheap case

[kamz]

im your man for moding(i only travel 1st class from uk)

[Mark620]

Do you have the old broken switch?
Is the MOBO an AT or is it a ATX?

The AT MOBO needs a DPST switch and an ATX MOBO needs a momentary contact SPST switch.

Looks like you need a cheap "momentary contact SPST switch".

[aaric]

Yes i have the old broken switch. The mobo is ATX. HOw can i get a momentary contact SPST switch, what does one look like, and how would i install it?

[cerberus]

radio shack.. theyll have what you need... you can even take a peice of wire and touch the two posts at once with it and it will boot

[aaric]

Heh About this wire thing anyone have a picture they could post....such as what 2 posts you touch ? and how would i hook up this switch from radio shack would it have the same harness as this 9 pin one that was origanally on it ?

[larrymoencurly]

If you're not sure, you can take a 500 ohm or so resistor and touch pairs of pins with it. It'll turn on the power if you touch the correct pins, but it'll prevent damage if you don't. I've used 1200 ohms for this, but it may not always work.

You could use the reset button temporarily as the ATX power button because electrically it's the same

[cerberus]

aye... your motherboard should have a diagram of the pins in the manual.. if you have no diagram or manual look closely on the actual board for small type near where you plug in this 9 pin connector... you could always plug it in then trace where the old switch used to be... and you dont really need a resistor... all it does is switch a relay in the power supply which has a resistor of its own and a diode....

[aaric]

Thanks guys great help....First pin on the left and second pin on the right and she fired right up....who needs a power switch....its only a beater comp anyway =P

[TUK101]

OK, this may sound crazy to some of you, but here is what I have done in this situation to get a comp to power up when a switch goes bad. Take off the front bezel and check to make sure that the leads to the power button arent cracked, broken or have just plain come unsoldered to the switch. That is usually all that is wrong, but if the switch is bad you can get one from Radio Shack I am told. But to make it work just snip the wires and strip a bit off the ends (just enough to be able to touch them together). And then to power the comp on just touch the two wires together for a brief instant, and that comp will power on. It is safer than a screwdriver to the pins. Then when you get a new switch you can solder the ends back to the new switch and be good as new. It seems that a lot of the new low end cases that i have been getting are shipped with bad switches, or bad soldering jobs to the switches so I have gotten a crash coarse in making do. I cant justify paying $10-$15 in shipping to send a $20 case back because of a bad switch. In your case I think that if you do what I said and put the bezel back on with the wires hanging out of the front so that you can touch them together when you need to power on you will be good to go.