Power-on Ideas?

My company is developing a product using a Sager NP8150 (Clevo P150HM) notebook as the core piece. Oddly enough, we really don't need the user to ever open the notebook, so we'd really like to be able to trigger power-on with the lid closed.

Does anybody here have an idea how we might be able to do that? (Ideally without breaking out the screwdriver and soldering iron.)

I notice there is what looks like an I/R receiver on the front. Might there be an I/R signal we could send to trigger a power-on sequence?

Or perhaps there is some other trick where you can short a couple pins of some connector to send a power-on signal?

(If this had a proper BIOS, I'd just set it to boot at power on and I'd pull out the battery. But, well, it doesn't, so I can't.)

Any ideas?

-Joshua

 

Wake on LAN is an option. It would require a secondary computer to send the packet, or the laptop to have 'internet access' and a remote VPN onto that network.

I'm curious, though. What are you 'developing'?

 

Actually, Wake on LAN is not an option in the AMI BIOS.

I would PM you, but there appears to be no PM option in this forum. Odd.

Let's just say it's kind of like a game console: A box that connects to a monitor, driving cool content, and with a killer remote.

 

there's pm'ing, you just have to hit more then 5 posts.

you currently have 2

and! you cant post that on here, and expect to not get a bunch of people askin for details lol

 

Ah. Well that makes sense.

OK, I'll spill. It's the next generation of this:

Kaon PresenterPro

It's sick what you can get in a laptop form factor these days (quad-core i7, 384 cuda cores), and a lot of our customers ship these around to hundreds of trade shows a year, so the portability is a big win. Also, the new Bigfoot card can be wrangled into acting like an AP, which is huge (iPads don't do peer-to-peer at 5Ghz).

 

This may just be me but...

Why not a little Shuttle (cube computer) rather then a 8150? More flexible, more power, less cost. If you're thinking for battery life, you won't get much using any kind of power.

WOL should be an option, even if it is hidden. I'd recommend contacting Sager support, since a WOL would be 100% PERFECT for this situation.

 

Ever ship a shuttle? We have. They break. In fact, pretty much any desktop computer will not survive more than about 3 trips via UPS/FedEx/etc. That's the main reason we are changing to a laptop form factor. We expect that it will be more robust to shipment.

Sager has support? So far, I've not been able to get past their surly sales rep. His vocabulary doesn't go much beyond "NO".

Anyway, though, WOL wouldn't be at all useful in this situation, since the device will never be connected to an ethernet. WOW (Wake-on-WiFi) *would* be perfect, but there's no way that's going to happen, since the bus is not powered when the system is off.

Any other ideas?

 

Personally, I've shipped over 20 computers via Canada Post (used to be a builder/reseller of desktops.), and only had 1 with damage. But I can respect mission critical applications, rather then my little resales.

Sager support is 'fun'. My idea was (if you linked me to the right product) to mount a little router inside the box with the laptop, and somehow get the iPad to tell the router to send a WoL. (Which is possible, with DD-WRT, if I recall. SSH in, use linux command, done. Which should in theory be able to be automated. Or by an external button press) But if they won't help you, then alternatives we go!

An idea is to try to see if it will power on in this situation:

Pull the battery
Put a switch between electricity and power adapter - No power going to Laptop
Hold the power button
Flip the switch while holding the power button - Power going to Laptop

If it starts, and DOESN'T turn off, you have a solution. Put a piece of foam to trigger the switch permenantly, close the lid, and use a metal strap+foam outlayer to set the laptop inside the box AND clamp it shut/in place. Not too tight as to break something, but tight enough to move little.

 

Wow. You are one twisted thinker. That worked.

Not sure if I can productize that (we're not planning on putting this into a separate box), but it's one damn clever solution.

Thanks!

 

Superglue on the button would make it as permanent as it gets.

 

Woo!

It was a mad experiment. There are many more reliable ways to permanently trigger the power button, such as removing the plastic top, and doing something to the button itself. Atleast it gives you a good guide to follow for future experiments.

If it's not going to go into a separate box, a solution regarding pulling the power button and messing with the real switch beneath could allow it to be used as a semi-normal laptop aswell. A test to see if this would work, would be if Windows/Linux/whatever allows you to shutdown the computer, and it stays off, with the switch still triggered. If this works, it wouldn't need to pull the battery to turn it off, but you might to turn it on.

A solution secondary to this, but a little more invasive, is to wire a secondary switch, and try to mount it externally. An option for mounting location is the seldom used Kensington Lock slot, or maybe replace a USB port for the switch. Or even get an empty ODD front, cut a hole in the middle, and mount it there.

A third idea is to mount something to the screen frame that would hit the button (some foam). Less invasive. Allows the computer to be used as a normal laptop with no conditionals. Just crazy ugly when open. That is, if it's possible to make sure it's not pressing on the screen area.