Resume After Powerfailure Mod

APM/ACPI BIOS questions
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jason.wallace
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Experts,

I maintain a small number of servers running on PCChips Mother boards. Current BIOS is:

091505-SiS760-M871G-Y2KC

The mother boards are M871G v1.5.

Under the bios options there is no option for automatically powering on after a power failure. The servers are attached to Smart UPS's and will gracefully power down before the UPS batteries drain completely. I would like them to power up after ac power is restored. Is there something I am missing? Is there a different bios I can run to have this option?

Cordially,
Jason Wallace
cp
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there are options that allow remembering the last state of the system prior to a powerloss. since your machines are powering down safely it's no powerloss for the BIOS.

but since you are talking about servers: what about an external wakeup signal like wake-on-lan?
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Denniss
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"Restore on AC power Loss" with setting "Power On" is the option he is looking for. This option may be there somewhere or it's a hidden option.
jason.wallace
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cp,

I will look into the wake on lan option, I believe this bios has it.

Denniss,

Is there a way to access hidden options in an ami bios? The wake after power failure option isn't listed as an option. I have a development machine with the same motherboard and bios as my production machines, so I am free to try some riskier things.

Jason
kotarak
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Jason,

unfortunately it doesnt look like there is one. i have a system using this same motherboard that also really needs to be on as close to 24/7 as possible, after finishing setting everything up i went to the bios to ensure that this option was on, but sadly it doesnt exist.... the closest thing to it, as has been mentioned, is either wake on lan, or 'keyboard power on' set to any key, or, setting it to power on at a specific time every day.... like midnight or some such.


very bad practice leave such an option out of the bios. im wondering if i should rig something that randomly presses 'num lock' and set it to power on during any keystroke.

i havnt tried a bios update but from the changelog it doesnt look like it would matter (except to possibly fix the 'keyboard power on' function)
cp
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again: if the server is buffered by a USV it would power down the usual way. there's no way the bios would detect this as a power loss. power loss happens when you pull the plug while the server is full up and running (you don't want to try this on a server though).

if you want the machine to wake up again you can use WOL, WOM or anything alike but not restore on power loss. you can even attach some custom hardware to the WOL pins. i'd check out if the USV supports something like remote wakeup (via LAN).
If you email me include [WIMSBIOS] in the subject.
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