Need safe manual shutdown

[TC2]

We build an instrument that has a PC and Win XP in it, and some other power
supplies that drive equipment controlled by the PC. When you do a shutdown
the PC supply shutsdown and the screen goes blank and the operator thinks
that's it. But they still need to turn off the power switch or other things
are still powered. On old systems you could get to a "It's safe to turn off
your computer now" message. With XP and a current Intel motherboard Intel
claims there's no way do that. I know we could build some involved power
relay system to solve the problem. But short of that I was hoping to run a
program that would put XP in a state where all disk activity is done and
give the user a screen that says to turn off the power switch, and do so
safely. Ideally we could also avoid the scandisk on the next power up.
Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Tom

posted to both the XP Hardware and XP Genreal forums.

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring >, from the wonderful
person TC2 > said
>We build an instrument that has a PC and Win XP in it, and some other power
>supplies that drive equipment controlled by the PC. When you do a shutdown
>the PC supply shutsdown and the screen goes blank and the operator thinks
>that's it. But they still need to turn off the power switch or other things
>are still powered. On old systems you could get to a "It's safe to turn off
>your computer now" message. With XP and a current Intel motherboard Intel
>claims there's no way do that.

If you turn ACPI off in the BIOS, I believe that you'll still get the
message (although you may need ACPI off before you install XP .. or you
may need to do a repair install if you turn it off later). This is
provided for the benefit of older computers which don't support ACPI in
the first place.

There are also some fancy power strips where the current drawn from one
socket controls the on/off state of the other sockets (at least we have
them in the UK). You might look at those as a hardware solution ..
although you'd still have to train the users to switch the CRT off, or
something, in order to trigger the shutdown (I'm not sure that a PC
going into soft shutdown state would count as 'off' since the PSU is
still drawing a few watts).

HTH

--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
Outgoing Msgs are Turing Tested,and indistinguishable from human typing.

[Crusty \(-: Old Bastard :-\)]

A current sensing relay, with the contacts making/breaking the electrical
circuit to the auxiliary equipment, would be the way to go. When the
computer is on the relay would pull in. With the power off, the relay would
drop out!

"TC2" > wrote in message
...
> We build an instrument that has a PC and Win XP in it, and some other
power
> supplies that drive equipment controlled by the PC. When you do a shutdown
> the PC supply shutsdown and the screen goes blank and the operator thinks
> that's it. But they still need to turn off the power switch or other
things
> are still powered. On old systems you could get to a "It's safe to turn
off
> your computer now" message. With XP and a current Intel motherboard Intel
> claims there's no way do that. I know we could build some involved power
> relay system to solve the problem. But short of that I was hoping to run a
> program that would put XP in a state where all disk activity is done and
> give the user a screen that says to turn off the power switch, and do so
> safely. Ideally we could also avoid the scandisk on the next power up.
> Anyone have any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
> Tom
>
> posted to both the XP Hardware and XP Genreal forums.
>
>

[TC2]

The relay is the fallback position if we can't find a software solution. The
relay requires engineering mods, hardware mods, re-review for UL, etc.


"Crusty (-: Old ******* :-)" > wrote in
message ...
> A current sensing relay, with the contacts making/breaking the electrical
> circuit to the auxiliary equipment, would be the way to go. When the
> computer is on the relay would pull in. With the power off, the relay
would
> drop out!
>
> "TC2" > wrote in message
> ...
> > We build an instrument that has a PC and Win XP in it, and some other
> power
> > supplies that drive equipment controlled by the PC. When you do a
shutdown
> > the PC supply shutsdown and the screen goes blank and the operator
thinks
> > that's it. But they still need to turn off the power switch or other
> things
> > are still powered. On old systems you could get to a "It's safe to turn
> off
> > your computer now" message. With XP and a current Intel motherboard
Intel
> > claims there's no way do that. I know we could build some involved power
> > relay system to solve the problem. But short of that I was hoping to run
a
> > program that would put XP in a state where all disk activity is done and
> > give the user a screen that says to turn off the power switch, and do so
> > safely. Ideally we could also avoid the scandisk on the next power up.
> > Anyone have any ideas?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Tom
> >
> > posted to both the XP Hardware and XP Genreal forums.
> >
> >
>
>

[TC2]

Interesting idea to have ACPI off before install of XP. However these newer
Intel motherboards don't have an ACPI-off option in the CMOS. But maybe I
can find a way to lter the registry to believe there is no ACPI control.
I'll give that a shot.


"GSV Three Minds in a Can" ]> wrote in message
...
> Bitstring >, from the wonderful
> person TC2 > said
> >We build an instrument that has a PC and Win XP in it, and some other
power
> >supplies that drive equipment controlled by the PC. When you do a
shutdown
> >the PC supply shutsdown and the screen goes blank and the operator thinks
> >that's it. But they still need to turn off the power switch or other
things
> >are still powered. On old systems you could get to a "It's safe to turn
off
> >your computer now" message. With XP and a current Intel motherboard Intel
> >claims there's no way do that.
>
> If you turn ACPI off in the BIOS, I believe that you'll still get the
> message (although you may need ACPI off before you install XP .. or you
> may need to do a repair install if you turn it off later). This is
> provided for the benefit of older computers which don't support ACPI in
> the first place.
>
> There are also some fancy power strips where the current drawn from one
> socket controls the on/off state of the other sockets (at least we have
> them in the UK). You might look at those as a hardware solution ..
> although you'd still have to train the users to switch the CRT off, or
> something, in order to trigger the shutdown (I'm not sure that a PC
> going into soft shutdown state would count as 'off' since the PSU is
> still drawing a few watts).
>
> HTH
>
> --
> GSV Three Minds in a Can
> Outgoing Msgs are Turing Tested,and indistinguishable from human typing.