[SGVLUG] Calling the brightest of cal tech and other nerds!

[Tom Emerson]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

My turn to weigh in on the discussion...

Dustin Laurence wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 22, 2006 at 05:06:39PM -0800, Donald E Gibbs wrote:
> 
>> Every time you spark the case you reset.  Okay.  The question was
>> asked why this happens.  Why doesn't the enclosure protect the
>> internals.
> 
> Unless you have an idea of what might be unusual in this situation, I
> think the discussion is esoteric already.
> 
> To cut even more to the chase, part of the question is "why is this
> acting differently than other machines?"  I don't recall ever hearing of
> other machines rebooting under similar conditions.

Actually, I believe he said it "shuts down", NOT "reboot", but that's
only a matter of semantics.

in the lightning-fast pace of computer evolution, you might not have
noticed that for the last three or four years or so, computers don't
have "the big red switch" anymore -- (for those to young to know what
I'm talking about, the original "power" switch on IBM PC's was indeed a
"big red switch", approximately 1" wide with a throw of 3/4" or more.)
Instead, the (supposed) "power" switch is a soft-switch that goes to the
MOTHERBOARD, not the POWER SUPPLY, and essentially generates a signal on
some trace/line related to the PSU which (as John K. surmised) tells it
to turn off (or on, as the case may be)

my guess, similar to the magic/more-magic switch(*), is that touching
the case does indeed cause a "signal" to be induced on the "power
supply" line to the MB, which in turn instructs the system to shut off.
 I /suspect/ you can mitigate this somewhat by changing the BIOS such
that the "power switch" needs to be held for 4 seconds before shutting
off (similar to many laptops)

Tom

(*) I'm impressed, Dustin -- you've related that story a few times at
the after-after meeting (streetside on Lake...) but never knew it had
been committed to an actual website...

- --
Top o' the Blog: latest Suse install in the least likely of places
http://osnut.homelinux.net/mtblog/ya_index.html
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (MingW32)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFFjWzbV/YHUqq2SwsRAkfMAKDN7DwF5J23JH2PEN68thqZ5uYz1gCgmrti
vEhflBClrp8S6+JOKV4kCVM=
=WE7B
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----