[conspire] ATX power supplies & default power up state (was: CPU upgrade questions (was ...)

[Michael Paoli]

Another thing worth checking regarding ATX power supplies and
default power-up state ...
BIOS settings.
Some have options, e.g. something roughly like
(I've seen such on "vicki" SuperMicro host I have):
on restoration of power:
o go to standby
o go to prior state
o go to power on

So, may be worth checking BIOS settings/options.
"Of course" that doesn't necessarily mean such as setting/option
may change or go away with a BIOS upgrade 8-O
... and always good to test that such works.
But ... may want to not presume things are as inflexible
and can't be as desired, without checking if there may be
available settings/options.

Also, much of this is often (also) in the name of
"Energy Star" efficiencies and such ...
e.g. especially stuff targeted for consumers, doing things like
defaulting to being off/standby upon power restoration,
doing a "sleep" or "hibernate" if there's no keyboard activity after
a while, or someone closes the lid on the laptop, etc.
Not necessarily all "bad" things (and especially at scale and applied
to power consumption) ... but for, e.g. "server" systems, may be
inappropriate and/or one may need to set things other than to their
defaults ... at least if one is in fact given the option(s) to do so.

> Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2017 00:34:00 -0700
> From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> To: conspire at linuxmafia.com
> Subject: Re: [conspire] CPU upgrade questions (was sous vide
> 	question.)
> Message-ID: <20171028073400.GW30423 at linuxmafia.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
> Example 1, my CompuLab Intense PC intended to run my main home server.
> I was acutely aware that CompuLab targeted it as a high-power yet silent
> workstation rather than any kind of server, so before buying it I made
> sure I got the answer to one question:  Does the machine come back
> online, or at least can it be configured to come online, after losing
> and regaining power?   And there's history behind my asking that
> question:
>
> The early AT-class cases and power supplies, up to about 1998, had no
> problem in this area.  Around that year, Intel's replacement 'ATX'
> design for motherboards and cases replaced the AT architecture, which in
> general was A Good Thing -- except that most ATX power supplies, upon
> losing power and then regaining it, came back up in a 'standby' state,
> where the machine would remain not actually running but just warmed up
> until someone hit a front-panel button.  Why?  Because the designers
> were thinking like non-server people.
>
> Here at Chez Moen, we encountered this mindset the hard way, when
> Deirdre started running her personal deirdre.net domain on a ShuttlePC
> 'lunchbox'-sized box.  It was quite attractive (coloured lights,
> transparent plexiglas case), and reasonably quiet, but always came back
> from any power outage in standby mode, because it had one of those
> godsdamned workstation-oriented ATX PSUs.  It turned out that Shuttle
> offered no fix (because who would ever want a machine to turn back on
> after losing power?), so Deirdre's only remedy was to add an
> Uniterruptable Power Supply to the hardware stack, not because she
> wanted to bridges across power glitches as such, but solely so the
> Shuttle wouldn't land in standby mode.  One whole, huge, heavy, costly
> outboard appliance, just because of a hardware design error.