sorry for going dark. been busy with other things.... some updates...
@amyk, yes thats the one.
@amwales the computer does not actually have a power switch. instead solely relying on the on ac restore to power on the computer. which is fine, the board i made can power it on no problem.
the software on the hard drive is doing something in the BIOS settings and i'm kind of confused about it.
there is definitely something dickey going on between the bios settings, and the software on the harddrive that loads. perhaps someone can shed some light on it...
if i pull the harddrive and battery... and reset the CMOS settings, it comes up on poweron (manually with power button header connection) asking me to reset the date and time etc. yes, i do this and set it.
BUT... after i have done that, saved the settings and rebooted the board, it still displays a mesage that the date and time are incorrect and prompts to enter the BIOS to fix it or press F1 to cotinue. in the bios, it has the correct date and time etc. no amount of rebooting or saving or resetting eliminates the message.
BUUUUUUUT if i install the harddrive and allow the system to boot (press F1 to continue past the prompt)... it boots and then when powered off no longer displays the message... and the software somehow has the ability to change the BIOS settings, because despite it being disabled in the bios, it has (after there was a software update) reenabled the ac loss power on value back to on (it says off in the bios settings, but it now still tries to startup (which it does if i disable my poweron board... but not keep the computer going properly as mentioned before)
seems like there is an alternative section of bios settings the harddrive software has access to that despite what any settings in the bios has, overrides and the computer uses.
does this make sense? this board is making me crazy! it defies all standard computer logic.
hi,
in first post you said this:
I decided that I would program a microcontroller to wait a few seconds (for the computer to fail it's initial poweron) and then "press" the power button. this got it going in the interim.
then you say the computer doesn't have a power switch.
so with your microcontroller board you delay what? the power mains line (delayed regarding to what???), the powerswhitch that doesn't exist?
i bothered to open the manual of that mobo
https://www.bcmcom.com/admin/manual/MX280NI_Users_Manual_V1.0.pdf ,page 17, surprise you have a linePWRBTN# in System Panel Header.
powering directly all the voltage rails imho is suicide for that mobo's life expectancy, so just connect 2 wires and a button and start from this. you won't pay a fortune for standby consumption, especially if it's industry and that generates revenue.
what can you do, start with the basics, try to update bios, ask them for this. if they don't give you the bios, re-writing should be no big deal removing the flash with some external programmer, finding the .bin is the hard task.
as some people here said, have you tried another ps? everybody does this when a pc make funny bussiness, for you it's easy you got only one voltage to apply and 19V adapters are common, i saw the mobo acepts also less ("9-19V DC in").
leave the hdd removed when testing, mobo's are tested with processor+memory+live OS, i prefer linux-ones. your choice on OS.
i suggested bios update because the mobo should remember date/time with
bios cmos battery changed, here you touched the sensitive point
also i see at/atx jumper, try change this to AT
so reload your gear with this configs and maybe something comes out
[edit] maybe you have one bios copy on the CD they mention comming with the mobo