T40 remote power-up. Any solutions

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pclyne · #1 Post by **pclyne** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:43 pm

Hi all, hoping someone can help with a problem I've got.

(long story short)..

I have two T40's that get installed in a bolted closed box. Due to other environmental reasons there are no batteries in these units.

Occasionally power is removed from these boxes.

When power is re-applied, I need these units to power-up.

We have had other units (HPs) where we had to run two fly leads from the rear of the power switch to a door switch (the door switch is still available). We are prepared to do this again, but the power button on the T40's seems to be more integrated (perhaps there is a 'better' place to solder the fly leads too?)

I don't know, perhaps 'if you use a lan plug wired like this, the unit will automatically boot when power is applied' or 'solder your fly leads to the red and blue wire on the motherboard'

Even getting a schematic of the power circuit would be an excellent (and Lenovo were not very helpful)

Does anyone have a (clever) solution to my problem?

BIG thanks in advance

Paul

aaa · #2 Post by **aaa** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 4:53 pm

I'm not sure if it's in the T40 BIOS but I have seen a BIOS option for starting up right away when the power comes back, There's also Wake-On-Lan, but that requires a specific data packet to be sent.

pclyne · #3 Post by **pclyne** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 5:09 pm

Appreciate your response..

Had sniff in the bios and could not see any 'immediate power-on' type of stuff. Perhaps it was worded differently and I missed it? I'll have another look, but I don't _think_ I'll get lucky.

If I'm missing the obvious then please feel free to let me know.

I though about WOL, but there is no LAN in the area (it is underground) and I don't want to have to build/configure a special "wake-up you ba-ta-d", box.

Doesn't WOL require a machine to be in a 'sleep' state, not a completely off mode? (I'm happy to learn on this point as it's an area I've not had much to do with)

Was thinking that perhaps I could trick it with a special lan plug...

So PLEASE if you (the reader) have any ideas I would still love to hear them..

[/quote]

#4 Post by **richk** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 8:01 pm

I believe there is no such option. If you had a battery, you could have the machine suspend quickly when on battery and play around with resume date/time. There is no option to start up when power is restored. If you have no battery, the machine is at risk with a power failure.

awolfe63 · #5 Post by **awolfe63** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 8:22 pm

If you have room - port replicators are about $20 on ebay. It is probably easier to open up one of those and hack into the power switch.

#6 Post by **rkawakami** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 8:24 pm

Just a thought but it does require some hardware hacking... if you mount the laptop into a port replicator or docking station, you can then use that unit's power button. It would probably be simpler to hack the power button on a port rep than to get to the one on the T40's keyboard. IF you have the time/inclination, you could also probably find the power button pins on the laptop's docking port and attempt to wire to them directly (instead of using, or if you can't physically accommodate a dock).

edit: ahh... never mind

awolfe63 already beat me to it...

pclyne · #7 Post by **pclyne** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 4:44 am

you could also probably find the power button pins on the laptop's docking port and attempt to wire to them directly (instead of using, or if you can't physically accommodate a dock).

This I _do_ like.

The port replicator, whist a good solution, may be ruled out due to size (I'll have to check some dimentions).

So does anyone have the port replicator pin-outs (or suggest where I could start looking)?

#8 Post by **rkawakami** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 5:46 am

That, unfortunately, is going to be the difficult part. As far as I know, there are no schematics for the docking port on the bottom of the system. About the only thing I can suggest is to tear open a port replicator and trace back the wires from the power button. I can't promise that I will get to this but I do have a spare port rep that I can take apart. I'll see if I can spend a few minutes doing some reverse engineering...

edit: After all of this talk about hacking the power button it sounded like déjà vu to me... so I searched the archive and found this:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=30945

T40 remote power-up. Any solutions

T40 remote power-up. Any solutions

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