Help with an Idea (remotely restart a PC)

(Pete) #1

Hi all,

So i’m wondering if its possible to use a smart device to remotely restart a PC? Is there any device which can connect to the restart jumpers on a motherboard and then have a momentary switch in Smartthings to remotely restart a PC?

(Andy - United Kingdom) #2

Have a look at some of the things the guys are doing with Raspberry Pi
They are using them to control relays that could be used to control your reset switch.

I would be cautious about doing a full reset unless the PC is locked and cannot be shut down/rest

(Kraeg) #3

Why not use Wake On LAN to turn it on (Its built into the hub and CoRE can send the magic packet)

Then install ShutdownOnLAN (SOL) onto the PC which alllows you to send a web request which will shutdown your PC (again CoRE can do this request)

Works perfectly for my machines, there is more info on the forums elsewhere if you need it.

Kraeg

#4

There are a number of threads already discussing options for this, although I definitely wouldn’t jumpstart a motherboard as the inrush current could damage the board and there’s also a potential fire hazard. As @kraegd mentioned Most PCs these days can do “wake on LAN” or WOL, which would be the preferred method.

You can see how other people have done this by looking at the “power” quick browse list in the community – created wiki in the project reports section. Just be aware that prior to June 2016 the SmartThings hub could not itself issue the WOL command, so you’ll see a lot of earlier projects that use a raspberry pi as an intermediary device just to issue the WOL command. After June 2016, you could just do it with a smart app, including Core. :sunglasses:

http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=How_to_Quick_Browse_the_Community-Created_SmartApps_Forum_Section#Quick_Browse_Links_for_Project_Reports.2FQuestions

Or jump straight to the discussion of the official capability.

(Pete) #5

i use wake on lan at the moment. but every now and then if the PC crashes or fails to accept the WOL packets then i physically have to go turn it on. If i’m not home and i need to reset or turn it on then i’m stuck.

I have seen Raspberry pis used, i.e. the GPIO headers connected to an opto-isolator to 'short the Power on and ground pins on the motherboard - same as the power switch does when you press it. The RPi then runs a web server with simple controls to turn off, or reset.

however i was wondering if something similar can be done using smartthings. i was wondering if the binary sensor could send a signal rather than just receive or anything else out there?

something else i have see is this - Silverstone ES01

wondering if theres a way that smartthings can send the RF signal rather than the remote fob?

(Cristofer Johnson) #6

Man just get a smart plug. Go into the bios power management of the pc and select power on a/c loss or similar. There’s no graceful way to shut it with just this, but it will turn on the pc.

(Hendre) #7

What @Kato said - that what I had done.

(Cristobal Escamilla Cavazos) #8

This is an old thread, but there are several things you can do:

  • You can use an opticoupler to control the Reset Switch and the Power Button pins in the motherboard with a rasp berry pi or any other device with IO pins
  • You can use a power outlet and configure the bios to power on on power failure (note that this will fail if the pc was “shutdown” properly, since there was no power failure
  • You can use WOL as it was suggested before, raspberry pi can do this quite easily or any other linux flavour (windows has it’s embedded ubuntu and cygwin can do that too)
  • You can use the RTC clock in the bios to force a power off/power on on some motherboards

OH, and if you use a lot of power in it (like more than 10Amps) get a psu splitter and you just need to kill the main psu.)

I strongly suggest you do more than one to be sure you can restart a device remotely

With this you pretty much cover everything: hard reset, soft reset, cut power, restore power, network wakeup.

If only I could find a way to forward the video output of a pc that has not even booted so I can modify the bios remotely… something like the dell drac :frowning: