Since I bought it, if you press the Power button on the tower (the circle with the line that glows green when on), nothing occurs. Hold it, nothing occurs. It’s really annoying…when my computer freezes, the only way I can reset it is to frickin’ unplug the tower from the wall and bonking my head on the desk corners.
C’mon…it’s a power button. It should involve cutting the power flow or something. I got it preassembled from Gateway, I don’t see why this does nothing. Should it cut the power when I need to? If no, why is it there? If yes, how can I make it work again?
Assuming you are holding it in for least 10 secs and it still does nothing, per your description most likely either the jumper connecting the button’s contact to the MB is not connected or the buckle spring of the contact has failed.
My gateway comp. has a option list somewhere in the control panel (I think) that lets you choose what the power button does. I think that the factory setting is just to turn it on, nothing else. When it freezes, have you tried Ctrl+Alt+Del twice to restart it instead of unplugging it.
Yeah, the option for the power button is under start–>Settings–>control panel–>power options—>advanced in windows ME. You can set it there to shut down, restart, or hibrinate.
Aye, I did the Control Panelly thing you said, now it works. I’ll always do Ctrl+Alt+Del, but when my computer actually freezes, it gets no input from the keyboard, and so naturally nothing works. And other folk, yes, I did hold it for about thirty seconds straight before…but I just tested it, the button now will turn it off.
Astro has the answer - it takes 10 seconds - I finally had to call Dell to get this answer because I got sick of unplugging mine.
On the one hand, this is really stupid. Was Dell thinking that their computer would never lock up? With Microsoft products on them?? It is to laugh. Har dee har har.
On the other hand, you could accidentally hit the button, I suppose. And Dell service is fast and accurate, per usual.
Mine does that too. I think the logic is that you shouldn’t press the power button to do a warm reboot. There should be another button on the face of the machine, usually labeled Reset, try that instead.
With Dells and Compaqs (no experience with others), you can go into setup (either F2 or F10 as the computer is booting up) and change the purpose of the “power” button. It can be set to act as a “real” on/off button or as a sleep/awake button. If you have a software hang and it’s not set as a “on/off” button, nothing will happen. Check the setup menu.
Jim
There’s no Reset or anything on the front except the drives and the big glowing power button. To get to the back of the tower is an inch from where I unplug it, and I see no buttons back there either. I dunno. The button works now though. It didn’t before I assume because it was set to make it Sleep, and Sleep in general was deactivated from the computer because half the time when it would Sleep it would never wake up. ::shrugs:: It works now, so I’m happy. If it stops working I’ll look for something better.
Ooh. My stupid eMachine did the same thing. I just went in and changed the settings in Control Panel like y’all said. There’s only the one button on the front, and it pisses me off. I miss the Reset button.
I have no idea where the manual is…my father takes all the manuals for all the computer stuff for all the computers and hides them someplace. I’d ask him but he’s kinda out of town. And I just checked the back of the tower, no extra buttons except a switch that I think is to let you open it up…nasty nasty nasty little buttons.
My computer has a little recessed reset button right next to the top usb port. Push it with a pin or something similar and it restarts. Every time. Cool , huh?
It also automatically runs First Aid and fixes whatever I messed up.
Peace,
mangeorge
If only that were true. Granted 2000 is much better than any of the 9x products since it is based on NT technology. With any luck XP will also be stable, I suppose that I’ll find out, I just installed XP on the new computer that I built.
I’ll always do Ctrl+Alt+Del, but when my computer actually freezes, it gets no input from the keyboard, and so naturally nothing works. And other folk, yes, I did hold it for about thirty seconds straight before…but I just tested it, the button now will turn it off.
, huh?