Remote power-up

Question

Level 1

15 points

Remote power-up

I am to configuring a few portable music lab racks and was intending to use mac mini's. I wanted to use a rack mount enclosure that has all the amps and preamps. All access is to be from the front. 8ch Mic/line plus USB/FireWire and the display port are all to brought forward to be mounted on a front access panel.

Now, How can I turn the mac mini on with out having to access the back of the rack in order to reach in and push the power button?

I have read, that the intel machine do not support the usb power-up option that the earlier PowerPC machines had.

has anybody figured a way around that?
I have to wonder why something so apple cool was missing in the new intel machines.

any Ideas?

mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6.3), Mixed labs of PPC and INTEL

Posted on May 2, 2010 12:56 PM

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Answer 1

Boece

Level 5

6,264 points

May 2, 2010 4:40 PM in response to BnJmn42

If the Mini is firmly tied down in a rack, you might try a low-tech (Rube-Goldberg?) solution:

Mount a swinging arm behind the Mini that can be swung forward to press the power button by pulling a string attached to the arm.

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Answer 2

BnJmn42 Author

Level 1

15 points

May 2, 2010 6:22 PM in response to BnJmn42

Why that is brilliant!

I can't wait to write up the instruction with the phrase "if the system is not on, just jiggle the handle"
My plumber says it all the time.
While I chuckled at my wife when she made the same suggestion, I didn't realized that I would be the one being chuckled at.... even by my self!
I fully intend to jury rig in a similar way as you have described but am shocked that there is no real solution.

I cannot believe that there are no other folk out here that wish to install a mac mini in a no so readily accessible location and wish to turn it on via some peripheral. ...... like we used to be able to do.

Thanks though, I appreciate the response.

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Answer 3

BSteely

Level 5

7,643 points

May 2, 2010 10:12 PM in response to BnJmn42

If you do something called a "dirty" shutdown of OS X from the terminal, it will respond to a simple power strip switch and the mini will boot next time power is applied that way (from the power switch on the power strip). So you wouldn't need to hit the power button on the mini at all in that case. But you do have to do a special shutdown sequence to enable that state.

http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/m an8/shutdown.8.html

But I like Boece's suggestion a lot, too. 🙂

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Answer 4

May 3, 2010 2:52 AM in response to BnJmn42

You may be able to use on of the solutions that folks use when mounting Minis inside of their vehicles. This company sells modified power supply units:

http://www.carnetix.com/

I've not installed one of the latest Minis in a vehicle but if you contact them they might have a solution. It still may be a bit of a kludge as you may need a 12VDC power supply in order to power the thing.

I've also known folks to wire in a set of relay contacts across the power button of the Mac in order to turn it on remotely from another room in the house so that is another option although it will void your warranty/applecare.

Did you ever think about mounting the Mini backwards so that the back faces the front of the rack?

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Answer 5

gaz8080

Level 1

0 points

May 12, 2010 12:38 PM in response to DaddyPaycheck

I would really like to be able to do this too. On my PC I can boot just by tapping the spacebar. I never use the CD drive in the mac mini and would love to be able to tuck it away under my desk, could do if I could boot with a keyboard press.

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Answer 6

BnJmn42 Author

Level 1

15 points

May 13, 2010 4:53 PM in response to gaz8080

Thanks for all the suggestion. They all have potential merit for this or other projects.
For this particular applications I will be going the rube-goldberg approach as the unit is fixed in the rack and I can configure a button actuator/lever.

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Answer 7

Jul 18, 2010 8:25 AM in response to BnJmn42

Can some one please enlighten me on what model of UPS Apple was engineering for when they cam up with the shutdown -h -u option. I have not found an APC model that can achieve a power cut to the mini within 5 minutes using network shutdown. Does anyone actually have the auto-restart working from a UPS battery back up

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Answer 8

Mr.C UK

Level 2

410 points

Jul 18, 2010 9:24 AM in response to ghostsource

You have started your own thread asking the same exact question.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2510935&tstart=0

It's frowned upon in forums to post the same question more then once as it only serves to cause confusion as well as divide the responses given by other members. Not to mention it's not possible to have a cohesive discussion on the subject. Further more it's also not a good idea to hijack other peoples threads.

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Answer 9

MacProCT

Level 2

366 points

Jul 18, 2010 6:52 PM in response to BnJmn42

If access to the back of the rack was practical, you could use a power switch plunger hack like this guy did...

http://www.kaede.sakura.ne.jp/~kidou/mac/macmini01.html

(I just think that's too clever to go unrecognized. <g>)

But you say you want all access from the front. So...

Have you thought about putting the Mini sideways in the rack, on a rack shelf. If you position it with the optical drive pointing to the left, then the power switch would be near the front of the rack on the right side of the Mini. But you would still have access to the optical drive on the left (but do you even need that?).

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