automationbootnetbookpower
I've been using a little netbook as a personal server for 2 years give or take a few months, but soon I'll be going off to college. I plan on leaving it at my house, but if the power goes out I won't be there to turn it back on if the battery dies while the power is out.
Are there any ways to make it boot autonomously after an outage, or make it consume little to no power when not plugged in?
It looks like it's an 'Acer Aspire one series zg5', and it's running Ubuntu 11.04 server edition.
A motherboard that shows the symptoms you are describing requires some serious debug. The fan spinning at full speed and lack of POST or beep codes tells me that BIOS isn't loading.
If you have a PORT 80 card that will plug into your motherboard or it has PORT 80 LEDs onboard see what POST code is displayed. You can tell where BIOS is failing by comparing the HEX digits to the BIOS vendor's POST decoder. POST 00h or FFh usually means the BIOS isn't loading.
If you can't get it to POST this way and you aren't into electronics, then you're pretty much done. Try your parts on another motherboard and see what you can salvage.
Before you start swapping parts out to test, I would first try clearing the CMOS. It's possible the power outage corrupted some of the CMOS/BIOS settings. It should look like the following picture, or you can consult documentation on your Shuttle PC.
To reset it, find the jumper, which is normally close to the battery. It has three pins; the jumper will be on two of them. Move it over one so it is now covering the pin that was not covered to start. I like to pop the CMOS battery out just to make sure it resets. Wait 30 seconds, then put the jumper back the way you found it and pop the battery back in.
If it works, your PC will start. You should go in to your BIOS to confirm the settings. Most newer BIOSs will detect the proper settings automatically, but still ask you to go in and save/exit.
If you have a warranty on the PC, opening the case may void it. I would check with Shuttle on that.
If this doesn't work for you, then you have to start swapping out the power supply with a known good one to see if that's the problem. For example, you could try using the other computer's power supply, since you know it works.
At this point, I would suggest taking it in to be looked at, unless you really want to test it yourself.
Best Answer
Usually there is. Look in the BIOS settings for Power Options, and find a "Action when lost power" or similar. Change it to "Last State" or "Power On".
Your BIOS may or may not have it depending on bios manufacturer.