Automatically turn on computer when A/C power is available

Question

In order to protect against power failure (which may be relatively common in my situation) for a hardware setup powered by a mini PC, I need for the computer to turn on automatically, and as soon as possible, when A/C power is available. I've heard that some BIOS have an option to automatically turn on the computer with A/C power (exactly what I want), but the computer I'm currently using (Giada N20) does not have this option in the BIOS.

The closest thing in there is an RTC alarm, which awakes the computer at a certain time, but I simply want to wake the computer ALL the time if it is off. Wake-on-LAN seems like an unnecessary hack in my case, since it would require a server to constantly attempt to wake the computer.

Is there anything else I can do to automatically power the computer on? Thanks.

Answer 1

It is true that many BIOSs provide options to restore power on AC loss. Most support this, and I believe that the chipset on the system you mention does in fact have this support. All you need to do is enable the correct PCI register from the OS.

It looks like someone has done this very thing on Ubuntu here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1209576

Hope that helps.