Power switch hard shutdown

[ruby]

Heya

I am new to pc building and am trying to understand power switches in full before buying. I haven't used a tower since dinosaur times and am used to laptop powering functionality. At this point I have two questions about NO push-button switches:

1) I can read from the forum that holding the power switch in for a few seconds is a (soft?) reset. But how do I perform a laptop-style hard shutdown? I'm guessing that pushing the button once while on just sends a signal to the operating system (or maybe I got that totally wrong). Can the functionality be changed in the BIOS or do I need a switch on the PSU to do the hard shutdown?

2) I suspect the power rating of push-button switches is much higher than is required by a motherboard, but of curiosity, what is the actual voltage of the front panel IO headers?

 

[1337harcha]

I am probably not the right person but I'll chime in to get the thread rolling:
1) Yes, pushing the button shortly just tells the OS to initiate shutdown or whatever action it is set-up to do upon button press. Long press tells the motherboard to shut down the PC (it is up to motherboard how this will be done and possibly could be configured in BIOS, again depending on motherboard). I suppose that hard reset would be just cutting the power and the safest way would be the power supply switch.
2) Considering that the front headers are next to one another, power LEDs and don't cause sparks when switch pins are shorted, I would expect the voltage to be around 5V.

 

[ruby]

Thanks for the answer. I guess I'll just have to find out what the BIOS can do. I don't think I can comfortably fit a switch on the PSU side.

 

[Kilrah]

Long press is forced shutdown.

 

[Stevo_]

2) I suspect the power rating of push-button switches is much higher than is required by a motherboard, but of curiosity, what is the actual voltage of the front panel IO headers?

The power switch needs very small mA rating, a normally open momentary on switch is used that will stay switched as long as depressed. It is not a direct power switch to the PSU but a derivative signal goes back to the ATX 24-pin connector pin 16 PS_ON which actually turns on the main PSU power, +5VSB is always on. The power switch is just pulling down a pullup resistor to +5VSB. I've used very tiny switches for this.

 

[ruby]

Thanks all; I now have a better idea of what to expect (haven't bought a motherboard yet but looking into switches).