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Switch your PC On/Off with your IR Remote

Show off your HTPC builds, NAS Servers, and any other hardware. Great place to ask for hardware help too.
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Pauven
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Switch your PC On/Off with your IR Remote

Post by Pauven » Sat Feb 16, 2019 11:55 am

Pauven wrote:NOTE: This tip is not a sponsored post, just a freely shared tip from one of our fellow CMC users. I thought this solution solved a common problem for many users, myself included, so I decided to do a full write-up. I've never used this hardware myself, though user pks says this works great for him.


This tip comes from user pks who normally powers off his HTPC, and uses the SIMEREC PCS-1 to power it up with his remote control:
pks wrote:A number of years ago, I purchased the very inexpensive PCS-1 hardware device from www.simerec.com and installed it in my PC. This approach might not be for everyone. I had to drill a small hole in the front of my PC case for the included IR receiver.

But installation wasn't that tough and I love it. It has always worked very well. Anyone interested in more info can check out:
http://www.simerec.com/PCS-1a.html

So once again, my butt has remained on the couch from startup to shut down. Now if I could only find someone to carry me to bed.


While pks only uses the PCS-1 for powering on his PC, it is actually capable of much more. It can perform a shutdown or a startup, and even a forced-poweroff. This little hardware device is connected to your PC's motherboard just like your PC's power button, and essentially lets you press the power button on your PC's case via remote.

That also means that whatever behavior you configure for the power button in Windows is now conveniently at your fingertips on your remote control. For example, in Windows you can configure the power button to do a shutdown, or hibernate, or sleep.


Here's some info from SIMEREC's website on the PCS-1:

Switch your PC on/off with your existing IR remote!
  • Easy installation.
  • Re-programmable, and retains learned IR buttons even if PC is unplugged.
  • Great solution for home theater PC users.
  • Works with over 99% of IR remotes on the market.
  • No soldering required.
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SIMEREC also offers the PCS-2 which has the same features as the PCS-1, adding 2-button support for independent on/off control. Personally, I hate when devices like TV's and A/V receivers use the same IR command for both on/off, as it makes programming macros on a universal remote harder. The PCS-2 seems like the perfect solution for me, and I'm seriously considering picking one up for my HTPC.

One of my main goals for using a device like this is to be able to force restart Windows remotely should the PC become unresponsive. When I asked pks if the PCS-1/2 could do this, he said he had never done this himself, but he did some digging in the documentation and found this:
pks wrote:Just noticed part of the documentation for the PCS-2. Kind of interesting. Pete
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forced Shutdown Option

When the forced shutdown option is enabled, the PCS-2 will force the PC to shutdown if it has not
already shut itself down within 1 minute of the user requesting that the system shut down. This is
especially useful if your system has a background application that tends to prevent the system from
automatically shutting down.

By default forced shutdown is disabled.

To enable forced shutdown, hold down on the PCS-2 button until the LED flashes several times.
Note that forced shutdown will only work if the 4 second power-down option is enable in the PC BIOS.
(This is enabled by default on virtually all PCs.)


I'm a little confused by this 4-second power down BIOS option, something I have never seen myself. I also thought that to force a power down required a 10-second press of the power button. So there's a chance that this won't work as I hope.

If any other users have used the SIMEREC PCS-1/2, I'd love to hear about your experiences.
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Re: Switch your PC On/Off with your IR Remote

Post by Pauven » Sat Feb 16, 2019 12:19 pm

I should also add that a hardware solution like the SIMEREC PCS-1/2 is not always needed. On many motherboard BIOS's you can configure to allow certain USB devices to wake or power on the PC (sometimes this requires additional configuration in Windows), and this includes IR receivers like the common Microsoft remote control adapters that shipped with WMC PC's and remote controls.

And some PC's even ship with this capability configured by default, right out of the box, as user Jamie explains:
Jamie wrote: Sun Feb 10, 2019 6:58 pmI have both a rosewill RC6 remote and a HP model TSGH-IR02 remote. They work with my NUCs and they have a power on and off button which work on the NUCs to power up my PC. I don't know whether they are sold any more, but I have found them to be very useful for my Windows 10 PCs. The only problem I have had is that I have to re-program them after every Windows 10 feature update

We should probably add a dedicated post in this CMC Tips & Tricks section to show how to configure the BIOS and Windows settings to allow a common USB IR receiver to wake a powered off or sleeping PC.

Though it is worth mentioning that since the PCS-1/2 is an independent hardware based solution for triggering the power button, it should work even when Windows is hung or your BIOS doesn't work correctly to allow USB devices to power up the PC.
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Re: Switch your PC On/Off with your IR Remote

Post by Pauven » Sun Aug 25, 2019 10:43 am

Years ago, too many to recall exactly when but easily over a dozen, I bought a high-end HTPC case, the Origen X15e. It's a beautiful case, looks right at home in an A/V stack, and has plenty of room inside for a full-size PC build. It takes full-size DVD drives, and you replace the drive tray cover with the brushed metal cover using double-sided tape, so the drive looks fully integrated.

http://www.origenae.com/en/htpc_x15e.htm

image.png
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It's has a few features that I've long struggled with.

The glowing blue orb power switch is super bright and very annoying when it is in your line of sight. I'm thinking I can install a resistor inline with the LED to dim it down.

The LCD touchscreen is super cool, but I've never really found the right software to run on it. I'm thinking I will someday write my own... 8-)

And the built-in IR receiver never seemed WMC compatible, so I never really used it and instead used external WMC IR6 USB receivers. You can see the integrated IR receiver in the picture above, the small black dot at the bottom center of the faceplate.

The motherboard/CPU in this build has flaked on me a few times, and I stopped using it entirely over a year ago. Instead, I use my 7 year old laptop, hidden behind my TV, as my HTPC. The laptop has done surprisingly well for DVD/Blu-ray playback, but isn't up for any gaming. With all the talk recently about nano-sized HTPC's with integrated Blu-ray drives, my mind returned to this case thinking I should swap in a new motherboard.

So I picked out a new motherboard and CPU (the new Ryzen 3000 series is great, I picked up a 3700X and will be using it for gaming too), and a new UHD Blu-ray drive. All the other components (NVMe drive, RAM, video card) are coming from excess supply that I have.

Long story short, as long as I was rebuilding this PC, I thought I should try and address the built-in IR receiver in the Origen X15e, to see if I could finally make it the solution I always thought it would be. While reading up on the Origen website, I was shocked to read it has a feature I totally forgot about: It can remotely power on a powered off PC, just like SIMEREC's PCS-1. :!: Woo-hoo! :D

Here's the info on the IR110 receiver: http://www.origenae.com/en/accessory_ir110.htm

I'm not sure if this IR receiver ever made it into any other products, but wanted to mention that it exists and has this capability.
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Re: Switch your PC On/Off with your IR Remote

Post by Teddyboy » Sun Aug 25, 2019 11:45 am

That’s a awesome case Paul. I came close getting that case when I was gathering parts to build my first htpc back in 2005? My first case was this one.
DF090A49-55C1-4AAB-805E-BF6C763DB673.jpeg
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Aristec was a Korean case manufacturer. They aren’t around anymore. I bought it from a place up in LA called digital connections. I loved my vfd display. The touchscreens on the originae cases were problematic, but they looked really slick. I still want one. It’s nice to see that your redoing your htpc.
Mechanical Engineer, Solidworks junkie, Reef aquariums, sci-fi, weight training, orchids, Ferns, Kaiju, model kit building, balboa park, scripps aquarium

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Re: Switch your PC On/Off with your IR Remote

Post by Pauven » Mon Aug 26, 2019 11:15 am

I really like that case Efrain, except for the white USB ports. I know that is just a stock photo, maybe you already fixed them on yours. At the very least a black sharpie would help, or in this day and age you could easily 3D print some USB plugs.

My very first HTPC case has a VFD. It was a generic desktop case that some guy on AVS Forum custom designed a replacement faceplate, which he had manufactured on a small scale. You had to cut up the donor case to make it accept the new brushed aluminum faceplate. It's actually pretty sharp looking, though the donor case has airflow issues, but it is fine for a very low-powered HTPC. This was about 20 years ago, before HTPC cases were a thing.

I assembled my rebuilt HTPC today, new motherboard/CPU, etc, but still need to remove the NVMe drive from another PC. In the mean time, I plugged in the old 120GB Samsung 840 SSD from the previous build, which has Windows already installed on it, just to check out the hardware.

Shock of all shocks, the exact same blue-screens and error messages that were on my previous 2 builds showed up. Turns out it wasn't my motherboard or CPU's after all, just a really old SSD that is going bad. I guess it should have occurred to me that after replacing the motherboard and CPU before and still experiencing the same errors that the SSD could be the problem. On a fresh install of Windows it works fine for a while, then bitrot sets in and the errors start, gradually getting worse and worse until it is unusable. Doh!

I guess the good news is that I now have a nice motherboard and Intel i7-6700K and i5-7500 CPU's that all work.
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Re: Switch your PC On/Off with your IR Remote

Post by Pauven » Mon Aug 26, 2019 11:40 am

Hey, do you guys think I should create a sub-forum for HTPC cases, where we can show off our builds, share how-to's, and ask for help?
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Re: Switch your PC On/Off with your IR Remote

Post by Jamie » Mon Aug 26, 2019 12:48 pm

What are you using for Graphics. A card, or on board graphics? If your using it for gaming too I would expect A graphics card. I hear good things about the new navi card.

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Re: Switch your PC On/Off with your IR Remote

Post by Jamie » Mon Aug 26, 2019 12:50 pm

Pauven wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 11:40 am Hey, do you guys think I should create a sub-forum for HTPC cases, where we can show off our builds, share how-to's, and ask for help?
I think it should be "All things related to computer Builds".

Jamie

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Re: Switch your PC On/Off with your IR Remote

Post by Pauven » Mon Aug 26, 2019 3:50 pm

Jamie wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 12:48 pm What are you using for Graphics. A card, or on board graphics? If your using it for gaming too I would expect A graphics card. I hear good things about the new navi card.

Jamie

I'm using a Radeon Fury that I picked up a few years ago. It's a Fiji GPU, which came before Vega which came before Navi, so a couple generations ago. It was their top of the line card at that time, and still does a good job on the games that I play. My TV is just 1080p, not 4K, and 1080p gaming is relatively easy.

I also have a Radeon VII that I picked up for my office PC. It is similar in performance to the new Navi's 5700 XT. I've been disappointed with it for my office PC, since I have 3 4K monitors and it doesn't handle them very well - I get lots of screen flickering and window repositioning when I wake the monitors, something I never had a problem with on my nVidia GTX 1070 (but that card is too big to fit into my new office PC case). So I've been thinking about getting a newer nVidia GPU for the office, freeing up the Radeon VII for the HTPC.

But my budget is shot at the moment, so I'm sticking with what I have.
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Re: Switch your PC On/Off with your IR Remote

Post by Pauven » Mon Aug 26, 2019 4:44 pm

Jamie wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 12:50 pm
Pauven wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 11:40 am Hey, do you guys think I should create a sub-forum for HTPC cases, where we can show off our builds, share how-to's, and ask for help?
I think it should be "All things related to computer Builds".

Jamie

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