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[spiggytopes]

Hi All,

I hope I'm not being too cheeky asking this here.

I need to run  a 5V feed to my power amp to switch it out of standby and this is when the HTPC is awake.

I thought of doing this by running a feed from my HTPC usb outlet, except that the usb stays live when the PC sleeps ....

Is it possible to tell the PC to switch off a particular (not all of them) usb socket?

Cheers.

[BryanC]

It would be an option in your BIOS if you have a fancy motherboard, since I'm assuming that you are just using the +5V leads and thus the device won't be under P&P control in Windows. The other option is to splice it into the power control leads of your PSU. If your PSU is standard it will be the green wire and the black ground directly beside it to close the circuit.

[spiggytopes]

Thanks for that.

It seems that the usb power off is all or nothing - all ports or none -- so I would then loose the ability to waken the pc from sleep remotely.

The pc's power lead you mention - is is switched off when the pc sleeps? I guess it is the power to the hard disk?


Cheers.

[BryanC]

Thanks for that.
It seems that the usb power off is all or nothing - all ports or none -- so I would then loose the ability to waken the pc from sleep remotely.
The pc's power lead you mention - is is switched off when the pc sleeps? I guess it is the power to the hard disk?

Cheers.

This might be of help: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-specifications-atx-reference,3061-6.html

I'll admit that I don't know if your amp requires continuous or momentary 5V to turn on. If it's momentary, splice it into the green/ground circuit I mentioned above. If it requires continuous 5V, you can use any old 5V (Red) from any of the unused ATX power cables. As the article mentions above, only pin 9 supplies standby power to the motherboard while the system is sleeping.

If you are still set on using an existing USB port and the options in the BIOS are all-or-none, don't forget to check for physical jumpers on the board that might disable/enable the sleep function for each hub. It's unlikely, but I have seen them before.

[spiggytopes]

Thanks so much for the leads and the help.

I have asked the opinion of the manufacturer (Quad) but didn't ask if the switching voltage is momentary or continuous ... I'll find out.

[mbagge]

One method that is working for me, is installing a separate USB Card. Now I can control powering on and off amps, displays, DACs and other stuff still while preserving wake-on-lan, USB power and the ability to put the computer to sleep, hibernate or shut down.