How long do you need to hold down the power button to turn off a PC?

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How long do you need to hold down the power button to turn off a PC?

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 Home > Windows > How lengthy do you need to clasp downward the power clasp to rotate off a PC?

Raymond Chen published another narrative from the Windows betterment trenches, this period concerning what happens whenever you clasp downward the power button.

If you clasp a PC’s power clasp for 12 seconds, it volition rotate off at the hardware flat without notifying the functioning system. This is a safety characteristic so that you can rotate of the device equal if the functioning system’s “Shut down” command isn’t working.

After eight seconds of the power clasp being held down, the Windows kernel realizes that the person is trying to do a force-power-off of the system, and it quickly takes a kernel dump that can be uploaded to the Windows Error Reporting assistance the next period you rotate the scheme on.

↫ Raymond Chen

I’m a bit confused by these numbers, since I have never seen a PC obtain this lengthy to power off whenever holding downward the power button; normally it takes lone a few seconds to do so, definition Windows would never create stated kernel dump. I tried study through the assorted ATX specification documents to discover additional data on this, but afterward I remembered I’m not an electric engineer so I have no idea what I’m looking at.

The baseline is that ATX continually provides standby power to the motherboard, and pressing the power clasp shorts the power clasp pin to ground, telling the PSU to power on fully. Pressing the power clasp if the device is operating tells the functioning scheme to initiate a shutdown (although you can alter this behaviour), but if you clasp the clasp downward for a certain figure of seconds, it forces a power-off. So far, so good; essential information.

It seems that the dimension of period you need to clasp downward the power clasp to power a power-off is reliant on the motherboard in question, handled by a microcontroller or several another IC. Virtually all origin I can discover says this timing is set to concerning 4-5 seconds, which is fairly a bit shorter than the figure of seconds stated by Chen. Perhaps motherboard manufacturers regard the 12 seconds to be too long, and fair do their own thing, despite what the ATX specification suggests?

What additional complicates matters is that Chen particulars how the kernel dumps created following pressing the power clasp for 8 seconds do, in fact, get sent to Microsoft formerly the device turns on again. In fact, he is among the group who gets to see these dumps and react to them, so evidently they are certainly rolling in. Does this average there’s a huge figure of computers out there that necessitate you to clasp downward the power clasp for 12 seconds to power a shutdown that nobody’s always seen?

These emergency kernel dumps are internally classified as “long power clasp hold” (LPBH) failures. One of the pieces of data recorded in these emergency kernel dumps is whether the display consists entirely of dreary pixels. Those failures are sub-classified as “black display LPBH”, and they go to a particular virtual squad for analysis. (I happen to be a associate of this dreary display LPBH team.)

↫ Raymond Chen

What’s going on here? Obviously, I’m not going to doubt Chen, so there must be item current I don’t fairly comprehend or that I’m missing. The ATX specification power propose 12 seconds, but could Windows perchance modify its kernel dump behavior – dumping much sooner than 8 seconds – according to the motherboard it’s operating on, perchance through data provided by the chipset drivers?

I would affection it if person additional informed than me can assistance us unravel this small mystery.

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Thom Holwerda

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