Thread: M2-ATX + Laptop

So,


I am sure I am not the first one to do this, and hopefully will not be tarred and feathered for doing so!

Preface:

I have had an M2-ATX sitting around on a shelf for 2-3 years now, and had never really used it (fiddled with it when I got it to make sure it works; it does)

I had it hooked up in my car to an intel core2 duo cpu/msi motherboard, all worked RELATIVELY well (inconsistent power on, but I think that was due to a loose IGN trigger)

Now:

I have decided to forgo the motherboard solution and use a laptop in its place - this made sense from a cost perspective (laptop = free, motherboard = lacking all the things the laptop has)

The intent is to run the laptop from a 12V->19V DC converter (purchased, works perfectly)
The M2-ATX is then going to be used for the following:

Trigger a relay that controls the DCDC converter for the laptop. This way the power brick is not constantly sucking power and still relies on the M2 for some intelligence. (This appears to work)

Issue:

The M2 has the traditional ACPI out header to send the pulse to a "motherboard" for poweron. This, being a laptop, doesn't have standard headers - nor do I think the switches are necessarily ACPI compliant.

The issue I am having is:

I have found the +/- on the power switch. I have soldered a two-wire/2 pin connector onto the laptop power switch; this gets plugged into the M2's PWROUT/TRIGGER header.
The "pulse" appears to be entirely too long on power on. The laptop powers on, powers off, powers on, powers off.

I have verified the pulse is too long by simply yanking the ACPI connector right after the laptop powers on - it does not power back on/off/etc once the header has sent the first pulse and then been yanked.

Are there any simple ways to make the pulse less "gratuitous" / shorter that are cost effective? The key here was reusing parts that I had (hence the M2-atx as a shutdown controller); but this ONE issue is causing me the biggest headache. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

PS, please keep in mind, I do also want to use the same functionality to power the laptop off - I'm not sure if this limits the options to fix this issue.

Anyone's help/suggestions are greatly appreciated. My last resort is using the laptop's built in wake-on-AC but I really dislike this option because it requires me to make the laptop suspend/shutdown upon a HARD poweroff rather than a graceful ACPI trigger. I know the laptop would still run on internal battery - but I consider that a less than ideal situation.

Thanks in advance!