Booting without a mouse, keyboard or monitor attached?

gizmo1990 · 4 Jul 2009 at 15:45

I've got a small mini-itx rig which I'd like to be able to run without a mouse, keyboard or monitor connected to it.. i havent got the pc to hand at the moment to do some in depth fiddling with it so I thought I'd pose the question here first.

I'd just like it to be frequently turn 'off and on'able' but without anything attached to it. I've always thought that pcs have required at least those 3 things attached to boot but was wondering if new bios settings or win xp allowed this to be done away with?

Has anyone here had any experience of doing this? Can it be done even?

Ideally I'd like to control the pc occasionally remotely (and wirelessly) via another pc in the house. Looking around the net people suggest a program called radmin for this? Has anyone heard of this and can recommend it?

Any advice or suggestions in this area greatly appreciated.

Destination · 4 Jul 2009 at 16:01

Well you can remove the need for a keyboard and mouse usually in the bios boot config, so it doesn't pause or stop, without a monitor should be fine also, but it will need a gfx output, and to detect the gfx card, then with the right setup using keyboard and mouse you should be able to boot it, set it up, shut down and use it without.

Is it going to be some network thing? Remote controlled?
I can't see a purpose otherwise.

surfermc · 4 Jul 2009 at 16:29

You don't need a keyboard, mouse or monitor for the PC to function once it has been set up and configured. There should be options in the bios that will allow booting without keyboard or mouse.

Depending on you OS you may already have remote desktop installed (Windows XP Pro) or have a look at one of the VNC implementations eg UltraVNC or TightVNC

gizmo1990 · 5 Jul 2009 at 14:22

Thanks for the replies guys.

Yes it's going to be a network server kind of thing plus music streamer to my squeezebox.

I just want to be able to turn it on and off simply and easily without any fuss nor have anything connected to it.

I'll look into this as soon as I'm able, I'm not currently at home to try it it.

betaspin · 5 Jul 2009 at 15:29

gizmo1990, if this question refers to a Zotac 9300 ITX based system, it will boot up without anything attached to it, have done it several times while testing and adjusting fans.

gizmo1990 · 5 Jul 2009 at 16:42

Hey betaspin. Unfortunately it isn't, it's a intel atom board. Can you tell I like small pc builds..?

Guardsmon · 8 Jul 2009 at 12:39

On most motherboards in the BIOS on the first screen it gives you the option to stop on errors - you want to select stop on none(or virus or other options you want)

Many motherboards (often the better) give you the option to wake on alarm. This is great so you can have your computer turn on at 11pm each night and then set it to switch off at 8am each day. It does depend on your motherboard.

Again you also set it to wake on LAN if you have the correct setup so you can remote it when you wish.

Col_M · 8 Jul 2009 at 20:06

I can say with 100% certainty that the Intel boards can be used with no keyboard, mouse or monitor, I have my own server running on a D945GCLF2 with nothing attached to it.