I am using an Asrock J4105-ITX motherboard for a backup server. The thing does not shut down, fan and disks are off, power led is on, and it draws some 5W. Same if I unplug and plug in the power cable, not pushing the power button. Doing this for some time now, but It used to turn off previously.
Reset the bios, even found a new version 1.6 and installed that, removed memory and disks, still goes on and draws 5W even without disks.
Otherwise not problems, turns on and runs flawlessly (Truenas Scale, also checked the shutdown with Grml).
PS is a pico type ps from hdplex. Seems the mobo or the power supply is defective. Any ideas?
Sure sure or just “IIRC and I might be wrong about this”.
It can be an OS/driver thing. One of my Ubuntu desktop machines doesn’t turn off when instructed, but does if I first logout – but only if I don’t change the function of the power button or the on power status in the BIOS. If I change one or both of the two BIOS parameters it will never turn off (automatically). It didn’t do that from the beginning but at some time it started. I never what Ubuntu update / kernel version triggered it, but it stayed that way so far.
You are right, IIRC. Sitting under my desk it didn’t bother me until I checked the power consumption. But I’m quite sure that I tested the thing when I built it, maybe almost 10 years ago.
It can be an OS/driver thing.
That was my first thought, but it seems it goes into power save after just connecting power, not seeing any drivers or os.
??? Does it run or does it not?
There is no real off for modern computers unless you unplug them or use a switched power strip.
How much they consume can be configured in the BIOS (and BIOS Defaults don’t necessarily have to be the most power conserving settings). You may have a general EuP setting to reduce the standby to 1 - 1.5 watts or individual standby settings for things like USB, network and so on. Add-on cards (which you may have added later) can also add to this.
So 5 watts standby power consumption sounds to me like a realistic value for a PC with turned on standby features. Also for some features the effect depends greatly on usage: USB standby power turned on may not add much consumption on its own – until you replace a standard keyboard with a new one with led lights, add external storage devices, … which then all will consume more or less power during standby.
PS: A Windows 10 or 11 may even put the machine in a Suspend state when instructed to shut down (on default; try keywords: “Fast Startup” and “Away Mode” for research).
Yes, connecting to power, before the power button is pressed, the chassis fan and the disks spin up and go out again, but the power button stays always on. According to the manaul S4 or S5 are never reached. Maybe the LED just does not work correctly.
Anyway, it’s not dramatic, but far more than my old Haswell Nuc and Asrock Deskmini, both < 1W, maybe they are better optimized for low power consumption.
Thank you for your explanation. I’ll just pull the plug.
