External Power Switch for a Laptop

Question

Here's the situation: I keep my laptop under my monitor and every time I want to power it up I have to move the monitor/arm, open the lid, power it up, close the lid, and move the monitor back. This is a pain for something I do 4-5 times a day.

My question is: Has anyone tried to make an external power switch for their laptops? Is there any other solution that I'm not considering?

I was thinking of finding a thin piece of plastic, gluing a "dimple" on it where it would hit the power button, and covering it with soft clothe to protect the laptop. I could just slide it in between the lid and position it so I could press down on the plastic. Hackish, I know.

This laptop has no dock, BTW. Also, I can't just move the laptop as my desk space is at a premium.

Answer 1

Something simple, but still maybe not as convenient as you'd like, you can set in the BIOS for the computer to boot when it detects power (available on many computers). This setting is for when a blackout shuts down your computer, and it's like a file server or something, so you want it to turn back on by itself as soon as it can.

My suggestion is that you enable this setting in the BIOS, plug your computer into a power strip, when you shut down, also turn off the power strip (I always do this anyway because it saves electricity, and my power strip hums slightly, which I can hear at night). Then, when you want to boot, just turn the power strip back on.

Note that hibernate mode does not require electricity like sleep mode does, so you'd have to use that instead of sleep mode if you are going to turn your power strip off.

Answer 2

If your computer usage tends to stay the same from day to day, you can time the computer to wake up instead. You essentially have to create a scheduled task that does nothing but makes the computer wake up to do.

You could also plug in an old mouse just for waking up the computer if you want (if your computer allows powering USB devices while asleep). Just follow these instructions but check the box instead of unchecking it at the end. Then to wake the computer, just click the mouse.

Both these solutions require that you put your computer to sleep, though.