My new computer is up and running, still a lot of work to do to get all the software installed and everything configured the way I like it.

My old computer was set up to be controlled by a master switch, that is, one switch (on a power strip) controlled power to everything: the computer, the monitor, the printer, the scanner, the sound system, the external USB hard drive, wall-warts for Karma, empeg, etc., the desk lamp... in other words, when I turned that switch off, everything was off.

Conversely, when I turned it on, everything was on -- including the computer. When AC power returned to it, it started up and booted automatically. I am pretty sure that this was a BIOS setting.

I am unable to find anything that looks like it might do the same thing with the new computer, but since I am pretty clueless (and fearful!) about changing BIOS settings, I probably didn't know where to look.

Does anybody have any ideas what such a setting might be called?

tanstaafl.

AC PWR Auto Recovery? http://www.techarp.com/showFreeBOG.aspx?lang=0&bogno=405

or PWRON After PWR-Fail? http://www.techarp.com/showFreeBOG.aspx?lang=0&bogno=406

Edit: it would of course be easier if you found out your motherboard brand/type.

Yes, that's definitely a BIOS setting on most computers with ATX or newer power supplies. It's usually labeled very clearly, so if you don't see it in your BIOS, then either you haven't looked at the right page of settings, or for some reason your motherboard manufacturer didn't include it.

Make sure you're running the latest version of the BIOS for that motherboard, then look around more closely for the setting. It would probably be under "chipset" or "power" or "advanced" or some such. It would be named something like poweron after powerfail, or AC power on behavior, or some such. It would have three settings: Stay off, Power on, or "Last" (meaning it should return to whatever it was when it lost power).

Looks like your motherboard manual can be found here then (it looks like the only MSI board with that bios, cpu socket, gpu and sli):

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=...amp;prod_no=254

Altough your bios version of 1.7 doesn't match up with any of the ones listed here:

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=...amp;prod_no=254

So I could be wrong

If I have got the right motherboard AND the manual actually really represents the BIOS screens on your example, then you want the "Power Management Features" page and the "Restore on AC Power Loss: On" option. It is possible that this feature might only be visible when the "ACPI Function" at the top of the screen is set to enabled.

I think he actually has the MSI K9N Platinum v1.0 since it has a bios version of 1.7 released on the same date shown in the screenshot. The manual can be downloaded from here.

I also noticed that MSI has Live Updates and running this should tell you exactly what motherboad you have. It should allow you to selectively update the bios and drivers.