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This post mentioned that servers can be powered on when given power (useful for remote power up by PDU).

Does anyone know if Dell PowerEdge servers have this options (particularly 2950 and 2850s). Also, will Cisco 3825 / 2800 router work this way?

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The PE2850 and PE2950 servers do in fact have a BIOS setting to control the power state. Cisco devices have no BIOS level settings to control power and are controlled soley by the state of the power switch.

https://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe2850/en/ug/t1390c30.htm#wp1043338

https://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe2950/en/hom/html/syssetup.htm#wp1054535

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    Note that some Cisco gear has no physical power switch (mostly switches) - In this case the switch is hard-wired "on" and the device will turn on as soon as it gets power. Also the BIOS option isn't unique to Dell systems - Every server I've seen in the last 5 years has three options for recovering from power failure: On, Off & "Last State". "Last State" is a sensible value, especially if you power off a box & don't want it coming back to life after a power failure (decommissioned, etc.)
    – voretaq7
    Feb 2, 2010 at 15:36
  • Even my Dell desktop PC from 2003 has those options. AFAIK the Dell servers got it too.
    – Kiwi
    Feb 2, 2010 at 15:57
  • Actually if you search for "AC Power Recovery" on the links you included you'll see that both of these servers can be set to start up when power is restored. Aug 3, 2010 at 13:55
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Since most, if not all Cisco gear has a physical rocker switch, then powering on after a power loss will be automatic anyway.

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The PowerEdge systems should have an option in the BIOS that says something along the lines of "resume after power loss" or something to that effect. Enable it, and you should be able to boot from there. If your Dells have DRACs, you should be able to power them on with that, as well.

The Cisco routers, I'm not particularly sure, but I would imagine that they do have this option somewhere in them.

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Routers will definitely power up when power is restored.

Dell servers don't have an option in the BIOS either as far as I remember - they just restore to their last state. We control a ton of 1950s with remote PDUs and I'm pretty sure we never had to set anything in the BIOS.

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  • The option does exists in the bios, dell just defaults it to "last state" or "on" from the factory.
    – Zypher
    Feb 2, 2010 at 15:50
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Cisco kit with a rocker switch will power on on "return of power" if (and only if) the rocker switch is set to 'power on'. Quite a lot of the 1U switches do not have any power control, so if you want to switch them off, you have to pull the power cable out of them.

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