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What is the button on power supply of the Dell Optiplex 760 workstation for? There is a small button near LED power indicatior - seems to do nothing when pressed.

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Have you tried asking Dell support? – John Gardeniers Jun 30 '09 at 10:57
is it definitely a button? There is genrally a small red slide switch on them that's used for switching between US and European voltages (Hint: don't change it) but I've not seen one with a button. What form factor is the machine - Optiplexes come in 4 different sizes...? – Marko Carter Jun 30 '09 at 11:51
@Marko - yes, it's a small microswitch monostable button, right next to LED. Optiplex is a standard middle-tower. – tomash Jul 1 '09 at 7:38
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4 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

It has a green LED above it and is used to test the PSU without opening the case and testing the PSU.

I have one here in my office and I believe thats what it does.

Note that when plugged in and pressed, it fires up the PSU for just a second.

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When pressed and held, test ends after a few seconds too – tomash Jul 1 '09 at 7:37
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up vote 2 down vote

Possibly the PSU has a circuit breaker built in as additional protection against electrocution / other electrical fun. The button would then be a reset for this circuit breaker.

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I've seen buttons like this before, and those were for resetting the builtin automatic fuse. – pauska Jun 30 '09 at 19:40
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up vote 0 down vote

Is it set to 'soft off' or disabled in the BIOS. Most power buttons nowadays can be changed to set to standby instead of hard power down.

Try pressing it in for 4 seconds, that forces a full power off on all power buttons.

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up vote -2 down vote

Every time you press it an angel gets its wings!

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