Ctrl + Alt + Backspace shuts power down.

Message

Raoul_Duke · Post by **Raoul_Duke** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 9:16 am

Just compiled and configured XFree on my new box but for some reason the above three fingered salute kills the power to the machine instead of just killing the x server

Anyone had any experience of this?

zhenlin · Post by **zhenlin** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:26 am

Perhaps the sudden termination of the X server induces a flux in the monitor's power supply, which in turn chain reacts, causing the whole system to power down...

Just a hypothesis.

Chickpea · Post by **Chickpea** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 2:58 pm

That is what it is supposed to do. to just turn of the X server use Cntrl Alt Backspace

Raoul_Duke · Post by **Raoul_Duke** » Mon Aug 04, 2003 10:03 pm

Chickpea wrote:That is what it is supposed to do. to just turn of the X server use Cntrl Alt Backspace

That's what i'm using

Chickpea · Post by **Chickpea** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 5:40 pm

Should have read that over. Sorry.

I know there is a setting for those keycodes but cant remember where all of them are. Are you using any kind of login manager ie xdm kdm or gdm? or just startx?

hjlane3 · Post by **hjlane3** » Tue Aug 05, 2003 6:42 pm

Isnt' it ctrl+alt+del , wiat a sec, then do ctrl+alt+backspace ? I could be completely wrong, I just don't want to test for myself because I don't want to kill some apps running in X

Raoul_Duke · Post by **Raoul_Duke** » Wed Aug 06, 2003 5:55 am

It's weird because it kills the power immediatly......just as if i'd hit the off switch. Happens in any X enviroment!!

amne · Post by **amne** » Wed Aug 06, 2003 7:24 am

i once read, that some SiS based motherboards do that, whenever you press this combination. does it also happen, if X isn't running and are you using such a chipset? if yes: sorry, i don't know a solution, but maybe the information is a good starting point for further research

abysed · Post by **abysed** » Wed Aug 06, 2003 8:22 am

I have this problem with my setup and haven't really heard about anyone else with this same issue (until now!). Just one reason I don't use linux on here, in case something were to freeze X. My motherboard: ABIT SD7-533. And yes, X doesn't even have to be loaded for this to happen. I'll even do it during bootup and it'll kill power to the box.

antipop · Post by **antipop** » Wed Aug 06, 2003 11:07 am

It's probably a BIOS setting. At least it was for me

Raoul_Duke · Post by **Raoul_Duke** » Wed Aug 06, 2003 11:23 am

amne wrote:i once read, that some SiS based motherboards do that, whenever you press this combination. does it also happen, if X isn't running and are you using such a chipset? if yes: sorry, i don't know a solution, but maybe the information is a good starting point for further research

Yeah, i've got an SIS based mobo........anyone ever solved this ??

Raoul_Duke · Post by **Raoul_Duke** » Wed Aug 06, 2003 11:24 am

antipop wrote:It's probably a BIOS setting. At least it was for me

What setting was it ?

sirro · Post by **sirro** » Thu Aug 07, 2003 6:26 pm

It's the same on my machine. Pressing Ctrl-Alt-Backspace unter X seems to kill the powersupply, pressing Ctrl-Alt-Backspace at console freezes the whole machine.
I think I've also got an SiS based Board, but I don't exatly know.
What is the BIOS-Option someone mentioned?
Are there any workarounds for shuting down the X Server?

The strange thing is that it does not happen under SuSE.

EDIT: I've just found out that it does not happen before lilo is started, after lilo (or grub) is loaded the box either freezes or shutdown suddenly.
Once grub is finished and the SuSE-Kernel is booting, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace is working properly.

antipop · Post by **antipop** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 9:47 am

Raoul_Duke wrote:
antipop wrote:It's probably a BIOS setting. At least it was for me
What setting was it ?

The BIOS option is Hot Key Function As located in power management or something. The help for it said that the hot key is set to Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. Disable hotkey if you have the same option as I do.

Raoul_Duke · Post by **Raoul_Duke** » Fri Aug 08, 2003 12:53 pm

Thank you antipop

zaphod0709 · Post by **zaphod0709** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 7:23 pm

I am owner of a AsRock K7S8x with SiS Chipset on it and encountered
exactly the same problems when pressing CTRL + ALT + BACKSPACE.

This problem was reolved after updating BIOS Version from P1.20 to P1.90.

garn · Post by **garn** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 8:08 pm

I had an old SiS mobo that did this. I actually liked it because it had a Control-F12 as power up and control-alt-backspace as power down. If X froze I just switched to the console and kill'ed it from there. But it was an option, i think it actually was off by default.

hazelnut · Post by **hazelnut** » Thu Nov 13, 2003 12:40 am

Thank you ever so much antipop for this solution - it was driving me mad!! I would never have thought that there was a key combo for immediate power off... why you'd want it is beyond me. (unless the power button had broken?

Anyway it fixed things for me on my spare PC (might have something to do with why I am rather unfamiliar with it - built from scavenged & ppls cast offs) - so cheers matey from the UK!

hazelnut

Ctrl + Alt + Backspace shuts power down.

Ctrl + Alt + Backspace shuts power down.

Power Off