Ryan Wagoner wrote:
The solution here is to purchase a UPS. I prefer APC, but there are other brands that work great.
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Additionally if your computer BIOS supports configuring the AC recovery power mode to always on, the computer will start back up. Most default to last state, which doesn't work as well since shutting down will power off the computer, which means that last state is off. There are some workarounds to change the shutdown sequence to just halt and not power off.
Thanks for your very helpful reply. I will get a UPS, as you suggest, and if I can locate an APC I'll get that.
I hadn't really thought about the last part; but of course it is not normally sufficient just to switch the current on, I have to press the button on the computer as well. The computer in question is an HP MicroServer; I will see if it is possible to send it into halt mode.