Is there such a thing as a remote head for a chassis?

Just discovered my four-year-old Win10 PC won't hack it for Win11, so I'm starting to think about the next one (not in any hurry, though). One thing I often thought would be nice in a PC is a remote head. The only reason I need the tower right next to me is to get to the power button and, occasionally, the USB ports. If I could put these (and maybe an SD card reader) into a small box, I could put the box somewhere convenient and discrete, and bury the tower under my desk where I hardly ever need to access it, freeing up floorspace at the front of the desk where it would otherwise go. Do architectures like this exist? If not, how hard would it be to roll my own?

I assume I could just run USB cables from the mobo to the ports, so the main issue is how the power button and LED are wired. Is that pretty standard? Any pointers to relevant info?

I've always bought my PCs, but, as an EE with a well-equipped bench and shop, I'm pretty sure I could handle building a system if that's the only way to get this functionality.

Thanks for any tips.

You could use Remote Desktop to make it into a so called "headless" unit. That way you would not need a monitor, mouse, or keyboard attached to that system.

Note that the machine would need to be running Windows Pro (Home does not support Remote Desktop).

Also, there might be some rare occasions where you need to slap a monitor on the system temporarily. For example, during the initial installation of Windows or if you want to enter the BIOS.

EDIT: Should add that the remote system will need some of networking enabled on it. If you want to eliminate cable connections, WiFi would work fine for this purpose.

hsehestedt said:

You could use Remote Desktop to make it into a so called "headless" unit.

Won't that require a second PC to connect to the remote one? Also, it doesn't solve the remote power switch issue. I'd like to preserve my current workflow of having the PC back itself up every night, shut itself down, then I reboot it in the morning. Limits the amount of cruft that builds up over time.

Correct, a 2nd PC would be needed. There are hardware solutions that will allow you to connect mouse, keyboard, and monitor remotely over a connection such as an ethernet cable. I wasn't aware that this is what you were looking for.

As for power, you have a few options:

For the shutdown, you can shutdown the system remotely via user control. As a second option, you could issue a simple shutdown command after your backup runs. This way, the shutdown would happen automatically without the need for user intervention.

To power up again, once again, a couple of options. First, the BIOS in most systems has an option to power on the system automatically at a certain time. This way, the system can start at the same time every day.

As another option, the BIOS often has an option to set the behavior upon power loss. For example, if power is lost and then returns, the system could be set to automatically power on. Knowing that, you could connect the system to a remote controlled power switch. After the system is shutdown normally, turn the power to that switch off. Then, when you want to power the system back on, turn the switch back on. If the BIOS is set to turn the system on at power restore, it will cause the system to start automatically.

Finally, you could configure Wake-on-LAN. Wake on LAN would allow you to wake up the system by sending a special packet to it over the network. This could come from another computer, a router with Wake-on-LAN capability, or an app on a smart phone.

I don’t mind plugging the monitor etc. into the PC, so I don’t need a KVM switch. I also don’t always turn the PC on at the same time, so a manual switch is the best solution in my case. I just don’t know if the switch connects to the mobo or power supply or how many wires it needs. I assume it’s momentary but I’m not sure.