HP on button broken, plastic thingy fatigued and won't work-help!

[uppityperson]

I have a HP desktop and the button you push to turn it on is having problems (the button that is attached to the front of the case). I push the button in, the machine turns on, the button stays in and the machine turns off. I took it apart and the button on the case is hard plastic, sort of springy around the edges, leading it to push back out into place, except the plastic bendy pushy parts fatigued and broke so now it just goes in and stays in.

Do I really need this button attached to the case? If I just completely break it off, I can touch the on-button on the computer itself. Is this ok? Or I can wrap a piece of electrical tape around the case's button, extending it out front as a tag, allowing me to push the button in, then pull it back out with the tape/tag bit. This would work too, but do I need to do this or should I just remove the case's button, push directly on the computer's on button or any other ideas? Thank you.

[trotsky]

1. It's perfectly OK to just push the actual toggle button.

I had a machine that did that exact same thing. Turned it on/off using the "real" button for a couple of years.

[uppityperson]

2. Thanks, that's what I thought

It seemed like the case button was for looks, but I wanted to find out if anyone else knew anything about it and here you were. Thank you. Computers, sigh.