Powersupply

[The_Dominion]

I recently bought a case from Newegg, and it came with a powersupply. I have been wondering, should the power supply work without an attached motherboard? Or is it just dead?

 

[burningrave101]

A power supply has to be turned on by the motherboard. It wont come on by just plugging it in and flipping the switch.

There is a trick to turning a PSU on without a motherboard though useing a paper clip and connecting the green wire to a black ground wire on the ATX connector but i doubt your PSU is dead if you havn't already tested it while connected to a mobo.

 

[xonik]

It doesn't turn on by itself because it shouldn't. A PC power supply is a switching-mode power supply, and these types of power supplies shouldn't be run without a load. They wouldn't function properly if you tried to turn one on without being connected to a fan at least.

 

[jamestime88]

A power supply has to be turned on by the motherboard. It wont come on by just plugging it in and flipping the switch.

There is a trick to turning a PSU on without a motherboard though useing a paper clip and connecting the green wire to a black ground wire on the ATX connector but i doubt your PSU is dead if you havn't already tested it while connected to a mobo.

isnt it that you have to connect it to ALL the black ground wires, not just one?

 

[xonik]

isnt it that you have to connect it to ALL the black ground wires, not just one?

That's not necessary, the black wires are all tied to a common ground, which actually goes to main ground, etc. etc. They are all the same ground. Furthermore, there is no problems with current traveling through a single black wire by any means. It's a very low current sense signal, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[MrCodeDude]

isnt it that you have to connect it to ALL the black ground wires, not just one?

That's a lot of paperclips

Yeah, to test it. Just get a paperclip and use it to connect the green wire (PS On or something) to connect it to any black wire.