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Quick (Easy?) Question, Need a Fast Answer

T

TheChaoticFlame

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
99
I'm not new to building PCs, but I have a stupid question I guess.

How does one power on an out-of-the-case ATX system? :confused:

I mean, with AT power supplies it's obvious, but if you don't have that lovely little case button to do it's magic, how do you turn an ATX system on? I know it's possible, and probably really easy... I even Googled around for it without any results except how to do it without a motherboard.
(I think this implies that everyone but me already knows how to do it..):rolleyes:

I really need to get to work on testing some new-to-me hardware, but I don't have any extra cases right now :( (Anyone want to sell me some cheap?) so some help would be greatly appreciated!
 
Alright, so I started googling again, I found some actual useful stuff this time because it seems that swapping the words "power supply" for "computer" in "how to turn on computer without case" was the initial problem. I also found this thread on this forum:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1030666796

So it seems that I want to do some thing with a screwdriver? *blink*
If I had manuals for this stuff, (Think socket 370) I'd be in business, as is, I'm just confused about what to do with this screwdriver I'm hearing so much about.
 
TheChaoticFlame said:
So it seems that I want to do some thing with a screwdriver? *blink*
Click to expand...

No. That's how to start a PSU without a case. He has a motherboard. He would touch the PWR_ON pins with a screwdriver.

Check my link.

And allow more than 30 minutes for someone to respond in the PSU forum. This is far from the busiest forum here.
 
JonGerow said:
No. That's how to start a PSU without a case. He has a motherboard. He would touch the PWR_ON pins with a screwdriver.

Check my link.
Click to expand...
I have motherboards... Several of them. And no idea if any of them will function. :D (Hence the testing.)

JonGerow said:
And allow more than 30 minutes for someone to respond in the PSU forum. This is far from the busiest forum here.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but I'm really trying to get some work done. (I'm usually patient enough to do more research.) And other posts were getting replies... So... I feel like the "Quick Question" label just caused everyone to immediately ignore my post. :/
 
JonGerow said:
He would touch the PWR_ON pins with a screwdriver.
Click to expand...

So that IS what I want to do... How do I determine which pins those are then?

And what's my risk of electrocution for this procedure? I've gotten zapped by a power supply before... It hurts. Not something I want to do again.
 
I got one board working right now, (started poking random pins) but I just discovered something I just had to share, included with my reaction:

"Holy fuck, some idiot on eBay sent me a hard drive with shit on it." Including Windows Me.

Now, Windows Me is actually an operating system that I've been looking for a copy of. (Curiosity, and I want to see just how many operating systems I can make a single hard drive boot from. I'm shooting for 10.)

So assuming that I'm not trying to get credit card numbers out of the damn thing, (which I would never do)... Someone tell me that I'm a bad person if I don't just format the drive...

Or tell me how to extract a serial number so I can install it on another drive. :p
 
I don't seem to be able to start Board #2 by poking random pins, and am unable to identify it by its chipset. Board is socket 7, and appears to have hookups for both AT and ATX power supplies. I am going to try using an AT supply to turn it on.
 
Looks like I now have hard drive issues... The old boards bios don't seem to know what to do with a 40G hard drive, which unfortunately is the smallest I think I have right now. (I managed to fry all my other sub 10G hard drives within the last week... Pretty impressive.)

Looks like I need to move this thread over to a different sub-forum at this point, but I'm still very open to ideas about how to determine which pins are the PWR ones on this older board so I can use it with an ATX power supply.
 
It sounds like you figured this out already, but I will answer anyways. For ATX motherboards, there are two pins that connect to the power switch on the case. All the switch does is short these two momentarily which sends a signal to start the computer. Hence, touching those two pins with a screwdriver (or anything else conductive) sends the signal just like the power switch.

As for identifying the pins, have you tried looking for the manuals online? I have had surprisingly good luck finding manuals for old motherboards online.
 
If you don't have the manual, most motherboards have this info silkscreened onto the motherboard itself. Its in the jumper block somewhere, usually labeled PWR, or something like that. I've never been shocked starting it this way.

I'm not sure a socket 7 board can handle a 40GB drive. How many GBs did it recognize? To get above 127GBs that had to use 48bit addressing, I doubt the socket 7 board supports anything above 30bit.
 
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