Testing Power Supply w/o a Motherboard?

[MikeSchinkel]

I have a bunch of old computers and breaking down into parts and then rebuilding them, buying new parts as needed. I'm just learning about the inerds of PCs' (I've been a S/W guy up until now) and it seems the old AT power supplies had their own switch but the new ATX power supplies have to be plugged into a motherboard and then the switch attached to the motherboard turns them on and off.

My questions are:

1. Is there any way to turn an ATX power supply on and off w/o being attached to a motherboard (i.e. in order to test a fan, or something like that?)

2. Aside from plugging into a motherboard and trying, how else could I determine if a power supply is good or bad? Are their power supply testers like there are ethernet cable testers?

Thanks in advance.

[HfdWolfPack]

I am about to buy one myself ;-)
GO to www.pcpowerandcooling.com (http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com) and look 4 the ATX power supply tester. Its like 8 dollars now

[This message has been edited by HfdWolfPack (edited 04-09-2001).]

[Szech]

If you connect the green wire and any black wire, then the ATX power supply will power up.

[Imperion1]

I bought one of those testers from pcpowercooling.
Save your money, the only thing it does is check to see if the 5v DC works and lights a little green light if it does.

Just checked out the virtualhideout.net.
Thats pretty much the same setup as the powersupply tester.


[This message has been edited by Imperion1 (edited 04-09-2001).]

[MikeSchinkel]

Thanks, you guys are great!!!

[captpete]

The wires are, of course, color coded from 12. Get a multimeter from an auto supply store. Remember that black is ground and just start testing. On AT red is going to be 5v and yellow is 12v. On ATX, no. 1 is 12v, no. 10 (at the other end same side) is 3.3v. Opposite no. 10 is No. 20, which is also 3.3. and opposite No. 1 is No. 11 at 5v. Pick your poison for testing your fan, ie. by what v your fan uses. And read the directions for your multimeter. It will test volts, amps and ohms.

[fyxxer32]

http://www.virtualhideout.net/guides/atx_psu_mods/index.shtml
This gives a pretty good step by step on how to do that.