Power Supply Test

[Jack125]

Does a Power Supply have to be plugged into the motherboard, etc., to power up. I recently got a new Enermax Noisetaker AX SLI 600 watt supply and just wanted to test my cold cathode connection by plugging it into one of the molex connectors out of the power supply. When I plugged in the power supply and trned the switch to on, nothing happened, the fans in the power supply did not run either.

 

[WW2Planes1]

just turning on the switch on the back of the PSU doesn't power it up. I know it is possible to power up a power supply without a motherboard, but i don't know how and I also know that power supplies are designed to run with a minimum load on all of the lines. You need to make sure that everything has a load on it before you power it up.

 

[Nohr]

You can short out the green wire on the ATX power cable to any of the black ground wires with a paper clip. But like was mentioned, you can damage the PSU if you power it up with no load.

 

[Zepper]

You could get one of those cheap PSU testers that you see all over for <$10. It will turn the PSU on and provide a small load so it would be safe to test your other equipment for a short time.

.bh.