Really dumb power supply problem

[mikeford]

I bought a case from a hot deals thread for $28 including shipping, and while it looked great (black with spiderweb side window and mirror front panel) getting the power supply working was driving me nuts.

Instead of a two wire connector going to the motherboard to turn on power, this one had all the normal stuff from the front panel to the mother board, except the power twisted pair went directly to the power supply. Worse it didn't do a thing when I pressed the front panel power button. I disconnected the mother board ATX and plugged the power supply into my tester (PCcooling thing) and it worked fine, so I plugged it back into the motherboard and shorted the motherboard pins that normally go to the power switch with a screwdriver and again the power supply turned on just fine (and off too).

This really had me scratching my head, and I was just about to post a question on this odd case and power supply here, but it was 5 am so I just went to bed. Next morning I wasn't doing any better, and it just made no sense to run the power switch directly to the power supply, and then for it not to work when the motherboard signal worked fine.

I felt SO DUMB, the power switch wasn't connected to the power supply, it must have been loose in transport and had just poked through a vent and gotten stuck. A little wiggling and it came right out and plugged into the motherboard just fine and works fine.

 

[cheapgoose]

ok, I think I can help, there are no switches from the case to the power supply. there's only switch from case to mobo. the mobo turns on the power supply. your tester, I believe shorts the gren wire to ground on the atx mobo plug, that's how the mobo turns it on. if the headers on the mobo works and the switch didn't, maybe there's something wrong with the switch. I don't think polarity matters, maybe you can just get another switch from an old case.

hope that helps