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03 September 2010 

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Powering an ATX PSU Without a Motherboard



difficulty rating:
- easy/medium

article by:
- inder

related www:
- forum thread



"Why would you want to power your PSU without plugging it in? Well doing so gives you a test base to test new hardware etc without fear of damaging your system or frying or CPU etc... It makes testing and swapping around devices much easier. You could even use a second PSU to power devices in your main rig, should you run out of molex's..."



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Powering an ATX PSU Without a Motherboard
Powering up your ATX PSU without using a motherboard, is a fairly simple process - but before we begin please remember safety first! If you are not certain and do not have the proper materials or tools available, please do not attempt this mod. Modtown cannot be held responsible should you injure yourself, your computer, next doors pet or anyone else.

Why would you want to power your PSU without plugging it in? Well doing so gives you a test base to test new hardware etc without fear of damaging your system or frying or CPU etc... It makes testing and swapping around devices much easier. You could even use a second PSU to power devices in your main rig, should you run out of molex's.

what you need:

- ATX Power Supply
- A piece of conductive wire
- Wire Strippers or similar
- Wire Cutters

the process:

First off make sure your PSU is unplugged and lying in the corner until its needed. Take your wire (I used some from an old electrical cable) and cut off about two inches of it. Strip and twist both ends to be left with something similar to the third image:

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Bend this completed 'jumper' into a 'U' shape:

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Now we need to identify the pins to which we are going to connect the 'jumper' to. The 'jumper' will act just like the power button on your computer does, completing the circuit telling the PSU to switch on...

Take a look at the ATX connector coming off the PSU. There are twenty coloured wires terminating into a molex that connects to your motherboard, we are only interested in the GREEN wire and any BLACK wire.

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According to the standard ATX specification, the GREEN wire is pin 14 (consult your PSU manual for an accurate pin-out diagram). We can use any BLACK wire to complete the connection, however for simplicity we used the BLACK wire next to the GREEN wire.

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Take the 'jumper' and put one end into the GREEN wire connection. Then take the other end and push it into the BLACK wire connection. Double check you have created a similar link as shown in the third image:

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All done! Check you connection one more time. I suggest NOT plugging in any devices to any power molex coming off this PSU until you first plug the PSU in and flick the power switch, if the PSU fan is running, you may turn if off and connect your devices. Just a little test to ensure things went okay - better than plugging in all your devices and watching them each blow up :D

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the completed modded PSU:

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To test devices etc... simply plug them into a spare molex as you normally would if this PSU was inside your computer.

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