"My father's son" wrote in message ...

To turn on a PSU without a mobo, connect its pin 14 (green wire,
Power
On) to a black wire, like pin 13 or 15 next to it. Some PSUs also
need a load of 20 ohms or less (use 10 watt resistor -- could get
hot
otherwise) between red and black wires for the +5V.

Yes, I was able to test the Soyo PS with this method but cannot interpret
the results: The PS DOES seem able to give out 3.3 volts, 5 volts and 12
volts. But some (one?) of the pins which should give out 12 volts only
gives out 10 and a 5 volt one only gives out 3 volts.

I've found that the voltages will often be out of tolerance when a PSU
is tested without the mobo because some PSUs need rails to be loaded
with at least 1 amp, and I have a PSU that needs far more than that
and when loaded with just a 466 MHz Celeron the +12V rail will be so
low that the HD won't even spin. The Key Mouse website once listed a
minimum current of 5A for the +5V rail of one of its PSUs.

It's possible that the +5V wire that measures at only +3V is actually
a signal
line, like the Power-On signal (grey on standard ATX PSUs). One way
to find out is by connecting it to a known good +5V wire through a
1K-2K resistor (do NOT connect it directly to +5V!!!), and if it
increases to +5V then you know it's a signal output rather than a
voltage supply line.

Have you tried www.support.compaq.com to find the Compaq's pin
specifications?
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be nearly as easy to use as Gateway's
online help.