I found the skeleton of an old computer with the power supply in it
that still worked. The power supply will only turn on when it's
connected to the motherboard. I'm trying to figure out how I can turn
the power supply on without the motherboard.
This is (was) a pentium II and the power supply says "Newton"
something, but I don't have the model number with me.
The cables that go from the power supply to the motherboard, in
addition to the usual red/yellow/black power/ground lines, have orange,
green, blue, violet, grey and white wires.
I was hoping there is some standard color-coding for the "power good"
wires that I have to jump or whatever the procedure is, to get the
power supply to turn on by itself.

"kell" wrote in message
ups.com...

You spent more effort typing your post than typing "computer power supply
pinout" into google...

Dave spake thus:

"kell" wrote in message
ups.com...

You spent more effort typing your post than typing "computer power supply
pinout" into google...

Well, I also would like to know what the OP asked about, in order to use
these abudantly-available power supplies for other applications. Instead
of a snotty reply, you could have answered the question if you knew, or
simply not posted anything if you didn't.


--
Just as McDonald's is where you go when you're hungry but don't really
care about the quality of your food, Wikipedia is where you go when
you're curious but don't really care about the quality of your knowledge.

- Matthew White's WikiWatch (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wikiwoo.htm)

kell wrote:
I found the skeleton of an old computer with the power supply in it
that still worked. The power supply will only turn on when it's
connected to the motherboard. I'm trying to figure out how I can turn
the power supply on without the motherboard.
This is (was) a pentium II and the power supply says "Newton"
something, but I don't have the model number with me.
The cables that go from the power supply to the motherboard, in
addition to the usual red/yellow/black power/ground lines, have orange,
green, blue, violet, grey and white wires.
I was hoping there is some standard color-coding for the "power good"
wires that I have to jump or whatever the procedure is, to get the
power supply to turn on by itself.


1. Google for colour codes.
2. Switch power supplies do need a minimum load for operating.

David Nebenzahl ) writes:
Dave spake thus:

"kell" wrote in message
ups.com...

You spent more effort typing your post than typing "computer power supply
pinout" into google...

Well, I also would like to know what the OP asked about, in order to use
these abudantly-available power supplies for other applications. Instead
of a snotty reply, you could have answered the question if you knew, or
simply not posted anything if you didn't.


No.

This question is asked all the time. At the very least, people could
search "google groups" to find the answer from a previous time someone
asked the question.

But there are likely websites about it too.

Take note that this is a repair newsgroup, and the poster is claiming
the power supply is working. Hence it's not even relevant to this
newsgroup.

On the other hand, the "FAQ" for this newsgroup, more a set of short
books on the repair of various pieces of electronic equiment, is
at http://www.repairfaq.org and includes a whole section on switching
supplies, which just might offer up the needed information. It would
certainly supply some hints about why a simple switch closing may
not be all that's needed.

I can barely recall the original post, but to me it wasn't clear
if he was actually looking for how to do it, or had done something
that he thought was the right path and it didn't work. Properly
phrased questions often get better answers.

Someone who can be direct, "I looked up the pinout of the ATX supplies
and when I did this to it it didn't turn on" is actually far more
informative than the original post. Because then repliers can say
"did you load down the supply?" or "Are you sure it's got standard
pinout?" or "how do you know the power supply is working to start
with".

Michael

Jon Smid ) writes:
kell wrote:
I found the skeleton of an old computer with the power supply in it
that still worked. The power supply will only turn on when it's
connected to the motherboard. I'm trying to figure out how I can turn
the power supply on without the motherboard.
This is (was) a pentium II and the power supply says "Newton"
something, but I don't have the model number with me.
The cables that go from the power supply to the motherboard, in
addition to the usual red/yellow/black power/ground lines, have orange,
green, blue, violet, grey and white wires.
I was hoping there is some standard color-coding for the "power good"
wires that I have to jump or whatever the procedure is, to get the
power supply to turn on by itself.


1. Google for colour codes.
2. Switch power supplies do need a minimum load for operating.

Never trust color codes because
A) you can't be sure a company follows them
B) even if they did, you can't be sure that one specific power
supply was wired with the wrong colored wire. (Not likely
for a mass-produced item, but not unheard of.)

Either the pinout on the connector is standard, in which case they can
look it up, or it's a proprietary pinout and one has to find the
exact pinout used by the specific manufacturer. But in either
case, the pinout is a far better method of figuring out which wire
is which than color coding.

Michael

Michael Black spake thus:

On the other hand, the "FAQ" for this newsgroup, more a set of short
books on the repair of various pieces of electronic equiment, is
at http://www.repairfaq.org and includes a whole section on switching
supplies, which just might offer up the needed information. It would
certainly supply some hints about why a simple switch closing may
not be all that's needed.

You know, I looked in there; I don't want to be obtuse, but I must say
it was less than helpful. I mean, I have no doubt there's a ton of
information there, probably including answers to the very questions the
OP and I have, but it's just too damned hard to find them, to sift
through all that stuff. The search function simply looks for text
strings in the articles. Isn't there some kind of table of contents or
index to this thing? Unhelpfully, it's divided into files with cryptic
names like "monnew.htm" and "odnew.htm".


--
Just as McDonald's is where you go when you're hungry but don't really
care about the quality of your food, Wikipedia is where you go when
you're curious but don't really care about the quality of your knowledge.

- Matthew White's WikiWatch (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wikiwoo.htm)

David Nebenzahl spake thus:

Michael Black spake thus:

On the other hand, the "FAQ" for this newsgroup, more a set of short
books on the repair of various pieces of electronic equiment, is
at http://www.repairfaq.org and includes a whole section on switching
supplies, which just might offer up the needed information. It would
certainly supply some hints about why a simple switch closing may
not be all that's needed.

You know, I looked in there; I don't want to be obtuse, but I must say
it was less than helpful. I mean, I have no doubt there's a ton of
information there, probably including answers to the very questions the
OP and I have, but it's just too damned hard to find them, to sift
through all that stuff. The search function simply looks for text
strings in the articles. Isn't there some kind of table of contents or
index to this thing? Unhelpfully, it's divided into files with cryptic
names like "monnew.htm" and "odnew.htm".

Well, I did find the TOC, but even then I'm having difficulty finding
stuff relevant to using SMPSs for unintended purposes.

Can you post a link to (or location of) some references to this in that
database?


--
Just as McDonald's is where you go when you're hungry but don't really
care about the quality of your food, Wikipedia is where you go when
you're curious but don't really care about the quality of your knowledge.

- Matthew White's WikiWatch (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wikiwoo.htm)

On 1 Nov 2006 08:34:17 -0800, "kell"
wrote:

I found the skeleton of an old computer with the power supply in it
that still worked. The power supply will only turn on when it's
connected to the motherboard. I'm trying to figure out how I can turn
the power supply on without the motherboard.
This is (was) a pentium II and the power supply says "Newton"
something, but I don't have the model number with me.
The cables that go from the power supply to the motherboard, in
addition to the usual red/yellow/black power/ground lines, have orange,
green, blue, violet, grey and white wires.
I was hoping there is some standard color-coding for the "power good"
wires that I have to jump or whatever the procedure is, to get the
power supply to turn on by itself.

There are two versions of the newer ATX power supply:

http://pinouts.ru/Power/atxpower_pinout.shtml

http://pinouts.ru/Power/atx_v2_pinout.shtml

In either case, there should be some load (disk drive, lamp, power
resistor) across at least one of the outputs for the supply to be able
to regulate properly.

John

kell wrote:
I found the skeleton of an old computer with the power supply in it
that still worked. The power supply will only turn on when it's
connected to the motherboard. I'm trying to figure out how I can turn
the power supply on without the motherboard.
This is (was) a pentium II and the power supply says "Newton"
something, but I don't have the model number with me.
The cables that go from the power supply to the motherboard, in
addition to the usual red/yellow/black power/ground lines, have orange,
green, blue, violet, grey and white wires.
I was hoping there is some standard color-coding for the "power good"
wires that I have to jump or whatever the procedure is, to get the
power supply to turn on by itself.


Most PC power supply's require a load before they will start,
motherboard, floppy drive or an automotive 12 volt bulb connected
between 12v and ground might work.
If it is an AT power supply with the power on off switch all you should
need is the load.
If it is an ATX power supply without the on off switch Gogle for the pin
out, there is a wire that you momentarily short to ground or another
wire....

Tim wrote:
kell wrote:
I found the skeleton of an old computer with the power supply in it
that still worked. The power supply will only turn on when it's
connected to the motherboard. I'm trying to figure out how I can turn
the power supply on without the motherboard.
This is (was) a pentium II and the power supply says "Newton"
something, but I don't have the model number with me.
The cables that go from the power supply to the motherboard, in
addition to the usual red/yellow/black power/ground lines, have orange,
green, blue, violet, grey and white wires.
I was hoping there is some standard color-coding for the "power good"
wires that I have to jump or whatever the procedure is, to get the
power supply to turn on by itself.


Most PC power supply's require a load before they will start,
motherboard, floppy drive or an automotive 12 volt bulb connected
between 12v and ground might work.
If it is an AT power supply with the power on off switch all you should
need is the load.
If it is an ATX power supply without the on off switch Gogle for the pin
out, there is a wire that you momentarily short to ground or another
wire....

OTOH, sometimes on AT supplies, the cooling fan is all the load that's
necessary.

jak

kell wrote:
I found the skeleton of an old computer with the power supply in it
that still worked. The power supply will only turn on when it's
connected to the motherboard. I'm trying to figure out how I can turn
the power supply on without the motherboard.
This is (was) a pentium II and the power supply says "Newton"
something, but I don't have the model number with me.
The cables that go from the power supply to the motherboard, in
addition to the usual red/yellow/black power/ground lines, have orange,
green, blue, violet, grey and white wires.
I was hoping there is some standard color-coding for the "power good"
wires that I have to jump or whatever the procedure is, to get the
power supply to turn on by itself.

I found it by a process of elimination, snipping wires in a certain
order until I had it narrowed down to a couple of candidates. Then I
made my best guess, grounded the green wire, and now I have a working
power supply.

Hi!

2. Switch power supplies do need a minimum load for operating.

Why is this mentioned when the topic of computer power supplies comes up?

Over an eleven year span I've found only *one* computer power supply that
would not work properly with no load.

William

"William R. Walsh" m
wrote in message news:0Ic2h.220978$FQ1.73339@attbi_s71...
Hi!

2. Switch power supplies do need a minimum load for operating.

Why is this mentioned when the topic of computer power supplies comes up?

Over an eleven year span I've found only *one* computer power supply that
would not work properly with no load.

Are the voltages all properly regulated with no load?

Bob

"kell" wrote in message
ups.com...
kell wrote:
I found the skeleton of an old computer with the power supply in it
that still worked. The power supply will only turn on when it's
connected to the motherboard. I'm trying to figure out how I can turn
the power supply on without the motherboard.
This is (was) a pentium II and the power supply says "Newton"
something, but I don't have the model number with me.
The cables that go from the power supply to the motherboard, in
addition to the usual red/yellow/black power/ground lines, have orange,
green, blue, violet, grey and white wires.
I was hoping there is some standard color-coding for the "power good"
wires that I have to jump or whatever the procedure is, to get the
power supply to turn on by itself.

I found it by a process of elimination, snipping wires in a certain
order until I had it narrowed down to a couple of candidates. Then I
made my best guess, grounded the green wire, and now I have a working
power supply.


I'd have to agree that it would have been a lot easier to
spend 2 minutes with google to find what you wanted.

Bob

"kell" wrote in message
ups.com...
I found the skeleton of an old computer with the power supply in it
that still worked. The power supply will only turn on when it's
connected to the motherboard. I'm trying to figure out how I can turn
the power supply on without the motherboard.
This is (was) a pentium II and the power supply says "Newton"
something, but I don't have the model number with me.
The cables that go from the power supply to the motherboard, in
addition to the usual red/yellow/black power/ground lines, have orange,
green, blue, violet, grey and white wires.
I was hoping there is some standard color-coding for the "power good"
wires that I have to jump or whatever the procedure is, to get the
power supply to turn on by itself.


Sam Goldwasser has an FAQ for this topic.
It can be found here (the FAQ was just updated a few days ago).
http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/smpsfaq.htm

A couple things to remember:

Switch mode power supplies --
that are used in modern computer to generate high current -
have high voltages ( 250 volts DC inside).

Many electronics technicians have no bench experience with high voltage (one
hand in your pocket).
IF you have little electronics repair / service experience -- it is always
best to initially perform such work under supervision or mentoring. Sadly,
many of the technical and community colleges that have offered course work
in this area for over 50 years -- have discontinued their programs (lack of
students - although the interest or curiosity among the public appears to be
same).

gb

"kell" wrote in message
ups.com...
I found the skeleton of an old computer with the power supply in it
that still worked. The power supply will only turn on when it's
connected to the motherboard. I'm trying to figure out how I can turn
the power supply on without the motherboard.
This is (was) a pentium II and the power supply says "Newton"
something, but I don't have the model number with me.
The cables that go from the power supply to the motherboard, in
addition to the usual red/yellow/black power/ground lines, have orange,
green, blue, violet, grey and white wires.
I was hoping there is some standard color-coding for the "power good"
wires that I have to jump or whatever the procedure is, to get the
power supply to turn on by itself.


Additional web site (and there are several on this subject)
http://www.wikihow.com/Convert-a-Com...b-Power-Supply

Cheap garage workbench
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Simple...rage-Workbench

DIY
http://www.diylive.net/

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...
David Nebenzahl spake thus:

You know, I looked in there; I don't want to be obtuse, but I must say
it's just too damned hard to find them, to sift
through all that stuff.
--

So, what you're saying that not only are you ignorant, but you are too lazy
to rectify that situation as well.

As suggested in my original post, I took the liberty of performing the
google search for you. 705,000 relevant pages. 10 on the first page that
would answer your questions. Go find them.

People in this newsgroup are more than willing to give a lot of effort to
help you, but you've got to demonstrate that you've put even the teensiest
bit of effort into solving something yourself, or at least having thought
about how one might solve it, to get a helpful response. Electronic types
tend to be on the sarcastic side.

Has it ever occured to you that if you're not smart enough to source this
information yourself, you really shouldn't be playing with electricity?

Dave spake thus:

"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
s.com...

David Nebenzahl spake thus:

You know, I looked in there; I don't want to be obtuse, but I must say
it's just too damned hard to find them, to sift
through all that stuff.

So, what you're saying that not only are you ignorant, but you are too lazy
to rectify that situation as well.

As suggested in my original post, I took the liberty of performing the
google search for you. 705,000 relevant pages. 10 on the first page that
would answer your questions. Go find them.

People in this newsgroup are more than willing to give a lot of effort to
help you, but you've got to demonstrate that you've put even the teensiest
bit of effort into solving something yourself, or at least having thought
about how one might solve it, to get a helpful response. Electronic types
tend to be on the sarcastic side.

Has it ever occured to you that if you're not smart enough to source this
information yourself, you really shouldn't be playing with electricity?

So now you're adding insults? That'll get you far, I'll wager.

No thanks to you, someone near the bottom of the thread gave a link to a
site that shows exactly how to do this:
http://www.wikihow.com/Convert-a-Com...b-Power-Supply.


--
Just as McDonald's is where you go when you're hungry but don't really
care about the quality of your food, Wikipedia is where you go when
you're curious but don't really care about the quality of your knowledge.

- Matthew White's WikiWatch (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wikiwoo.htm)

Check out this site http://www.duxcw.com/faq/ps/ps4.htm
You usually need to jump 2 pins in order to get supply to turn on, "outside
the box"

"kell" wrote in message
ups.com...
I found the skeleton of an old computer with the power supply in it
that still worked. The power supply will only turn on when it's
connected to the motherboard. I'm trying to figure out how I can turn
the power supply on without the motherboard.
This is (was) a pentium II and the power supply says "Newton"
something, but I don't have the model number with me.
The cables that go from the power supply to the motherboard, in
addition to the usual red/yellow/black power/ground lines, have orange,
green, blue, violet, grey and white wires.
I was hoping there is some standard color-coding for the "power good"
wires that I have to jump or whatever the procedure is, to get the
power supply to turn on by itself.