ATX Power Supply Hack

[rdagger]

I'm trying to use an ATX power supply outside of a computer for 5V and 12V, but I can't get it to stay on.  Only, the purple standby wire is always at 5V.  If I ground the green wire the P/S will come on for a second and then go off.  I tried putting a power resistor between the 5V red wire and ground to create a load, but it did not help.  I also tried connecting the brown sense wire to the orange 3.3V, but that also did nothing.  Any suggestions?

[shmokes]

I have tested dozens of power supplies by grounding the green wire and ALL of them have stayed on until I removed the ground.  I don't know much about electrical, but maybe this makes a difference for some reason.  I don't know how you're grounding, but I have always grounded the green wire by shorting the green wire with any of the black ground wires on the same cable.  So I just get a little piece of wire and put one end in the green on the molex connector and one end in one of the blacks.  They always stay on indefinitely until I remove the short.  If yours doesn't, it ain't normal, cos I've done this more times than I can count.

[CheffoJeffo]

I have tested dozens of power supplies by grounding the green wire and ALL of them have stayed on until I removed the ground. 

I've done this more times than I can count.

Not much on counting, eh? Lawyer angle makes sense now ... 

Cheers

[rdagger]

I got it working.  I just did not have enough load.  I plugged in an old hard drive and it worked.  I also had to completely disconnect the brown sense wire because it was causing problems.

[shmokes]

Heh  I just don't know exactly how many dozens of times I've done it, see? 

Math is definitely not my strong point.  I'm not especially bad at it, but I avoid it because I don't enjoy it, so I've never even taken a calculus class and I only have the most basic elements of algebra left inside my brain anymore.