#57 - Question/Answer: Jump Starting Your Power Supply

[hakersification]

this is so cool !!! I am interested in hardware for PC-s , so i will ask a lot of questions

Thanks!

[TheNewbpowner123]

Are you sure there is no way the psu can die?

I got my 850tx and haf x today and wanted to test the fans so...

[dhayes1981]

I have a different question. While playing a game my monitor goes into power save mode and i can't get out of it. Do you know why this could be happening? Thanks and hope to here something cause this is getting old and most likely messing up my computer.

[Bvzijverden]

I have over 9000 black cables dude ^^. But ground is ground right. And I sleeved my 4 pin cables, but maybe I swapped the black wires, is this a problem ?

[Jak3Mac]

This is great for testing a watercooling setup.

[MrBoJengals1]

How do I get 13.8 volts from pc power supply?

[Crimsonland1]

Thanks man!

[ShervinGetOffMee]

this is sick.. if u have a big case, and only 2 fan headers on ur mb, u can easily install like a 250 watt and run all ur fans from that, OR, if u have another graphics card.. anything, awsome idea :D

[AirForcedude5]

ok, i just got a new motherboard and video card. my power supply is insuff. to power everything. i was wanting to power the motherboard/hdd/fans/cd drive with one PSU and have the other for the video cards. will this work??

[nights2018]

I AM SO GOING TO TRY THIS WITH MY OLD 250W! AWESOME!

[princeoflux]

G'day Mate, I got an old IBM Aptiva power supply and I want to use this Power Supply with out the motherboard, but there is no green wire there, How can I turn it ON?, what color should I use? Pls. HELP....Tnx

[jamesnuutinen]

My PSU has 2 green wires.. can i use either of them??

[elitechrstn]

there is copper wire in phone cords and they are insulated too and you can use them as the paper clip

BTW its works with Green and any color cable not just black I tested it out my self but Green HAS to be one of the jumper cables combos

[inachu]

What he fails to do is actually show you.

Yes use the green wire but there are 3 black cables next to the green wires.

Use the middle black wires.

[immadodgeguy]

actually inachu it doesnt matter what black wire you connect the green to. all of the blacks are the same negative wire

[inachu]

LOL crap you are right all black wires are grounded negative wires.

But I just use the center one as that was how I was trained.

[Meowbay]

Actually no, the black is not "negative", it is 0 Voltage, a.k.a. ground. Negative would be the -5 and -12 Volt pins.

[l3lur]

thank u

[fraction360]

took some pliers with rubber coating then use it for the paper clip

[ratheads]

LOL, Kills me how most posts use a paperclip, like it is somehow special ! Using regular insulated wire is way safer.

[JoeMommaRox]

totally .. I was thinking, why is it safe to have exposed metal? I think i'll be using some heavy copper wire I have (nice thick insulation to grab hold of).

And it's not necessary to enunciate everything so slowly ... not all of us are mentally impaired.

[Omellykim]

any black or green cable right

[empireravenshadow5]

thats brilliant..i asked everywhere for this but apparently no ine knows how to do it.

[heybabbalola]

How to calculate how much psu I'll need for my system?

[jandro50000]

I'm going to be starting a custom case pretty soon and am going to have one power supply for mobo+drives and one purely for fans

[lua018]

can i run a 9800 gt with a 300 watt and a 200 watt?

[SonGanon]

a 300. but 400 on the safe side. I need to knwo the rest of ur specs. I suggest a 500 watt for a middle rig gaming pc. I am making a high rig so i am using a 850 watt.

[decyx2]

The most important thing you need to consider is how many amps does your video card need on the 12v rails to run properly. According to various sources, you may need about 26-28 amps to sufficiently power a 9800 GT. Most power supplies have either a peak amp rating or a peak wattage rating. If you get watts (for example, 400 peak watts for 12v), just divide the number by 12 to get the peak amp rating. Be careful not to fall for peak numbers though as they are usually not real world estimates.

[araz1994]

I have a 400watt psu and 300 watt psu.

Can I run the system on 400PSU adn my video card on the 300watt psu?

the video card is (Ati radeon HD 3870)

[takeapieandrun]

Yes you can., as long as the cables are long enough.

[LizzyAston]

OMTG rodney you did it again. I think I love you.

[samd891]

Thanks £D game man this helped me out today.

But may I suggest using a small piece of wire rather than a paper clip

[magicfartboy05]

lol

[lolaroflmao]

with a 1200Watt PSU youd probably fry yourself if you touched the paperclip

[samurphy]

Not at all. You'd never get a shock because the green wire is a very low power draw. It just flips a relay. Also, the small amount of electricity that does flow through the clip already has a clear path to ground (the black wire), so going through you to ground would be a path of greater resistance, which electricity wont do. This is why trained folks can work on high tension power lines with no danger, it's a matter of knowing what you can and can't touch.

[brainlicker1]

lmfao electricity is lazy?

[samurphy]

more or less. It always takes the path of least resistance.

[athompson1989]

even better than a paperclip i found, because i could never find one, use one of those plastic covered ties that hold your cables up and peel back the plastic at the ends and use that then you have a nice handle in the middle too so you dont get a shock however minimal, if your building a pc you always have these lying around.

[bestSVMS]

buy the psu juststarter so you dont kill your self

[howboutdat1227]

solder > paperclip =/ (more conductive)

[woodywilde]

that is extremely helpful, THANKS

[girondi1]

thx this really helped i never knew about that Lucas

[KX36]

this doesn't work on all PSUs. the only one I know it doesn't on is the infamous Enermax Galaxy 1000W PSU. That has some very clever active protection circuits in it and it can tell the difference between the load of a motherboard and that of a paperclip and won't turn on without a certain load.

[gtiasd]

I did this a year or so ago with my HX520 in order to test my fans as I had quite alot, 6 to be precise. Anywho, good question.

[RenegadeFury]

There is only 1 green wire, and just any black wire. To people very little amperage is running through there YOU CAN NOT ELECTROCUTE YOURSELF.

[KX36]

but it's best to advise you don't touch it with bare hands or a metal object incase someone's got a bit confused and stuck the paperclip in totally the wrong place which may or may not be dangerous.

[woodshuck]

how do you want 5v to be dangereus

[KX36]

when I say totally the wrong place, I'm not just saying the wrong hole in the 20/24pin ATX; I'm saying there's bound to be someone who tries to bridge 2 pins in the C13/14 kettle lead and gets the shock of their life. (it's not too far out; the earth wire is green on some standards and live can be relatively dark blue)

[woodshuck]

kk ;)

[erethmw]

does any green and black wire work?

[yotafro]

Thanks. Saved me a lot of trouble on this one.

[shaurz]

You can also buy a power supply tester. I've heard that shorting a PSU manually might damage it, I don't know if that's true.

[Superbiz2]

This really helped.

[iulian28ti]

One question. Do you need protection if you use a paper clip ? I mean, i the current dangerous ?

[terryma1215]

I don't think so, there's a minimal chance of getting shocked. But you shouldn't stick your tongue out at it...

[wizkid22]

thx

[ChoclatePancake]

Or just buy the power supply tricker from danger den

[BurtonReingold]

Not usefull man. Be mor through!

[connortimoti]

i use wires instead

[kreeddem]

Dangerous stuff, you should mention the DANGERS! There's a lot of dumb people out there.

[RobTheGamer]

Should also probably mention that this is dangerous for two reasons. 1.) The paperclip is now a live, exposed circuit. If you touch it, it will zap you good. 2.) If you jump the wrong leads by accident you are going to fry your powersupply before you even realize you screwed up.

[RenegadeFury]

No you won't moron. Very little amperage is running through there it is just enough to signal on. You can not be electrocuted.

[CreatureGam3r]

oh thanks lol

[big46uk]

I have a question for you. Your scoring of Great, Kick Ass and 100% kick Ass, Is that equivalent to Poor, Average and Good?

[BurtonReingold]

What are you talking about??!!!

[citrus0001]

dear sir

i wonder if can help me please. can u help me how to change my network card on my hp pavillion dv6000. thank u very much

[BurtonReingold]

Get a PCI network card on eBay. It's about $5.00 with shipping. Problem solved!

[computerNOOB4ever]

great video

[guyxtc]

very usefull if you dont have a psu tester, i would advise to mark the black and green connecters beforehand with a marker so when you go and use the paperclip you dont overlookand mistakenly jump the wrong pin.

[BurtonReingold]

Blah, blah, blah!

[German135]

oh yes this very useful!

[caddy244]

Very useful. Thanks for the info. =D

[PeterGriffinFab]

wow nice, i didn't know this

[bob333336]

cool man thanks, that means i can run my graphics cards off a different psu awsome!

[leodj29]

To make it easier for the ppl who ask which black cable use from the ATX lead, just count the 14 (green) and 15 (black) pin on the ATX lead if you have a 20 pin ATX lead, if you have a 24 pin lead those are the 16 (green) and 17 (black) pins. hope this help you

[sk8rhippie]

is this safe? o.o

[musicman00771]

thanks man!

[phuKKah]

and if you dont feel like wiring 2 power supplys together, you can use this method to use 2 power supplys, one for your mother board and cpu and another for your video card, hardrives, disk drive, etc.

[arranmc182]

i always forget this thanks for the video

[allipallilol]

That finally i know

[Joseph7649]

Does that go for all black wires? Because there is a lot of black wires on the main 20pin motherboard lead!

[30GB]

any will be fine

[LETHLSS]

i did that to take pics of my rig all lit up as i was building it

[AussieTemplar]

cheers.

[howboutdat1227]

RAWRZ, IT DIDNT WORK!

[kevaughanshiu]

=.= how did he know?

HACKA!

[ChopperX]

great answer

[HgCst0]

good question and good answer

[GuillaumeThekkadath]

Good question :)

[acidglow]

cool

[howboutdat1227]

wow that is rele rele useful, omg!

[samanthms123]

this was the most useful Q/A video ever!

[jasa00]

what if i touched the paper clip..

[LolAtYou2ube]

jasa00: its ok if you touch the paper clip. it conducts electricity better than your body does so you shouldn't get shocked.

[chiefredbeard]

Very useful Q/A video. 5/5

[Kalees]

excellent answer....

[dantheman23312]

nice answer