Greg, On Tuesday 17 October 2006 11:48, Greg Wallace wrote:
...
I saw all of the wires coming out of the box but didn't realize it was a simple plug instead of all of the wires just originating somewhere inside the box. So you would unplug that wire bundle and stick a multimeter into the socket to test the voltage? Is that how it would work?
Yes, but that presumes you know the supply voltage associated with each lead and the tolerance for that supply voltage. Furthermore, that does not test the supply's ability to sustain its rated load (or the load offered by your particular system). If you want to see if the supply can supply acceptable voltages under the load offered by your hardware, you'd want to test the voltages with the power supply connected to the mainboard. There are also dedicated power-supply testers that plug directly into the PSU connector block and tell you whether the supply is operating acceptably. I don't think they perform load testing, either, though, since if they did, they'd get awfully hot, considering their size (roughly the size of an iPod).
Thanks, Greg Wallace
Randall Schulz