Operate computer power supply independently??

I have a power supply from a previous computer I've since scavenged
for parts. It is a Hipro power supply with a standard power supply
connector for the motherboard. Is it possible to crosswire or rig
this power supply to where it will operate independently, powering an
additional hard drive or two which are linked by IDE cable to a mother
board in an adjacent case? If it is possible, how or where can I
find out which wires to crosswire to accomplish this?

I've run out of space and power connections in the existing box, which
already contains and powers four hard drives plus two disc drives.

Any help would be greatly appreciated?


Jake

Doing that strikes me as a particularly risky and non-ideal thing to do. AT
and ATX power supplies, in the interest of being cheap, do not regulate the
power rails with exceptional tolerance. If one of them is a fair amount
higher than the other (about 0.7 Volts), I can envision the I/O lines on one
of the devices going high, and feeding power up through the internal CMOS
diodes to the other device's power rails. In such a case, exceptionally
high current may flow and lead to catastrophic destruction of either your
hard drive(s) or your motherboard.

That being said, I've connected such a configuration up once (when I needed
data off of a hard disk in another computer, who's power connector didn't
want to come off). I operated it for a few tens of minutes without
destroying anything. If you were to attempt such a venture for a permanent
solution, I would recommend connecting several of the black wires together,
and the green wires (on the motherboard connector) of the power supplies
should also be connected. This green wire needs to be pulled low by the
motherboard to turn on the power supplies. As a safety feature, I would
connect a comparator, transistor, and other necessary circuitry up such that
the power supplies would automatically power down if the two 5V power
supplies rails deviated by more than a certain threshold of say 0.5 Volts.
You may need some circuitry to give it a delay before deciding to shut down
to provide for temporary transient conditions (such as during power up).

Howard Henry Schlunder


"Jake W. K." wrote in message news:KLUSPx2nrnlnSm58dvMpQyvErbNV@4ax.com...
 > I have a power supply from a previous computer I've since scavenged
 > for parts. It is a Hipro power supply with a standard power supply
 > connector for the motherboard. Is it possible to crosswire or rig
 > this power supply to where it will operate independently, powering an
 > additional hard drive or two which are linked by IDE cable to a mother
 > board in an adjacent case? If it is possible, how or where can I
 > find out which wires to crosswire to accomplish this?
 >
 > I've run out of space and power connections in the existing box, which
 > already contains and powers four hard drives plus two disc drives.
 >
 > Any help would be greatly appreciated?
 >
 >
 > Jake




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