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How safe is the PSU "turn on" trick?

AMDCam

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Hey, I can't set up my computer until I get the IO shield that they didn't package in the box. Well that should come about next Friday but all my hardware is sitting here already. It's very annoying, but I'm not gonna take everything apart to install the IO shield, so I'm waiting. But I've got a bunch of mods (cathode lights, fans, PSU, etc) and I'd love to see how they look.

Well I've done the paper clip trick on my old PSU's twice, and the first time I found out it didn't cycle right so I had to exchange it for another. About a week ago I tried it on that one (it used to work without a problem) and it did that same cycling thing, where everything gets power and turns off, gets power then turns off, just not as bad as the first one. Is that supposed to happen? I never tried to work it since, because I just bought a new PSU because that one was a no name and I wanted to have no problems overclocking it. So if I do the paper clip trick on the new psu, will I damage it? I don't want to take any chances but I don't want to wait until Friday to see how everything is going to look.

So is the paper clip trick safe? And is that cycling on and off thing supposed to happen? Thank you
 

W1zzard

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it's completely safe. the motherboard does the same to turn on the board.

some psus might require a minimum power draw to stay on, so connect a hdd or something to pull additional power
 
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As long as you short the CORRECT pins and you don't accidentaly touch any other then it should be safe. It's after all the same thing the motherboard does. Then, also make sure that the rails don't have a minimum load or something like that or you'll need to attach something to it... ;)
 
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W1zzard said:
it's completely safe. the motherboard does the same to turn on the board.

some psus might require a minimum power draw to stay on, so connect a hdd or something to pull additional power

lol, posted exactly the same. :rolleyes:
 
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