Question about Power Supplies
 

Is there any reason that I wouldn't be able to run a power supply outside of the computer (aka not attached to the motherboard)? If it will work without being connected to the motherboard, what are the dangers? Thanks!

I don't see any problems...just be sure that it's thoroughly grounded.

Are you just looking to use it to power some external drives and fans or something?

I got it working, thanks to mortis & diss. It's an old PSU, and only has 3 power cords. I'm running 3 hard drives, and also wanted to have 2 disc drives for on-the-fly burning, so I wanted to hook up another PSU. Thanks for replying.

A splitter or two might have worked if you had the power to spare:

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/6...ernalpower.jpg

How do I know if I have power to spare?

I imagine you have to add up the wattage consumption of your system (processor, hard disk, graphics and sound cards) and compare against your psu's specs...

If it's old enough that it only has 3 molex connectors you probably don't have enough. How many watts is it?

Looks like its 120W.

Yep... forget the splitter :) In fact, if you're running any kind of newer component in there I'd be wary of any PSU that old to deliver proper, stable power -- probably to your advantage to seek an out-and-out replacement rather than add another unit to the mix and still make use of the old.

As long as it has the same number of pins to connect to the motherboard as my old one, there should be no compatibility issues right? I believe the connector to my motherboard is 20 pin, so I should be able to use the ones that say "20+4" right? For example, this one says 20/24. If this one would work, I think I'll buy it.

Dynex 400w 24/20 Pin ATX Power Supply PSU - eBay (item 220381077395 end time Apr-18-09 15:42:43 PDT)

Upon more thorough reading, this one comes with a 24pin to 20pin adapter, which means it will fit on my motherboard. But another question still stands, are there any other things that I need to know in order for me to know wether its compatible with my computer?

Yeah, that new PSU you are looking into will work, the 20+4 thing is that some mobos require some extra power and you connect an additional 4 pin plug besides the usual 20 pin, others have the 24 pins right off, but it seems the PSU you are buying can handle all this variations anyways. Considering all the stuff everyone else told you right now the only thing left to consider I'd say would be the outlet.... what do I mean, well this is unlikely but I say it is a good practice to add up the power of all the things you have plugged to an outlet and calculate a rough estimate of the current, what's the purpose of this, so your breaker(if you got one) doesn't go off at the worse moments, just divide the power by the voltage of your outlet(120 I guess US should follow the same standards we do, heck ours is a flat out translation). I'd say if it is below 30 Amps it's completely safe. Well I mention this because you are going from a 120W PSU to 400W... and I have no idea of the conditions there.