Okay, so I recently bought a case, and it came with a PSU as a combo deal. They arrived today and I wanted to test them out, so I plugged the fans into the PSU, plugged the whole thing into an outlet, and turned it on. Nothing. I tried unplugging everything except the PSU, because maybe I had it wired wrong. Again, I got nothing. I plugged everything in and changed the voltage, and nothing happened, so I unplugged everything YET AGAIN, and kept the new voltage. Nothing. I tried hooking it up again and the using the case's power butto, which I guess is dumb because the motherboard or OS controls how that works, I think.

Now, I don't know if being outside for 2 hours at 20 Fahrenheit would do anything, but I doubt it muchly. This isn't mentioned in the manual, and the PSU's fan should at least turn on when there's nothing else plugged in, but all 3 fan settings failed.

Now, here's a possibility that I really don't want, but will throw out there. I have another PC that I can plug this PSU into and see if it works, but that will be a 15-minute pain in the neck to do, and if it doesn't work I really would just want to punch a kitten. But there was something in the manual about a minimum voltage output, and I thought maybe it has to have a certain amount of hardware, requiring that much power, plugged in to make it work? Also, for my fans and the LED gauges in the front of the case, there are in plugs from the PSU and what looks like out plugs. I didn't use these because some only have 2 wires to the out plugs and it's, quite simply, complicated.

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817159052
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811144151

I don't feel comfortable about opening something that could kill me if I do it wrong (PSU), like the guy in one of the PSU reviews did, but returning it would be a real big pain because I really don't have the money to ship back in an RMA along with my HDD.

You need the mainboard to power up the atx power supply in older pc's say a 486 or early pentium the switch is connected directly to the power supply. You can trun an ATX power supply like the one you have via crossing 2 of the pins in the main plug. shown below be very carefull

To turn on an ATX power supply that isn't connected to a motherboard use a wire or paper clip to short the green wire (PS_ON) to any one of the black wires (COM).



Also, be aware that some of the older Dells (older than Dimension 4300) did use proprietary powersupplies that are not wired the same as the ATX standard, even though they will look physically the same.

I hope you don't mean that little red tag on the back of the power supply?

madmatt is correct you can't power up a PSU 'properly' without a motherboard to plug it in to. But the 'jumpstarting' method works really well.

GaRHaR, yes, I used the little tag on the back. It's set to the low voltage right now; the one it came on. I'll try jumpstarting it tonight.

There's also a label on the side of my PSU that says "compatible with Pentium 4," does this mean I can't use it with the Core 2 Duo I plan to get?

Not sure about the Pentium 4 compatibility part, a member of the tech team will help you with that, have you got a link?

You shouldn't fiddle with the red tag on the back of your PSU, if you set it to the incorrect voltage and boot your PC you could blow the PSU. It is normally set to what it should be already but check that it is on the correct one for your area.