Connect up a ps-6231-2A power supply

Most new power supplies can only be turned on via motherboard signal. That is why you have to plug in the 20/24 pin connector from PS to mo bo. When operating yellow wire is 12 volts and red is 5 volts DC. And black is ground.

Mike
I take it that this is a standard power supply out of a PC (switch mode)
These are a common connection point on any brand PC
Use a DC Voltmeter to find the Ground, +5 Volt & +12 volt wires to power your 3.5 inch Hard Drive. The 2.5" Hard Drives (laptop) has only Ground (Black) & +5 Volt.

Connect the RCA phono plug wires usually red and white wires with plugs to a receiver or amplifier in the back of it to phono in. New receivers will not work unless you have a phono preamp. Best to buy a vintage stereo receiver or amplifier with the correct connections. Make sure you connect the ground wire which is usually a small black wire coming from the turntable to an receiver or amplifier. Turn the stereo receiver on phono. Connect it to any screw attached to metal on back or look for a ground screw. If you do not attach it it will hum.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/imageview.php?image=357

Use caution, some older Dell machines used a non standard, proprietary pin-out on the 20 pin connector ALso the 6 pin is suspect. If you connect a regular ATX PSU, you will fry the MoBo. Look here
DELL ATX motherboard Power Supply pinout

yes this should work fine

You cannot test the power supply on the bench just by connecting it to the mains power. You need to know which pins on the connector to activate the power supply and you need to connect a load to the power leads.
The best way to test the power supply is to leave the power unit connected to the computer power up the computer and test a spare 4 wire power connector with a multi-meter. Leave the other power leads connected to the various drivers.
If computer's power LED should light up then test the voltages.
The Red and black wire should read 5 volts.
The Yellow and black wire should read 12 volts.
If the power LED does not light up, check the mains lead in another appliance to see if the mains lead is OK.
If the mains lead is OK then most likely the switch mode power supply has died.

Most motherboards now have a 24-pin power supply connector. If you haven't already found a diagram showing the pinouts of the 20- and 24-pin power plugs, here's one borrowed from a handy site:



The two plugs are essentially the same, but the 24-pin version duplicates some voltages on the extra pins. The extra pins in the larger connector were meant to provide extra current paths for voltages that see heavy loads from newer processors and motherboard circuitry. Depending on how a motherboard is designed, it might work with a 20-pin plug connected (leaving pins 11, 12, 23 and 24 empty). But typically if the board has a 24-pin connector it needs the 24-pin power supply plug.

Most power supplies have a 20-pin plug with a separate 4-pin section that fastens to it for connection to a 24-pin mobo connector. It typically has one side designed to slide onto the end of the 20-pin plug, essentially turning it into the 24-pin version. This added plug does not have a retaining clamp on its side, so you can tell it from the the 4-pin CPU power plug. The wire colors are also different. For reference, here is the processor power plug, from the same website:


New motherboard specs call for the separate processor power connector for the same reason the extra pins were added to the power supply connector: to handle the high currents needed by increasingly faster CPUs.

When the motherboard has these connectors, you need to use them all to get everything working. Hope this helps. Thanks to smspowersupply.com for the diagrams, and thank you for using Fixya.

look at the ATX connector.
http://www.smps.us/atx-connector-20-24pin.jpeg
Now you need to connect pins 15 and 16. They are normally Green and Black. All you are doing is connecting the signal the PSU looks to turn on into a ground.

So the best way and cheapest way it to bend a paperclip and put one end in the green wire and another in the black one.

I use this trick almost every time I am fixing computers. It specially awesome when you want to run a water cooling system without turning on the computer.

The power supply has to have a load. There is a sense line on the ps/mb. You can purchase a ps tester from Internet vendors that will plug onto the ps connector and show if it is working on not.

yes PWR SPLY must be connected to MB and MB must be grounded when bench testing. thats the quickest easiest way to check..