The Dell power supply wasn't one of those older ones with the modified ATX pin-out was it?

That... would explain a lot 🤣. I was already at the "shit's fucked" point when I tried it so I'm not crying too many tears about that specifically, but it's nice to know.

You didn't do the classic "left an extra standoff screw in the case and shorted something" did you?

Got a multimeter? Try out of the case.

Smedis2 wrote on 2025-02-28, 12:28:

That... would explain a lot 🤣. I was already at the "shit's fucked" point when I tried it so I'm not crying too many tears about that specifically, but it's nice to know.

Oh man, that sucks. Well at least the Dell computer should be fine, even though you may have screwed up the power supply you had for it.

Back in the day, when I had a Dell Pentium III 800, that had a proprietary PSU, I needed a bigger one, for my graphics card, so I bought a standard ATX one and re-pinned the connector. So that's a route you can go if you don't have a spare PSU to replace the Dell one.

Okay, great-ish update: My dad was stupid and forgot a single plug on the Dell Dimension motherboard. It does indeed still work! That was INSANELY cathartic to see the BIOS show up.

I did however take my Foxconn board and try it on its own with the Sparkle PSU and still nothing. So... that's not great. But hey, at least I didn't kill two computers at once!

I'm not sure if it means anything but the Dell PSU is a E173738. Can't really tell if it's a proprietary one or not.

I may be naive but this doesn't appear to be anything actually proprietary, is it? Google shows me 8-pin connectors and this thing looks completely valid.

This would actually be great news as it more than likely means the Socket A Foxconn motherboard itself was DOA, which still sucks but it removes most of the blame from me lmao

(Yes, despite being a 24-pin I did plug this into the other one after reading from multiple google results that it would still allegedly work. This was also after the initial run with the Sparkle PSU so I was basically just troubleshooting at that point).

Smedis2 wrote on 2025-02-28, 21:58:

I may be naive but this doesn't appear to be anything actually proprietary, is it? Google shows me 8-pin connectors and this thi […]
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I may be naive but this doesn't appear to be anything actually proprietary, is it? Google shows me 8-pin connectors and this thing looks completely valid.

This would actually be great news as it more than likely means the Socket A Foxconn motherboard itself was DOA, which still sucks but it removes most of the blame from me lmao

(Yes, despite being a 24-pin I did plug this into the other one after reading from multiple google results that it would still allegedly work. This was also after the initial run with the Sparkle PSU so I was basically just troubleshooting at that point).

The Dell "proprietary" plug is a standard ATX plug, with some of the wiring modified. You can tell if yours is one of those by comparing the colours between it, and a standard ATX PSU, confirming they are all in the same spots.

Am I the only one that is not seeing the pictures in this thread??
O/P, check you posts again, please.

Smedis2 wrote on 2025-02-28, 21:44:

I'm not sure if it means anything but the Dell PSU is a E173738.

Uhm... that's the UL safety certificate # - just tell you who (which OEM) actually made the PSU for Dell. In this case:
E173738 = Newton Power * ... a.k.a. Delta Electronics... which is really good, as they make pretty solid PSUs.

* according to old forum posts (since Underwriters Laboratories website is not so user-friendly for doing this kind of searching anymore - thank you Web 2.0 enshittification! )

Smedis2 wrote on 2025-02-27, 22:45:

I speculated that the one I got from eBay, a Sparkle FSP300-60BT might've gone bad in shipping...

Sparkle = FSP = Fortron Source

Their old PSUs regularly used cheapo Teapo caps, along with CapXon and other similarly bad-cap era caps.
Thus, you should definitely open it and post pictures of its insides here.
- No, you won't get shocked and die. Just unplug the PSU before trying to open it, as common(?) sense might dictate. 😉

There's a good chance it might need a recap. And even if it doesn't, at least it's worth to know what particular build is inside it. Some of the very old Sparkle / FSP units have 2-transistor 5VSB circuits, which can be dangerous for the motherboard if their caps go bad over time. Here's a thread for a FSP300-60GTF we are currently troubleshooting right now (victim of bad caps on the 5VSB, causing the circuit to go bad):
(SOLVED) FSP300-60GTF repair - blown transoptor, resistors, worth it?
...
and it apparently is identical (or nearly so) to a Sparkle Power FSP250-60ATV, as seen below (scroll to post # 3122):
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubleshooting … 157#post1520478

...
PSUs aside, I'm hoping you know this by heart for socket A/462 PCs: NEVER RUN THE BOARD WITHOUT THE CPU HEATSINK AND FAN INSTALLED (clipped) PROPERLY. 😉

EXCITING UPDATE: I got a new motherboard and it works fine (for the time being, trying to to jinx anything). It seems like the Foxconn one just... died on reboot. I've restarted the new one multiple times out of the case and on cardboard and it's able to get into Windows 98 and DOS. Thanks for the advice!