Update: How to increase amperage and load on ATX PSU

It can be done in two ways:

• The first method I discovered by accident while reading through an electronics book. The idea behind it is the same as the article below but I use a different Watt and Ohm resistor. I scrounged up a 100 Ohm - 10 Watt resistor (Brown-Black-Brown-Silver) from my collection and built a harness for the resistor with a flush fitting pin on each end. Because of the high current runnign through the bridge alot of heat is created. For that reason I made the harness so that the extended wire would dissapate heat much faster then a small pin between the two pin holes. I noticed when I used a short bridge that It caused the amp to cut out very fast; assumed from the fast overheating of the bridge. To wire the bridge up I connected the 5v+ (Red) wire to the left side of the resistor (brown ring) and the Ground (Black) wire on the right side (silver ring). While running I noticed the temperature of the bridge had dropped substantialy.
• The second method I discovered while stumbling across the web. It is an article relating to raising the overall load on an ATX power supply to increase the overall amperage. The article can be found here. The primary difference between my method and his is the resistor wattage and the amount of them. He uses multiple 1 Ohm 10 Watt resistors wired in series.

...The orignal Idea...

While cleaning out my workshop at my parents’ house (I no longer live there) I came across my subwoofer I had purchased back in the high school days just sitting in a crawl space. Even though the amp was still in my car it had been disconnected for some time now and was just taking up space. So I gathered up the amp and the sub and brought it home. For two days it just sat there, tantalizing me to put it to use. At that time I wasn’t even sure if it still worked so I had to find out. I really did not want to rewire into my jeep due to the complications so I had to find a way to test it at home. So to quote Plato "Necessity, who is the mother of invention".

Without really knowing where to start I assumed the obvious; I needed at least 12v for power, 12v for remote/signal, and a ground. The biggest hurdle I was facing was the amperage problem. When a amp is wired to a car battery it has an extremely large power source to draw from but with a power supply I was limited to +/-12v, +5v, and 3.3v. Luckily voltage really isn't an issue when it comes to amplifiers; the problem child is amps. most average priced power supplies only push out about 14 amps @+12v, 20@+5v and 24@+3.3v. Since amplifiers take allot of amp power that posed a big issue especially with ATX PSU's since they are built with overload protection (they cut out if there is too high of a draw). So after trying everything any anything to stop the overload I devised a way to get the most bangs for the volt. With all the power saving features out today most PSU's will run at the minimum load and output the minimum amps allowable. Without any way of telling the amp "hey you! run at high load and put out everything you've got!". I had to devise a method of making it think it needed to run at max. So did the math and by tethering the -12v to both +12v wires it would make the amp think it was running at max load and push out everything it had.

So to wrap up a long explanation I ran the amp on the left channel and just merged the R and L into one. Hotwired the power-on wire, built a wiring harness to allow the amplifier connections to plug into the 20 pin motherboard plug without damaging or cutting any wires, turned it on and punched it. Needless to say it punched back; running at around 28 amps it shook the house and scared the dog.