Modded PC power supply for charging

[BrianG]

Kyosho: There could be any number of possibilities. If there was a broken PCB at one point, powering it up could have caused something else to go bad. It's really hard to tell. At any rate, fixing these becomes pricey as they are fairly complex and there are so many variations that there is no one schematic to follow.

TopSpeedTimmy: Wow, 8A? It hardly seems worth it. Usually, adding resistors boosts the voltage a little, but it does more to stabilize the voltage under load. Even if you could get 12v @ 8A, it would only be good for an approx 50w charger.

That said, a broken TV may have a few power resistors in it (CRT type), but it's a toss-up if they will be the value you need. If you do decide to go poking inside a TV (which I do NOT recommend), BE VERY CAREFUL AS THERE ARE VERY HAZARDOUS VOLTAGES IN THERE. Depending on the size of the screen, VERY high voltages can still be present even after sitting unplugged for a while.