I hope I didn't discourage you too much and, yes, the PSU may just have some trivial fault that somebody threw it out for -- they may, even, have had it replaced free of charge, because of some minor fault, without having to return it.
I am just one of those overly-cautions people for whom a free specialist PSU seems a bit odd.

You were amazing in your post. If just the folks with same view point responded here there will be no growth. Glad you shared your views and please continue to do so.

The fault might be easy to repair for an expert but I will be sincere, if I opened this Cortex PSU I do not know what I am getting into. That youtube video says the same, if you are not sure then just don't do it. I can take a chance with lesser voltage but not with such high voltages. One another similar project is opening a microwave, it also has dangerous capacitors I am not sure how to follow the related safety precautions and let us face the facts frankly the risk is not worth the return.

A PSU project is much safer than a microwave one -- if you mess up with a PSU then you could, at worst, cause a fire but if you try to repair a microwave you could expose yourself and anyone around to the radiation for as long as you use the device.
Energy from capacitors needs to be respected but if you take lots of precautions you will be fine -- they're not all that dangerous because they're very predictable.

The power supply might have a nice big resistor you can use to make a tool to discharge caps/crt's.

Thanks for sharing this. Learning basic electronics, getting a soldering iron etc., are long term future projects for me. Space is also a factor. However, in this case it appears I need to buy additional special screw drivers to open this PSU, so in terms of personal recycling it is one of the most challenging projects for me.

Thanks for your encouragement. I am forced to try and get more practical due to space and time limitations. The chances of me finding such a PSU again are very slim, even if repaired it consumes too much power, appears it is for gaming and I am not a gamer. So learning to open such an odd screw is not worth the return. Also, in regards to getting a soldering iron and learning basic electronics, I haven't come across a capacitor that has gone bad and needed replacement. So, unless I come across a few boards with bad capacitors, will not be learning this also. My interest operates in a small comfort zone and I have to define its borders. Even in this small zone, I am getting too much and can share with others. If a consistent need arises in the future, then I will learn more but for now my hands are full.

Thanks for this update. Please share the specifications of this PC, will be helpful to know.

Thanks for this post, the older PCs I have only 2 USB ports and this is rather limiting, my future wish is to get pcmcia cards with USB ports. Atleast like 2 or 3 of them will be good.

It is evident that understanding my full limitations with abandoned older PCs and IT hardware is vital at this point. So will try and list them as best as possible:
1. Weather - As and when the Canadian winter starts, the roads are snow covered and slippery. Not the best time to haul in older desktops that have been exposed to that cold weather outside, they also increase the chance of my slipping and related serious injury.
2. Space limitations: I can take in 2 desktops more under great strain perhaps, 2 or 3 medium sized bags of PC related accessories but not more than that.
3. Time: Life is not just about abandoned older PCs and their related hardware. So I need to put a time limit on spending time with older hardware. Perhaps 5 hours a week or so seems reasonable. Also, with time all this hardware will become useless if I don't keep updated on related software and OSes for older PCs. So another 5 hours a week for this perhaps, this will be a gradual and steady effort.
4. CPU paste - not worth buying this unless a real need for this becomes evident, so far have not seen a need for this.
5. Logic - stop having a mental funeral for every abandoned piece of hardware, things break down have served their useful life well and it is time for them to be recycled. Accepting this gives peace.

Now, to try and put these basic limitations and logic into practice. Thanks all for your support.

Opened my present computer, cleaned all fans and oiled them.
1. PSU fan - this is soldered to PCB with something else glued on to it strongly, unable to remove it fully, so cleaned
blades etc from outside as best as possible and oiled the center with a q tip gently. The black dot that covers the center
was moved away and came off, hard to put it back but this is ok.
2. CPU fan - unable to release this fan from the heat sink via its clip. So cleaned the bottom side of the blades with a
tooth pick as best as possible and oiled it in center well.
3. Case fan - Lots of dust on it and towards the case, felt really sad to see this. cleaned all this well and oiled the center well. Sometimes this fan is making a crackling noise after cleaning, getting lesser with time.

Here is a related link:
https://www.lifewire.com/fix-a-compu...-noise-2624890

Edited to add:
The CPU fan has a clip like in this link:
https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/CPU_Replacement

Spilled some precious mineral oil on the floor inadvertently as I incorrectly held the tiny open bottle with mineral oil.
Quite a bit was wasted. Opened the front panel of the case and cleaned dust here. Also opened the case behind the mobo and cleaned all dust in this area as well. Dropped screw driver over mobo due to slippery fingers from the mineral oil and it fell hard, luckily no big damage was done. All this was badly needed and was glad to get all this done today. The confidence for this came from all my recent fan oiling efforts with the other PCs.

Also, pleased to report that the floppy drive is working ok again on this PC after all connections were verified for proper fit.

New AntiX installed successfully. It didn't install grub; the AntiX installation I did for a friend on another machine didn't install it either so there's definitely an installer bug. I'm still booting with lilo, which I updated from another system on the same drive. I'll test out the wifi later.

@rvijay The machine is a Fujitsu-Siemens with a Celeron Coppermine processor, 250 MB of core and a 20 GB drive. With so little memory, the installation was grindingly slow, but X now works perfectly.

I wasted 2 hours today on my main PC. The fan noise has gone away after the cleaning. However, the net will not work. Suddenly the network ports are not being recognized. When cable is plugged in, port lights go on.
Says eth0 and eth1 configuration failed when I try Puppy Single Sign on. Tried to delete and reactivate the
network ports from the simple network setup, still failed. Rebooting PC also didn't help. Hard rebooting modem after replugging all network cables also didn't help. Reset the PPPoe start file, this didn't help either. Appears some configuration file has gone bad and I have to rename it. Wondering what can be done. Net is working ok on the C2D PC. With same setup.

This PC was formerly used as a server with a fast track build utility, it was setup with 2 hard drives, I had disconnected one HD, so it always gave an error on start. This seems to be a software raid as there is no raid controller card inside the desktop, eventho I was told otherwise when I was given this PC. Today, I entered the built utility deleted the array and set it to just one HD. The boot failed a few times and went to grub boot. Then entered the bios and set the CDROM drive as the primary boot device. This helped boot the PC again with Puppy Linux. However, the net issue still remained. Interestingly, I connected my router to this PC and the modem to the router, then the PC recognized the router and the Net has started working again on this PC. Been quite a route, wonder what happened suddenly. Also, the PC is not entering the Bios when F2 is pressed all the time, so am forced to reboot a few times and then press F2. Will monitor this PC some and see how things shape up. Hope it is not reaching the end of its life.

Avoid uncharted territory problems with old PCs:
1. Not knowing what is happening, loosing control
2. Suddenly something major going wrong
3. Not having a plan in advance to pull out of a problem
4. Places to get help when the worse happens etc.,
No matter how well I plan, I always seem to corner myself
every 3 months or so with one such problem that consumes time,
causes stress and is energy draining.

Here is one thing I had to reflect upon, if I am forced to move
then I will have to dump most IT stuff I have and move with
one or two PCs at the most. So not surprised that so many folks are
dumping items without value when moving, spring cleaning etc.,

Yesterday, few cables were entagled, I pulled on a network cable hard
and its plastic clip at the end was forced so hard that it broke.
I have excess cables for now, still this issue is better to avoid.
So later yesterday, I rolled, knotted and tied each cable individually.
This way, they can be easily accessed when needed.

That happened to me. We had to sell our house and get out of the neighborhood a few years ago. I had to leave my original IBM XT with hdd, memory expansion, even an old network card that would work in 8 bit mode. My pair of NT4 domain controllers with software raid drives, a few old compaq deskpro P166's, a bunch of circuit boards I was desoldering parts from. My collection of z80, 8085, 8088/8086 and 68000 chips I gave away.

Links with Linux Distros for older Hardware:
https://websetnet.com/top-7-linux-distros-computers/
https://www.linux.com/news/linux-distros-older-hardware
http://www.tecmint.com/linux-distrib...old-computers/
http://www.howtogeek.com/172987/revi...old-computers/

Good to revise such lists from time to time and stay updated in regards to OSes for older PCs.
Trying one such distro every week and keeping a personal review of the efforts will be helpful
for the future.

How to build a Linux Web Server with an older computer:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/build-l...mputer-part-1/

Every day an older PC is getting older, in 6 months it will be quite older. So by giving away that older PC to someone else if it is not being used, its maximum use is supported, this can also help to build local contacts for users of older hardware that can come in very useful.