I am working on converting an old ATX PSU to a lab bench power supply, and the guide I follow is putting a 5 ohm 10 watt dummy load resistor on the 5 V supply line. I don't have resistors of this value right now, can I instead put two 10 ohm 5 watt resistor instead? Or do I need a dummy load resistor at all?
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Yes, that would be fine.
The goal is to draw 1A from the 5V bus as a "dummy load". Each of your 10Ω resistors will draw 0.5A, dissipating 2.5W in the process. The two of them in parallel constitute the desired load.

Dave Tweed
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Yes. Putting the two resistors in parallel will share the power evenly between the two, as long as they're both the same resistance.

Hearth
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