A switching power supply apparatus (200) for controlling the operation of a switching FET (225) adapted for switching a rectified smoothed output of a primary side rectifying smoothing circuit (215) by a switching controlling circuit (230) having a hysteresis low-voltage mistaken operation prohibiting circuit. An output of a ternary winding (220C) of a converter transformer is rectified and smoothed by a rectifying smoothing circuit (238) to drive the switching controlling circuit (230). An output voltage of the ternary winding (220C), varied in dependence upon the load state on the secondary side of a converter transformer (220) is set so as to be lower than a low voltage protective voltage in case the voltage is lower than a design load and so as to be higher than the low voltage protective voltage in case the voltage is higher than the design load, in order to carry out an intermittent operation during standby time. Thus, the switching operation during standby time may be carried out intermittently to minimize the power consumption to realize the energy saving during standby time, simply by adjusting the values of respective key devices, without appreciably changing the pre-existing circuitry.