Motherboard on, but nothing will start

Question

I'll try and be as clear as possible. Recently I purchased a barebones kit for my first attempt at a full PC assembly. I've gone through and connected all the parts correctly based on numerous examples that confirm everything is connected correctly. The motherboard and the video card are receiving power based on the fact that the motherboard's power LED is on and the video card has some LEDs on.

Nothing else in the computer will come on when pressing the power button on the case. No fans, no hard drive, no CPU fan. Not even for a split second. I also receive no beeping noise from the speaker connected to the motherboard.

I've also tried swapping the reset and power connectors from the front of the case to no luck.

Answer 1

Assuming this is a ATX system, the first thing to try is shorting out the power switch connector pins on the motherboard. If the system turns on then the ATX switch on the case is defective.

If the system does not turn on then you will need to disconnect the power supply from the motherboard and then short out the power switch connections on the power supply connector itself. If the power supply does not turn on at that point (you may need to test the various rails with a multimeter) then the power supply is defective. If the power supply does turn on then the motherboard is suspect.

Answer 2

I've often found this sort of behavior when I've forgotten to attach some supplementary power connector. Your main power from your power supply is hard to forget, but most new boards now also have an aux or something power connector that I often have forgotten about. So, I'd first check that out.

Then I'd take another look at your switches. All those push button switches do is short some pins for your power connector. I'd pull up your motherboard manual and make sure you're connecting to the power ones. You can use whatever switch you like for that. I've seen repair places just use screw drivers to short the leads while testing - same as what a switch does, so meh.

If you're still having problems, I'd start to wonder a bit more about hardware damage. Still, I'd think you must be pretty bad off to get no response from the machine if you've got wait I explained down. Still, it's best to make sure your CPU is properly installed and your ram is seated firmly. Still, I'd expect a horrible beep code or something if you screwed those up.