[SOLVED] Any alternatives for turning on PC other than power switch and jumpstart? PC wont turn on no fan, no startup, but MOBO lights are on.

Status
Not open for further replies.
Mar 6, 2022
2
0
10
Wrong hardware mb

My brother started putting cloth cover to his PC, I have always told him that it could fry his components. Now his complaining his PC wont turn on. Told him instead of crying start troubleshooting it, try to find the problem. So far he has told me PSU clip test worked all the case fan PSU fan turned, MOBO ROG symbol was on every time its powered and his conclusion was the case power switch was fried (optimistic). Sadly, after confidently telling him to jumpstart MOBO using screwdriver. He told me it didn't work and also switching the restart switch didn't worked also. Now, we are both lost and don't know what to do. I do have a sneaking suspension he might have broke the pin.

my theory: MOBO pins fried/broken
best case scenario: PC power switch broken
worst case scenario: MOBO fried

Any recommendations?
Specs:(ithink)
MOBO: rog b450-f gaming
PSU: VS550 corsair
 
Last edited:
Solution
My first suspicion would be a defective psu.
The paper clop test is worthless.
It can only confirm a dead psu if it fails.
It can not confirm the proper functioning of a psu.
Corsair VS550 is not highly regarded.
See if you can't borrow a known good psu of decent quality to test with.

If the motherboard does not start by temporarily shorting the pwr pins then I would exclude front panel pwr connections as the issue.

What is the processor?
Unless the processor is a G suffix one, it will not have integrated graphics.

Nuwan Fernando

Distinguished
If you have a iGPU in the processor you can try below.

Take the motherboard out of the casing. Keep only CPU, one stick of RAM, monitor, keyboard and Power connected to it. Using the screwdriver method, switch it on.

If you could get any signal to the monitor, then you can add piece by piece and check.
 

JackrumMadthing

Distinguished
Mar 31, 2014
32
4
18,545
You can short the pins that would normally connect to the power on button with anything metal, your tongue works too which I can vouch from personal desperation one night.

You seem to have said this is what you were doing with a screwdriver.

Ensure no other pins are covered, or cables plugged in for example, the RST button which may give you an issue.

Download or dig up the manual.

Your steps should be, after grounding yourself on your brother's head for Static and washing hands clean of greas teenager:

  • Dismantle entire thing, all out
  • Clean all fans, while you are at it remove and clear fins on heatsinks.
  • Open and clean your PSU, being careful not to touch ANYTHING inside with a screwdriver or finger. A brush + vacuum/fan is all you need. While there ensure the VOLTAGE setting on the rearis correct for your country, do not touch this while plugged into mains
  • When I say everything I mean the motherboard should be out too now, brush the sockets where memory and CPU would be, wipe with anti static cloth (whatever you clean sun/reading glasses with) now replug carefully NOT PUTTING FINGERS on any of those slots
- It is not totally deadly to have greasy fingers all over, but, its potentially explosive, so don't test Lady Luck. Worse = Static Electricity

As stated by@Nuwan above, testing onboard video instead of GPU is good idea, however, most motherboards will require a BIOS reset as they don't auto detect and you need to manually set boot up option from IGD (Internal Graphics Device) to PCx or similar. This varies, check manual.

  • After slotting and reseating CPU & Memory + sinks and fans, plug them in and remount mobo in case.
  • Reconnect PSU cables, make sure they are all in correctly and seated solidly.
  • If you have ONBOARD video, and were always using that fine, but if not you may need to reset BIOS and test with it instead of GPU as mentioned above.
  • If you have a built in speaker on your Motherboard, it will make mad beaps at you if unhappy, you should just hear a single BEEP for bootup
  • If no speaker, check your case, you may have a cable running with SPKR on it you never noticed (you did not mention beeps in your initial post...soooo)
  • Hard Drives get plugged in LAST and AFTER confirming boot to POST (Pre Operating System Test, the lines of text you see before loading into OS).

So you should now have completely cleaned, checked cabling, and reseated your entire PC. Through this process, you'll hopefully have elimated either the issue itself or have found what is causing your grief.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Exploding PSU
Mar 6, 2022
2
0
10
If you have a iGPU in the processor you can try below.

Take the motherboard out of the casing. Keep only CPU, one stick of RAM, monitor, keyboard and Power connected to it. Using the screwdriver method, switch it on.

If you could get any signal to the monitor, then you can add piece by piece and check.
You can short the pins that would normally connect to the power on button with anything metal, your tongue works too which I can vouch from personal desperation one night.

You seem to have said this is what you were doing with a screwdriver.

Ensure no other pins are covered, or cables plugged in for example, the RST button which may give you an issue.

Download or dig up the manual.

Your steps should be, after grounding yourself on your brother's head for Static and washing hands clean of greas teenager:

  • Dismantle entire thing, all out
  • Clean all fans, while you are at it remove and clear fins on heatsinks.
  • Open and clean your PSU, being careful not to touch ANYTHING inside with a screwdriver or finger. A brush + vacuum/fan is all you need. While there ensure the VOLTAGE setting on the rearis correct for your country, do not touch this while plugged into mains
  • When I say everything I mean the motherboard should be out too now, brush the sockets where memory and CPU would be, wipe with anti static cloth (whatever you clean sun/reading glasses with) now replug carefully NOT PUTTING FINGERS on any of those slots
- It is not totally deadly to have greasy fingers all over, but, its potentially explosive, so don't test Lady Luck. Worse = Static Electricity

As stated by@Nuwan above, testing onboard video instead of GPU is good idea, however, most motherboards will require a BIOS reset as they don't auto detect and you need to manually set boot up option from IGD (Internal Graphics Device) to PCx or similar. This varies, check manual.

  • After slotting and reseating CPU & Memory + sinks and fans, plug them in and remount mobo in case.
  • Reconnect PSU cables, make sure they are all in correctly and seated solidly.
  • If you have ONBOARD video, and were always using that fine, but if not you may need to reset BIOS and test with it instead of GPU as mentioned above.
  • If you have a built in speaker on your Motherboard, it will make mad beaps at you if unhappy, you should just hear a single BEEP for bootup
  • If no speaker, check your case, you may have a cable running with SPKR on it you never noticed (you did not mention beeps in your initial post...soooo)
  • Hard Drives get plugged in LAST and AFTER confirming boot to POST (Pre Operating System Test, the lines of text you see before loading into OS).

So you should now have completely cleaned, checked cabling, and reseated your entire PC. Through this process, you'll hopefully have elimated either the issue itself or have found what is causing your grief.

Thank you for the help, guys however, it seems all hopes for the MOBO have been lost. After coming home and trying to help my brother, I realized the MOBO lights were not on, except for the RGB logo, which I didn't understand by his messages. However, I might do the steps anyway to teach my brother and probably try to update later. I will also try to clean up all the dust and salvage some parts. Well, the PC had a 3-4 year run, so it is what it is.

I might as well ask in advance any MOBO recommendations, and should I also replace the PSU or salvage it?
 

JackrumMadthing

Distinguished
Mar 31, 2014
32
4
18,545
...I use a 2nd Generation i7-2600k made in Feb 2011. Sooo....3 year run??? Paired with a GTX-1650 its solid max settings on everything new, well most intense thing I'm playing is Assasins Creed Odyssey.

Ya check all the basics, you'd be suprised how reseating something can fix it. Good Luck!

*wanders off muttering about yoyo's and BBC's"
 

Satan-IR

Splendid
Ambassador
Is that Corsair VS550 PSU one of the newer ones with grey label? Or the old ones (yellow label?)? Don't know the GPU in the system - or the rest of the system really - but I'd change that PSU too.

Even the newer ones (with grey label) only have a 3-year warranty. That means Corsair probably doesn't trust them to last longer than that.

Yes I know it's not the best basis for deciding PSU quality and endurance but there are top quality PSUs with 12-year warranties or midrange ones with 7-10 years as opposed to the 3 years. Do the math.
 

Zerk2012

Titan
Ambassador
Thank you for the help, guys however, it seems all hopes for the MOBO have been lost. After coming home and trying to help my brother, I realized the MOBO lights were not on, except for the RGB logo, which I didn't understand by his messages. However, I might do the steps anyway to teach my brother and probably try to update later. I will also try to clean up all the dust and salvage some parts. Well, the PC had a 3-4 year run, so it is what it is.

I might as well ask in advance any MOBO recommendations, and should I also replace the PSU or salvage it?
DON'T OPEN THE POWER SUPPLY VERY BAD THINGS INCLUDING DEATH CAN HAPPEN IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR DOING.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tac 25

Tac 25

Estimable
Jul 25, 2021
1,391
421
3,890
Thank you for the help, guys however, it seems all hopes for the MOBO have been lost. After coming home and trying to help my brother, I realized the MOBO lights were not on, except for the RGB logo, which I didn't understand by his messages. However, I might do the steps anyway to teach my brother and probably try to update later. I will also try to clean up all the dust and salvage some parts. Well, the PC had a 3-4 year run, so it is what it is.

I might as well ask in advance any MOBO recommendations, and should I also replace the PSU or salvage it?

get the old PSU and dispose of it properly in the trash. Not worth trying to reuse a possibly damaged PSU.
 
Last edited:

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
Open and clean your PSU, being careful not to touch ANYTHING inside with a screwdriver or finger. A brush + vacuum/fan is all you need. While there ensure the VOLTAGE setting on the rearis correct for your country, do not touch this while plugged into mains
Never, ever ever ever ever do this. If you do not have full experience with electronics and the implications of how capacitors work and so on, and even then, DO NOT DO THIS.

@JackrumMadthing NEVER give such advice again on this forum or you will be facing a ban.
 
My first suspicion would be a defective psu.
The paper clop test is worthless.
It can only confirm a dead psu if it fails.
It can not confirm the proper functioning of a psu.
Corsair VS550 is not highly regarded.
See if you can't borrow a known good psu of decent quality to test with.

If the motherboard does not start by temporarily shorting the pwr pins then I would exclude front panel pwr connections as the issue.

What is the processor?
Unless the processor is a G suffix one, it will not have integrated graphics.
 
Solution

JackrumMadthing

Distinguished
Mar 31, 2014
32
4
18,545
Never, ever ever ever ever do this. If you do not have full experience with electronics and the implications of how capacitors work and so on, and even then, DO NOT DO THIS.

@JackrumMadthing NEVER give such advice again on this forum or you will be facing a ban.

If you read my post carefully I'm quite clear about what should not be done.

If you feel like it is necessary to tell people not to stick their fingers into moving fan blades, then sure, none of us should be telling ANYBODY here to do ANYTHING involving their PC's, as it will void the warranty 99.9% of the time.
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
If you read my post carefully I'm quite clear about what should not be done.

If you feel like it is necessary to tell people not to stick their fingers into moving fan blades, then sure, none of us should be telling ANYBODY here to do ANYTHING involving their PC's, as it will void the warranty 99.9% of the time.

Nothing to do with warranty whatsoever. Plenty to do with a task that can be downright dangerous to the inexperienced. At a minimum they can fry their PSU, otherwise worse.

Let it go and lets move on to properly helping the OP.
 
If you read my post carefully I'm quite clear about what should not be done.

If you feel like it is necessary to tell people not to stick their fingers into moving fan blades, then sure, none of us should be telling ANYBODY here to do ANYTHING involving their PC's, as it will void the warranty 99.9% of the time.

Do you know what a capacitor is and what it can do? Need to go do your research, you might understand why you've been told what you've been told here.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rogue Leader
Status
Not open for further replies.