Old PC won't turn on. Need help.

[HeyPleaseDie]

I found an old PC recently, a Dell Dimension 2350, but it's not powering on.

There is a green LED on the motherboard and it powers on when the PC is plugged in. But when I press the power button, nothing happens. Any help at all would be great.
It has a 478 cpu socket (Intel Pentium 4 2.2 GHz), motherboard is Bluford E139765, the RAM (2x512mb DDR @266Mhz) seems to maxed out already occording to the owners manual, and three PCI slots.

I like fixing up old computers, sort of a hobby. I love playing old computer games so if I can get it up and running I'll upgrade it where I can and do some retro gaming on it.

Thanks.

 

[Geekwad]

I would focus on the power button first, and then fully test the PSU (even though it's sending some power, it still may not be operating fully).

If there is a reset switch, try swapping the pins on the mother board reset->power, and use the reset switch as a power button to see if that works.

 

[Barty1884]

I agree the power button would be a decent place to start - it might be that simple.

I would visually inspect the motherboard too - an older rig, who knows what kind of use it's had or storage conditions etc.
Plus, general wear & tear could come into play.

Look for bulging capacitors, that's a common issue in older boards and not really worthwhile fixing.

 

[HeyPleaseDie]

I don't see any kind of reset pins/switches. How would I full test the PSU?

 

[HeyPleaseDie]

I also see no bulging capacitors. Everything inside looks almost brand new. I barely had to clean it. It was a very clean system. Only thing that's broken is the CPU heatsink bracket which I can replace that for a couple bucks but that wouldn't be what's stopping it from powering on.

 

[Geekwad]

I also see no bulging capacitors. Everything inside looks almost brand new. I barely had to clean it. It was a very clean system. Only thing that's broken is the CPU heatsink bracket which I can replace that for a couple bucks but that wouldn't be what's stopping it from powering on.

Could be.....if someone was trying to take it off not knowing what they're doing (pulling/tugging/twisting), it could have damaged the socket.

To test the PSU best, would be to take a known functioning PSU and connect it to this system to easily rule it out.

 

[HeyPleaseDie]

I also see no bulging capacitors. Everything inside looks almost brand new. I barely had to clean it. It was a very clean system. Only thing that's broken is the CPU heatsink bracket which I can replace that for a couple bucks but that wouldn't be what's stopping it from powering on.

Could be.....if someone was trying to take it off not knowing what they're doing (pulling/tugging/twisting), it could have damaged the socket.

To test the PSU best, would be to take a known functioning PSU and connect it to this system to easily rule it out.

Well, I don't have another PSU.