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Did you use compressed air to clean out the fans?
It's possible to fry circuitry if you artificially rotate the fans too fast, as this generates an electric field more powerful than the fans and their attached components are rated for.
Probably rare to cause damage with modern computers but an old PC might be more susceptible to this type of damage.
Not compressed air from an air compressor, just the canned stuff. I don't think I spun any fans too fast. Plus the PC is only 5 years old.
I joked the dust was what was keeping the PC running when this happened to me. But your explanation makes more sense. Dang
Have you tried turning it off and on ag- oh.
In all seriousness, maybe a blown capacitor of any kind? You describe the PC working fine 'before.' When was 'before?'
There is no obvious damage on the motherboard, capacitors look fine.
"Before" was immediately before I turned it off and opened it up to clean out the dust. It was being actively used as a server.
You haven't followed the proper tech troubleshooting ritual:
Well I got up to step 6, not sure how to get to the next step...
Have you tries unpluging it and plugging it in?
Did you maybe unseat the tiny power switch/activity led front panel cables?
I've tried just directly shorting the power switch on the mobo to rule out issues with the case switch, but that didn't help.
Well, reading this and the rest of this thread, I can't think of anything else. Since you ruled out pretty much everything else, I would now put my money on one of the parts shorted during cleaning.. anecdotally I've heard parts dying by shorting them with your fingers, but it never happened to me, so that would be pretty unlucky.
Last time I did a cleaning of a particularly dusty system, a dustbunny flew in the PCI-e port without us noticing (it was dark and circumstances were not ideal). With the GPU Re-inserted, that was enough for the system to behave similarly to yours, but you re-seated everything so... That would eliminate this as a possibility.
You could share a photo of the current situation, a top down of the mobo? Eliminate chances you are missing something by secondary means(as opposed to just text)?
Is the power switch on the PSU flipped on? Are the front panel wires seated in the right places on the motherboard?
Those are the two that get me when reassembling. I used to have an asrock 320m that had absolutely no grip on the front panel wires and it was easy to unseat one when blowing air into the case.
I've flipped the PSU switch both positions, doesn't really work either way.
I've reseated the case power switch cable but it didn't help. I also tried shorting with a screwdriver in case it was the switch, but nothing π
You mentioned a buzzing in another reply. That sounds like a grounding issue to me. Any chance you blew something under the board that is causing a short? At this point it would be wise to do a full tear down.
I'm almost at my train stop, so one final question before disappearing for the day: when resocketing the CPU did you put it in correctly and was there damage when you removed it initially?
One thing that was only mentioned briefly by someone else is the physical button turning on the computer.
Similar to the paperclip test figure out where the power button goes into the mainboardw and bridge that with a short cable. Is possible that by moving the case the old button lost a cable.
This is just one more thing to test though, it's really trial and error as you know :)
One of the first things I tested π. I'm almost ready to give up, buy a new mobo/CPU/RAM and then auction the old stuff off online for someone else to work out what does or doesn't work π
How does everyone have spare parts to try, it seems almost every generation you have a new CPU socket and new RAM type so you can't use the old stuff!
I'll probably be asking for hardware recommendations soon haha
It's an old desktop PC
One (or more) of the electrolytic capacitors in your PSU has died.
Remove the power cord, wait for 2 hours, open the PSU and look carefully for the candidate(s) with the domed head. Healthy ones are perfectly flat on the head.
Order a new one and replace it.
I did a paperclip test, PSU seems fine.
What did you do?
What did you expect?
What did you observe?
I followed someone else's instructions. Expected putting a paperclip in in and plugging it in/turning it on would cause the fan to start up. It did.
https://robots.net/tech/how-to-power-up-psu-without-motherboard/
Fan in PSU started up fine, apparently this is a sign that the PSU is not dead. Fan does not turn on when connected to the motherboard, which supports the theory that the PSU isn't the issue.
I had this exact issue on an old gaming PC, PSU wouldn't power the MB, but would be fine by itself. My GPU had a short, gods know how it happened. Juts keep disconnecting parts and try powering up again until you get the LED indicator. If everything is gone and it still won't power on, it's the MB. You could get a multimeter and measuring the power lines to see if there is a short (5V to ground, 12V to ground and I think there are 24V lines?). Maybe look for burst or burned capacitors and if you're crafty and able to solder replace them. Otherwise replace the MB or defect parts.
Did you flip a power switch on the PSU at some point, perhaps? (Done that one a few times myself...)
I've tried in both positions.
Might sound weird but I can hear a quiet buzzing in the off position (O) and silence in the on position (1). But I don't have another to check what's normal.
It's generally the reverse thing that happen you can hear the buzzing when on and not when off.. π
That's why I mentioned it! It seems logical. Normally 0 is off and 1 on, right? I tried in both positions but it buzzes when in the 0 position.
This sounds illogical to me
For the record, I did a paperclip test and the PSU seems fine. 1 is definitely on, 0 off, and the buzzing is when it's off π€·. It's not loud, you can only hear it when held up to your ear.
Is there any chance the buzzing is actually from what you have the PSU plugged into? I think ive had a surge protector that have a buzzing without anything drawing power that went away once something was consuming power.
Definitely the PSU, but it's not drawing power so maybe the buzzing would go away if the PC was drawing power.
And when you unplug the power it goes?
Yeah, may just be that the PC isn't drawing power, the buzzing might go if it was.
Mind trying another power socket just to eliminate potential environment problems?
Did it, and also did a paperclip test. PSU seems fine, it's getting power.
If you got another psu then that would probably be the simplest way to verify if its the psu or not.