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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.
Compressed air can spin the fans fast enough to cause damage unfortunately.
Probably not this one. I was a little disappointed with how little airflow this can gives me. In any case, I don't think I spun any CPU fans around much at all.
I joked the dust was what was keeping the PC running when this happened to me. But your explanation makes more sense. Dang
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 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.
Have you tries unpluging it and plugging it in?
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.
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)?
Sure thing, here's a photo:
It's sitting inside the case but not installed, no cables connected, Edit: ~~RAM is out.~~ RAM is right there in the photo π . I left CPU in because I don't want to have to do that one yet again π
This photo makes it look quite dusty haha, but this is after cleaning!
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.
I bought a multimeter and followed a youtube video to test the power supply, all the voltages are correct so it seems it's fine. It's got to be the motherboard or CPU as I've tried an out of case test with just CPU, mobo, PSU, RAM (and also tested without the RAM) and there's no sign of life at all.
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
Mind trying another power socket just to eliminate potential environment problems?
If you got another psu then that would probably be the simplest way to verify if its the psu or not.