My PC won't turn on. Haven't been able to set it up for a couple of months and so it's been sitting off in the corner of my room. I set everything up on my desk and I pressed the power button and nothing. I double-checked that the outlet it was plugged into worked and the button on the power supply was on but still nothing. I looked a little bit into it and saw people saying it might be the CMOS battery dying so I changed that and still no dice. I was wondering if you computer wizzes had any other things to check that might be causing this. Thanks in advance.
First thing to test would be the power supply. Is this a prebuilt (e.g., Dell, HP, eMachines, etc.), or something that you or a friend assembled from parts?
If it's something that you assembled from components, the power supply should have a standard pinout on the cable that powers the mainboard (this is the big-ass one with the huge connector). Assuming it's standard ATX, you can unplug the PSU, preferably remove it from the case, and bridge the PS_ON pin on the connector to one of the ground pins (e.g., with a piece of wire or a paperclip) to force the PSU to turn on once it is plugged into the wall outlet and switched on.
Video demonstration here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIDarSg2jqk
NOTE: If you do not have a standard ATX power supply, do not attempt this! The pinouts are different and you may damage the power supply or start a fire. If you aren't comfortable working around high-amperage direct current electricity, you may want to have your computer-savvy friend do this one just so that the magic smoke doesn't escape and take your home along with it.
Anyway, if the power supply works outside the case, it's the mainboard. If you reassemble everything again and it suddenly works, it was a loose or improperly seated connector; I've had that bite me on PCI Express power connectors (video card) once or twice.
Yeah it's a computer a friend helped me build. It has an ATX, so If just replugging stuff doesn't work I'm gonna try the bridge thing.
Sweet, good luck.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: