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I've gone through the two existing questions I found that seemed to the closes to my situation, tried most of the proposed fixes, and I'm still not getting any results. Those questions where:

I've got a custom spec desktop PC which I powered down about 3 months ago and basically put in storage in my spare room (switched to laptop for a while). I recently tried booting it up again to upgrade the OS, and nothing happens when I hit the power button. Everything I've read suggests that it's either the PSU or the motherboard, and the LED on the motherboard suggests that it's not the PSU. What confuses me is that the damn thing's just been powered off for a few months - no particularly extreme conditions - and so this seems to be an utterly random fault.

Things I've tried:

  • Making sure all the components are properly seated
  • disconnecting and reconnecting all the power connectors
  • Trying a different socket
  • Trying a different power cable
  • Resetting the CMOS.
  • Checked for exploded capacitors
  • "Juicing" the PSU (I wasn't convinced that was even a real thing, but I tried it anyway)
  • Leaving it for a week (and a bit), and trying again
  • Removing the case and hitting the Power button directly.

Specs

Intel® Core™2 Quad Q9400 
ASUS® P5N-T DELUXE
4GB Corsair XMS2 800MHz
1GB NVidia Geforce 9600GT
500GB SATA
450W Quiet Dual Rail PSU
Triple copper heatpipe CPU cooler
Win 8.1

Question(s)

  1. Any ideas as to what has actually gone wrong? Is there anything else I could try to fix this? (replace the motherboard, obviously - I'm hoping to avoid that if at all possible.)
Community
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Camassey
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    You cite two previous questions with tons of answers. If there were more answers, that's where they would be. Beyond that, you will need some test equipment to start diagnosing, and a lot of spare parts to try swapping. At this point, the kind of interactive, open-ended help and speculative suggestions that you need are outside the scope of the site. It just isn't set up to be useful for troubleshooting. – fixer1234 Aug 04 '15 at 20:45
  • @fixer1234 Fair point about the large numbers of answers. That said, in one case the PC "doesn't power up completely" (and mine isn't powering up _at all_), and the other question was concerning a 5yr-old Dell specifically, and some of the answers were specific that particular hardware. I wasn't sure how specific the advice was, or whether the particular nature of the fault I've encountered might be known. – Camassey Aug 04 '15 at 20:50
  • Troubleshooting is hard to do from afar, especially on a site designed to build a knowledgebase of questions that have a specific factual answer, and those answers. There are a few things that are easy to check (and you described them). You don't mention: does the hard disk spin up? Do you get any POST beeps? If it was working when it was stored away, it probably isn't the motherboard. If you have a meter, check voltages so you have more info than one LED. – fixer1234 Aug 04 '15 at 21:01
  • @fixer1234 Thanks. To answer your question (FWIW, literally nothing happens when I try and power up). And without wanting to be facetious, given what you've said, why is there a [tag:troubleshooting] tag? (Genuine question) – Camassey Aug 04 '15 at 21:35
  • On the off chance that the power button is bad or dirty, you could trace the wires to the motherboard and do a quick jumpering of the pins to see if it starts up. Otherwise, I would try replacing the PSU. That would seem like the most likely problem, and they aren't outrageously expensive. Beyond that, it will probably take some hands-on diagnostics. The [troubleshooting] tag is so we can easily spot questions to delete. :-). But seriously, there are lots of tags for things that are usually off-topic. Troubleshooting isn't off-topic, but SU can only be of limited help with these. – fixer1234 Aug 04 '15 at 21:46
  • Sometimes you can luck out with a troubleshooting problem in that it is something common and the solutions are well known. – fixer1234 Aug 04 '15 at 21:48
  • You state "Resetting the CMOS,", but did you check the CMOS/system clock battery? – DrMoishe Pippik Aug 04 '15 at 22:20

0 Answers0