Nothing happens when I press the power button......pls help

[Will M]

I have an Acer M5100 desktop pc. AMD Phenom quad-core 2.2Ghz, 3 Gb of DDR2 ram, Nvidia 8800GT 512 MB video card. I properly shut down my pc last night, when I woke up it would not turn on. Nothing happens at all when I press the power button. After checking all connections on the motherboard, and trying each ram stick one at a time, I disconnected the power supply and used a paper clip in a 'U' shape in the green and adjacent black wire locations. The power supply fan itself turned on and was running(which didn't happen when everything was connected to the motherboard) but did it not power the one cooling fan that was the only thing connected to it. Would this suggest that the power supply is done? Or do you think I could be looking at a bigger, more expensive problem. Thanks in advance for your help!

[PseFrank]

Hi Will M, welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help.

 

It sounds like you're happy to work inside the tower, so I'd suggest swapping the Power switch cable with the Reset switch cable. You don't need to plug the power switch cable back in. Just make sure that the Reset switch cable is connected to the power switch pin.

 

If it is a switch problem your computer will now start when you press the Reset Button.

 

Let us know how you get on.

[Plastic Nev]

Try as Frank suggests, but I think you may already have done similar with the paper clip. (useful things aren't they?) If there is still no joy, when you first opened the lid, was there the faintest hint of a burning smell?

Even if no smell I still feel the power supply may have gone.

I will warn you that sometimes a power supply failure can damage the motherboard too, so be aware that replacing the power supply on its own may not be enough.

That happening to me some years ago is what got me into these forums and learning how the darned things work.:cool: