I traded my cousin some really expensive RAM that I happened accross for his old desktop, that he put his graphics card into that he swapped from his newer computer. If I plug the desktop into the wall and try to turn it on nothing happens. If I open it up I can see that the where the wire from the power supply plugs into the motherboard there Is a little light on. So clearly some power is getting somewhere…
How do I go about trouble shooting this, and what tools do I need? I assume at minimum a multi meter? Not really sure what to do, it’s been decades the last time I built a computer.
Just jumping in here to let you know that most of the people here missed one of the most basic and first steps in pc repair… CLEAR THE CMOS!!!
There might be a jumper on the mb but the easy way is to remove the battery and try to turn the power on and off a few times.
Replace the battery and the computer should try to POST.
I know it seems crazy but sometimes computers that won’t post had major hardware changes and the bios won’t let power through. Not sure why but clearing the cmos will revert to defaults and get you to the next step of troubleshooting.
Source: 20 years pc repair technician.
Also 20 plus years. This will fix a ton of boot issues.
This, I used an old board and it didn’t work until I replaced the (button) battery . After that, you can troubleshoot the board adding components one by one and listening to the beeps. There’s a code. Left the GPU as last element and use the integrated one always until all is working. If a external GPU doesn’t work, it could be not enough power. If memory fails, beeps again, try to find a working one and go from there…