[Resolved!]

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 graphics card 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.

Board says “Asrock H110M-HDS”

Edit: Attached a Pic and noticed the light is actually on the graphics card, not motherboard. Added addtl info.

Update: So now all of the sudden the fan spins. I am at a loss as to why it spins now, as I haven’t actually really done anything. I ordered a speaker for the mobo, so waiting for that.

Final update: It works! I apparently had either a bad monitor or bad display port cable. But using another monitor with DVI I was able to finally get it to fully boot!

I am not sure what got the fans to eventually work, maybe just a cable was jostled.

I really appreciate all the advice! I definitely know a lot more and feel better equipped to do things with it now.

  • @[email protected]English
    6•1 month ago

    Is the light on the motherboard or inside the metal box for the power supply?

    More of the old, old ones would not do anything if any component was not properly seated. So maybe unplug and replug everything?

    And if that doesn’t work, I would start systematically removing components to see if I could get a different response from the computer.

    • @CorkyskogOP
      5•1 month ago

      Sorry, I hadn’t had it fully opened on the other side… it’s actually the graphics card that has a light. I got tricked when I was looking in from the other side.

      • @[email protected]
        -2•1 month ago

        That power connector is not supposed to hang loose in the air. Check the handbook for the mainboard to find out where it’s supposed to connect to.

        • @CorkyskogOP
          3•1 month ago

          It’s plugged in. I believe those are extra for something else thar he ziptied to the graphics connection. Here are a couple images.

          • AlteredStateBlob
            5•1 month ago

            It’s fine. The PCI-e is another one for a graphics card that requires more connectors to be attached.

        • Bezier
          3•1 month ago

          The 6-pin connector? That very much looks OK to me. I don’t see where it would go.

          However there’s disconnected 2 pins on the graphics card.

          • @SolOrionEnglish
            3•1 month ago

            It looks to me like that’s a 6+2 connector and they only needed the 6-pin so the +2 is just left dangling, which afaik is fine.

            • Bezier
              3•1 month ago

              I saw 8 solder blobs, but I’m not sure if it’s actually an 8 pin anymore.

              • @SolOrionEnglish
                2•1 month ago

                Oh, yeah, okay, good point. I didn’t notice the solder. I’m not sure if it’s actually a six pin anymore. I have zero clue how an 8 pin GPU would react to only having 6 pins.

                • @[email protected]
                  2•1 month ago

                  If you look closely on the upper picture in this reply, you can see, that there is only a 6-pin connector, the 2 extra soldering points are unused.