Questions about computers that won't turn on :(

[Chreman]

Heya, I've had some bad luck in the last couple of months and now have two desktops in my possession that simply will not turn on. One seems to have fallen victim to a power surge, while the other only starts up the fan.

First and foremost, I was wondering about ways to tell whether or not certain components are still working. Beyond that, I was also curious if there's a good way to tell what exactly is going wrong with them and how to go about fixing them.

[Snowknight26]

Get a working computer and plug each part that you think isnt working into the working one. Put them in separately. If you can't put them in, obviously don't force them in.

[Cephius]

There's not much you can do without a working PC.. if you can borrow someone's and test components in that, that'd be your best bet. However if its a power surge like you say, if you don't have any kind of surge protector it doesn't take much to fry the circuitry in your computer. At the very least your power supply is dead, but I wouldn't just replace that unless you have a spare or you think that your mobo and other PC components weren't damaged.

[Skyylya]

For the one that had the power surge, well if that is actually the case you're probably fucked, if it's something else unless you can provide more information there's not much that we can help with.

For the other one, first you'll wanna check your plugs from the PSU to the MOBO, is the 20 or 24 pin connected as well as the 4 pin (or 6/8 depending on mobo and how new your parts are). Do you have all of the other cords plugged in right, a power cable to the GPU if it requires it, power to all the drives, cpu fan, auxilliary fans(intake/exhaust). If all of the plugs are right, does it make any beeps when you hit power, or is it completely dead. You'd have to google what the beeps mean i don't recall off the top of my head.

I'm going to bed, i'll try to help more in the morning, but check all your power leads, make sure they are all correct, if everything is plugged in right, check your mounts, do you have only the required amount, no extra, are they plugged in right, is your mobo touching anything it's not supposed to etc.... did you fry something from a static charge cause you didn't take precautions.

[Killgannon]

the one that the fan works in you can also pull cards from (pci stuff mainly) and drives from... if it suddenly starts booting then you have a bad whatever you pulled that was shorting it... same for the other really but its less reliable if its not starting anything at all

[Isiolia]

Many computers have protections in them against surges. What you might want to do is unplug them, and then pull the battery off the motherboard and let them sit for at least 15-30 minutes. That should reset any protection mechanisms.

Start with the bare essentials, make sure they're all plugged in (probably reseat them), and try it then.