Alright I'm stumped.

[Kiro]

Power went out last night and all that, obviously great for my computer. Turned my PC on this morning and it starts up like usual, at least I thought it did. The monitor was idle the entire time, didn't show a POST screen or anything. I didn't get the usual HDD beep during the boot either.

The fans get power, the mobo light is on, CD/DVD gets power, etc etc. I thought it was my video card at first, but that doesn't explain the lack of "beep" from my HDD which ALWAYS happens when I turn my computer on.

I took everything out and seated everything one-by-one to see if I could figure it out that way, but I still got jack shit.

So.. did the PSU get fried from the power outage? It's an Antec EA-500 (Earthwatts). I don't have a multimeter to check if it's fried or not, so I figured I'd ask here before I drop $70 for a new one.

[Milks]

Make sure both the 20 pin connector and the 4 pin connector are snug. I was building a PC in a rush one time and forgot to plug in the 4 pin completely and the computer wouldn't POST.

I know that seems to be a stupid idea because you haven't done anything, but it never hurts to take it out and put it back in just in case. Hope it's only your PSU instead of your motherboard or CPU.

Edit: Just saw that you already tried taking everything out. Did that include taking the PSU cables out of the motherboard?

[Kiro]

Yep. I took out everythang and put it all back in.

[Evanos]

What kind of surge protection do you have?
I have encountered a problem similar to this 6-7 years ago, and it turned out that my motherboard was fried. The switch is a simple mechanism that works with or without a working motherboard (in 99 out of 100 cases) and the fact that your fans are spinning up and the PSU is kicking in may not be a good sign. Was there thunder/anything accompanied with your power shortage? Also, what kind of PSU was it?

In your case I think I would try to swap out the PSU first, but if that does not work plan for the worst.

[xopher]

Motherboard.

[Kiro]

Shit, if it's the motherboard I guess I'll use this opportunity as an excuse to get a new video card and summa'dat AMD x6.

[Furtwangler]

it's either psu or mobo, and since you're getting lights and fan etc, sounds like the psu is working fine. You can always test to see if its the psu by swapping one, but I'd have my money on the board

[Jurgen]

Sounds like the motherboard to me. Are the fans hooked up to 3-pins on the motherboard? Or are they hooked up to the molex 4-pins from the Power Supply?

[Kiro]

Sounds like the motherboard to me. Are the fans hooked up to 3-pins on the motherboard? Or are they hooked up to the molex 4-pins from the Power Supply?

They're hooked up to the 4-pins off the PSU. I took everything out again and put 'em in one-by-one for the second time just to make sure. It's definitely getting power, so I'm fairly certain it's the motherboard. Although the green mobo light is on, so.. fuck if I know. That just means it's getting power from the PSU right? It's gotta be the motherboard at this point, nothing else makes sense. I even reset the CMOS pins. I'm fuckin' stuuuuuumped.

[Norellicus]

Disconnect all devices from mobo, see if it POSTs without anything but power connected to it.

It's going to error, obviously, but we can be sure if it's the mobo that way.