My friend and I are assembling a PC, and so far we've installed the motherboard, power supply, three bottom fans, graphics card, and CPU cooler. When we tried powering it on for a test, absolutely nothing happened—no fans, lights, or other signs of power. The parts list link may not be working, so what should we check first?
2 Answers
Since there are no lights or fans at all, this is more likely a power or wiring issue than a CPU or graphics-card problem. Reseat the 24-pin and EPS cables, confirm the PSU cables are plugged into the correct PSU ports, and test with only the motherboard, CPU, cooler, one RAM stick, and PSU connected. Make sure the board isn’t shorting against an extra case standoff. The Core Ultra 7 265K may also require a BIOS version that supports it, but an unsupported BIOS usually still allows some signs of power, so check the connections first.
Start with the basic power connections: make sure the PSU switch is set to “I,” the wall cable is firmly connected, and both the motherboard’s 24-pin connector and the CPU/EPS power connector near the top of the board are fully seated. Also check that the case’s power-switch connector is connected to the correct front-panel pins. If needed, briefly bridge the two power-switch pins with a screwdriver to rule out a faulty case button.
The PSU switch was already set to on, so we’ll double-check the CPU power cable and the front-panel connector next.