Troubleshooting PC parts is a long and tiresome process. You need to check each part to arrive at a conclusion and send the faulty part to RMA. But, what if your mainboard isn’t receiving power in the first place? This case can be a particularly frightening one as without power, no component will not work, no matter what you do. This is because the motherboard powers most of the components on and off the board. Thus, without power, nothing will spin to life. In this article, we will list the most common ways to determine whether your mainboard is receiving power.
How do I Test Motherboard for No Power?
Determining whether your motherboard is receiving any power is a bit difficult because it won’t straight off the bat say to you whether it is getting any. The problem becomes even harder if your board does not have any debug LEDs or any RGB LEDs on it. LEDs are a great way of telling whether your board is getting any power because they light up as soon as you turn your PC on. In this situation, the only way to determine whether your motherboard is the problem is to cross-check it with other hardware. Each step has detailed below for further convenience.
1. Check Your Motherboard LEDs
The most definitive test for determining whether your motherboard is receiving power is by checking your motherboard LEDs If they light up, your system is receiving power, and you are clear to check the parts. But, if none of your motherboard LEDs lights up when you power your system on. The problem might be with the motherboard. However, we can not confirm whether it is the motherboard just yet because:
- Every motherboard does not have LEDs.
- The LEDs might have defaulted into off mode.
In this case, move on to the next steps.
2. Check The Headers on the Motherboard
Safely short the Power SW pins on your motherboard with a tester, and check whether they have any power. If the LED does not light up, that means your motherboard is not receiving any power.
However, if your tester gives a positive signal, but your motherboard still won’t power on, try the next steps on this list.
3. Connect Your Motherboard to a Different PSU
Remove all the stuff you will not need to just power on your system. These include your SSDs, HDDs, graphics card (if your CPU has an integrated graphics processor inbuilt), RGB strips, and fans. Then connect your motherboard to a separate PSU, and try turning it on. If your motherboard shows any signs of receiving power, it might be your other PSU or any one of the hardware you removed before turning it on. Try reconnecting these components one by one, and check at what point your computer stops booting. The last component you plugged in, therefore, will be the faulty one.
If your components pass all of the tests, then your PSU is dead.
However, if your motherboard did not boot the second time either, you have a dead board. Consider getting it repaired or replaced by the manufacturer.
We hope this article helped you identify the issues with your motherboard, and probably fix them.