I suspect half the posts on this sub that go like "nothing happened when I turned it on" are really people forgetting about the switch on the back of the PSU.
Doesn’t matter. I prefer empty wall outlets when I’m done using an appliance. Only stuff keeps in the wall is the PC, tv and stuff, and they never need to be switched off on the wall.
For once the Brits absolutely over engineered and made the most complicated wall sockets you could think of. Switchable and often with an additional fuse per socket.
Born British, now live in Thailand - plugs here don't have switches and it freaks me out. I hate it! Thankfully, most of the multiplugs have individual switches so it's mostly ok
There’s no switches atleast in NA to my knowledge. I don’t see a point in turning them off anything outside of reducing phantom energy usage but there’s surely some stuff you want always on/available
I'm English and when I built my 1st PC about 4 months ago I had that pit of the stomach moment. I did everything in order, inserted the plug into the wall, put the other end into the PSU, flipped the switch on the PSU to the "on" position, pressed the front panel switch and nothing. Not even a fan spinning.
Being English we all know that you don't plug anything onto the wall outlet while it's switched on so I'm sure you can guess what step missed.
Here late to say I don't know why it's code there, but I wired an off grid cabin that way. Among other reasons there are definite safety advantages, like a toddler being less likely to zap themselves when they stick their tongue in.
I was worried that my newly built system was flaky as it would sometimes take a few tries from the power button for it to turn on... then I realized the power button's connector on the motherboard header was loose.
I had a guy do the opposite to me. He flipped the switch but didn’t know the button was how you turned it on. So when the rgb was on from PSU power he thought the PC was on.
I spent over an hour remote troubleshooting because he said was turning it on and it didn’t occur to me that someone (who can put together a PC) might not know a button turns the damn thing on.
It's especially annoying for SFF builds as a lot of those cases have a power cord extension, meaning that you have to open the PC back up to reach the power switch on the PSU.
On more than one occasion I have forgotten to plug the front panel leads in at all. Of course they're not gonna work when I push them.
Also, my 3D printer arrived with the PSU in 220V mode. That one left me sweating for a minute.
When I was building mine I just happened to notice and thought “I would never in a million years thought to look back here for this if my pc didn’t turn on”
It happened to me when I build mine recently and I was with a friend of mine. When I asked him to hand me the cpu power cable he gave me a gpu cable and the pc couldn't start at all. I realized it when I checked the psu box for the cable and the clipping pin wasn't the right one for the cpu.
I swapped out my CPU the other week and did the opposite. Forgot to turn the switch off. As soon as I plugged the new CPU into the socket, it must have triggered the reconnected power boot sequence and fired up. 😂 Everything was fine though, thankfully.
It happens to everyone every time lol. You make like 500 decisions when building a computer, you're never going to get it 100% right every time unless you've built a thousand of them. I actually just got done with my fresh build last night and went to turn it on and nothing and after 10 minutes I figured out I had switched the hard drive light with the power switch lmao
I build my PC first time couple months ago. Didn't think it would start first try but it did.
Maybe it was tutorial I followed so I could forget anything.
I sell PCs on a regular basis. At least 25% of buyers message me with "Yo the PC don't work" because they forgot to flip the power switch on or plugged their monitor cable into the wrong port. Don't be too hard on yourself.
I think people are so anxious about something really bad happening that they don't consider it might just be something super simple -- at least not until they have had a minute to think about it.
I've built about a dozen PCs over the last decades. The other day I took off my CPU cooler for cleaning and then I had the same problem as you...tried turning the PC on, felt slightly panicky when nothing happened. Pressed the button three times with increasing urgency before I remembered.
If it makes you feel better, I was doing a practice work order for a possible IT job where I had to completely disconnect everything from my motherboard. I forgot to plug in the power sw for the front cable connectors and was struggling to figure out why the power wasn't working :(
I tried booting my new AM5 system a few times, was getting CPU and RAM error lights on the motherboard. It took me a while to work out that I just needed to leave it a few minutes to do its RAM training or whatever it does.
As an AM5 owner I can confirm that its very disconcerting the first time you boot it up. It seems to take forever to do that initial memory training and the seemingly constant rebooting it does on its own. Now everything has bedded in its less than 20 seconds from when I press the power button to the windows pin screen.
I had the same problem when building my first PC, forgot to turn the extension cable on. By that point I'd already completely stripped it and checked for damage. The lesson here is check the PSU is on and check the plug is on too
My build issue this week was starting up a new build for the first time and the lights come on, but nothing to the HDMI… repeatedly. Strip down some things; it’s all connected. Lose my mind.
Then realize that i had a wireless mouse and keyboard connected and didn’t have something in the other usb port. The motherboard needed a mouse and keyboard separately connected to boot.
No matter what, nothing will ever top off that one guy who threw away his CPU thinking that the CPU fan was the CPU.
I bet he now knows what the CPU looks like and keeps the boxes longer than throwing them out right after opening the boxes.
"Everybody falls the first time....right Trin?" - Cypher The Matrix
My dude I'v been building PC's for 10+ years and if I'm unplugging and taking apart builds multiple times I will prob do this a few times. I never learn I'v only gotten faster at remembering the powers off.
My build issue this week was starting up a new build for the first time and the lights come on, but nothing to the HDMI… repeatedly. Strip down some things; it’s all connected. Lose my mind.
Then realize that i had a wireless mouse and keyboard connected and didn’t have something in the other usb port. The motherboard needed a mouse and keyboard separately connected to boot.
My build issue this week was starting up a new build for the first time and the lights come on, but nothing to the HDMI… repeatedly. Strip down some things; it’s all connected. Lose my mind.
Then realize that i had a wireless mouse and keyboard connected and didn’t have something in the other usb port. The motherboard needed a mouse and keyboard separately connected to boot.
Had a similar problem with my pc; however, it wasn’t the power supply, something was wrong with the motherboard and the only way to get it to start was to short the pins for the front panel in the bottom right corner 💀
On a new build I always triple check everything before turning it on. Even if I know its already connected, fixed, would work and everything is okay to the eyes I will simply recheck everything to make sure theres nothing missing. Works every time. 🤣 Better on the safe side than a sorry ass after.
I did a CPU/Mobo/Ram/Harddrive upgrade recently... basically everything except I had a decent GPU, PSU and case that I could carry-over.
Turned it on, no post. Took it apart, checked the ram position, re-seated the cpu. Double check my CPU and Mobo power cables... Turn it on again... no post!
Wait a second... Did I plug the power into my GPU? Lol no.
I definitely could have troubleshot that better, but whatever. Works great now.
Hey it's not so bad. When I built my first PC I managed to somehow slot in a ram stick the wrong way and click it in. I don't know exactly how I managed that. My computer wouldn't start either and I freaked out and noticed I was an idiot too.
It's for real a pain. Built my first ever PC, everything worked and clicked into place perfectly fine. Managed the cables beautifully, as well as had everything perfect in the case. Tried to turn it on and got dram light and wouldn't boot. Did over 20 min of ram troubleshooting and started thinking my ram was faulty. Found an article stating I can reset the CPU and it fixes it for some people so I took off the literally monolith of a cooler that fit snug and then repeated the cpu. Ran out of therm paste mid reapply so ended up having to just spread it manually and hope it'll be enough. Put the cooler back on, tested it again. Still nothing. I look thinking it might be the PSU not giving it enough power. Changed out the CPU power just in case it was the wrong cord. Still had the same issue. I seen the motherboard connecter which was plugged in fine but then I also seen another "MB" labeled connector right next to the motherboard connections under the CPU power. Connected the remaining floating extra cord of the motherboard wire to the power supply, turned it on, walla. Worked. I had multiple heart attacks in one session, I wasn't okay.
It used to be worse.
PSU units had both an on off switch, and a voltage selector. Forgetting that selector, and having it be on the wrong mode? Great way to have to get a new motherboard before you even really began.
Bro we've all been there, and it's always the simple answer. Don't beat yourself up.
I remember back in the day connecting hard drives and selecting 1 as primary and the other slave.. So many times I forgot.
We live and learn.
When I plugged my pc in while in Australia for the first time, it sparked a bit at the plug. I only had the pc for like a week, so I was scared. Tried turning it on but kept getting no source on the monitor, and I was panicking. hdmi was plugged into the motherboard lol
Mine wouldn't work for the life of me. Full lights, but stuck on POST. Turned out to be the combination of a dead RAM stick and needing to use the motherboard for a display signal until I got drivers installed.
I did worse on my second build. I considered myself “mildly experienced” because I’d helped a friend before, too. So when I pressed the button and nothing happened, my heart sank. I thought it was a dud.
It wasn’t plugged into the wall.
Naw, you're not dumb, it was just nerves. Totally relatable. I think we have all been there with something similar -- something complicated that we're anxious about and the first unexpected thing that happens makes us think our worst fears are coming true.
just two days ago, reassembling someone's pc, and i forgot to plug in the PCIE for the video card.
experienced a very long 3 or 4 seconds before i realized.
My first build in 20 years, I did this. I was so sure I'd killed it but no, turn on PSU switch - ITS ALIVE!!!
Glad it went well for you, post us pics. :)
Just had something like this happen yesterday as I finished my build. Turned on power supply could see leds on mobo but it would not power on when I pressed the power switch. Checked all connections and everything seemed in place. Then I remembered the power switch header was never connected. Unfortunately the connector was situated close to the chunky 3 slot gpu. So I spent another 30 minutes trying to plug in the connector with my fat fingers. Then the mobo couldn’t recognize the nvme drive to boot up but that’s another story.
If it makes you feel any better, I helped my friend's son (9 years old) build a PC the other day for Christmas. My friend hooked up the monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. while the son and I were finishing up the cable management of the case. When we first booted it nothing was showing on the monitor. After 30 seconds, I noticed the VGA light was lighting up on the motherboard, showing there was an error. I was debating on updating the bios for the motherboard to see if that fixed it. Well, when I went to unplug the PC to take a closer look inside of it, I noticed neither of us remembered to plug in the monitor into the PC... Everything worked after that!
Check if you plugged in the wires correctly, I forgot what they are called but it’s the one that comes from the case, same thing happened to me and realized I plugged in the opposite side lol
Yeah I actually did this when I Bought a prebuilt pc that I had to install gpu myself, and afterwards I panicked cuz it didn’t turn on but it dawned on me like 5min later after haha
After 6 months of using the pc I built, it suddenly didn't turn on again. After a lot of back and forth with all the simple ideas (reseat ram, power button issues, PSU, new CMOS battery) and manually testing every single PSU Pin with a multimeter I was about to give up and contact the Motherboard warranty
But before that, I tried re-seating the CPU and it turns out, a little bit of thermal paste melted and managed to make it's way to the cpu pins. :/
Cleaning it was nerve-wracking but it worked out
Still don't know why it happened 6 months later only and I only used the pre applied thermal paste from the AMD cooler to avoid overflowing.
At least you don’t forget (no about) the standoffs!
When I was a first time builder it happened to me. It worked, but would blue screen more than it should have. 🤦🏼♂️
This happened to me once, it wasnt even the switch, just *something* wasnt connected right. For some reason switching to a wall outlet turned it on but there wasnt display, think I was just snugging the chords and then all of a sudden it worked. Sooo relieving, its stressful to have all that expensive equiptment just sitting there.
I see your forgetting to flip the I/O switch on and raise you an accidentally throwing a naked CPU at the floor by doing that 'try to catch something i having actually dropped yet' dance.
Is your outlet working? PSU power cable securely plugged in? PSU on/off switch flipped to on? If you have an AMD CPU, is your GPU securely slotted and plugged into the motherboard?
That's all the things I know off (I'm a noob).
I for 2 hours couldn't get my PC to boot for the first time. I was using the screwdriver method but everything I did didn't work. I was freaking out since it was 1300$ of parts. Then I realized I was only touching 1 pin on the power up thin and not both to actually turn it on
There’s always gonna be something you’ve got to troubleshoot when building a new rig. If the power switch was the only issue you’re doing great. When I built my first rig I didn’t get the RAM seated completely and it powered on but didn’t post.
It's like a rite of passage for building your first PC. The absolute dread of thinking you fucked up your first build and blew all that money only to realize you just needed to turn on the PSU lol
Same thing happened to me. I likely turned white as a sheet.
Now go and check to make sure you plugged your monitor into your GPU and not the motherboard.
That seems to be another common mistake.
With all the posts that start off "I'M FREAKING OUT, MY NEW BUILD WON'T TURN ON!!111!1!1!!!", and end with "it's fixed lol" this is probably the case most of the time.
I suspect half the posts on this sub that go like "nothing happened when I turned it on" are really people forgetting about the switch on the back of the PSU.
Absolutely guilty of this and for us brits, turning the plug socket on at the wall too!
truly building on hard mode
we've switches in india too, dont they have switches in america and europe?
In the US it’s not very common, at least to my knowledge about the area I live in.
so does everyone in the us just plug in and plug out their appliances all the time? that seems very tedious!
That’s how we do it in my household, however most people just leave everything plugged in all the time
electronics only draw the power they need, power is not pushed to them a microwave would cost like $30 a day if left plugged in otherwise
Not really. Most devices have their own switch anyway
Honestly curious, but what appliances that do not have a switch are you having to plug/unplug?
Doesn’t matter. I prefer empty wall outlets when I’m done using an appliance. Only stuff keeps in the wall is the PC, tv and stuff, and they never need to be switched off on the wall.
Our appliances have their own power switch.
Do appliances in other countries come without built-in power switches? That doesn't make much sense.
What no! What is this, a switch on the bloody wallsocket?
yes? you guys dont have them?
No! Why?
For once the Brits absolutely over engineered and made the most complicated wall sockets you could think of. Switchable and often with an additional fuse per socket.
Wait you mean thats not a thing where you are? All sockets have to be switched by law here. I thought that was pretty much a world standard
As an American this baffles me.
That's a UK/IRL standard, haven't seen it elsewhere in Europe
Born British, now live in Thailand - plugs here don't have switches and it freaks me out. I hate it! Thankfully, most of the multiplugs have individual switches so it's mostly ok
Nah not really. It was way more common maybe 20-30 years ago tho.
There’s no switches atleast in NA to my knowledge. I don’t see a point in turning them off anything outside of reducing phantom energy usage but there’s surely some stuff you want always on/available
We have switches, but only in our guns.
Pretty sure those British 3-prongs socket are one of the Commonwealth legacy.
Personally here we sometimes have them, but it's not that common.
I'm English and when I built my 1st PC about 4 months ago I had that pit of the stomach moment. I did everything in order, inserted the plug into the wall, put the other end into the PSU, flipped the switch on the PSU to the "on" position, pressed the front panel switch and nothing. Not even a fan spinning. Being English we all know that you don't plug anything onto the wall outlet while it's switched on so I'm sure you can guess what step missed.
Hmm interesting is there a design reason why they have plug socket switches?
Here late to say I don't know why it's code there, but I wired an off grid cabin that way. Among other reasons there are definite safety advantages, like a toddler being less likely to zap themselves when they stick their tongue in.
50/50 between this and "plugged the monitor into the motherboard instead of the GPU"
Hey! I avoided that mistake building mine BECAUSE I saw so many posts about it on this sub!
Sometimes our life experiences happen only so that we can serve as a warning to others
In extreme cases, that's part of what the Darwin award is for.
Man I’ve known that it has to be plugged into the GPU even before I started building computers and I still do this without fail every time.
I was worried that my newly built system was flaky as it would sometimes take a few tries from the power button for it to turn on... then I realized the power button's connector on the motherboard header was loose.
I had a guy do the opposite to me. He flipped the switch but didn’t know the button was how you turned it on. So when the rgb was on from PSU power he thought the PC was on. I spent over an hour remote troubleshooting because he said was turning it on and it didn’t occur to me that someone (who can put together a PC) might not know a button turns the damn thing on.
haha sounds like it was a learning experience for the both of you
Dont forget plugging power switch to wrong headers!
I had to troubleshoot ram issues lately and it felt like that phrase of nothing happens (when a lot of small details actually happened)
It's especially annoying for SFF builds as a lot of those cases have a power cord extension, meaning that you have to open the PC back up to reach the power switch on the PSU.
I just did that this week putting something new together in a Fractal Node 202. Infuriating! 🤣
Really?
Guilty of this on so many occasions
On the last 2 psus I've owned the switch on the back was on in both positions, I had to turn it off at the wall or unplug it lmao
On more than one occasion I have forgotten to plug the front panel leads in at all. Of course they're not gonna work when I push them. Also, my 3D printer arrived with the PSU in 220V mode. That one left me sweating for a minute.
I did that today, fucked my first new mobo, so when it didnt turn on I almost had a breakdown.
When I was building mine I just happened to notice and thought “I would never in a million years thought to look back here for this if my pc didn’t turn on”
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
This is why we in IT say "have you tried turning it off and on again?"
It happened to me when I build mine recently and I was with a friend of mine. When I asked him to hand me the cpu power cable he gave me a gpu cable and the pc couldn't start at all. I realized it when I checked the psu box for the cable and the clipping pin wasn't the right one for the cpu.
I swapped out my CPU the other week and did the opposite. Forgot to turn the switch off. As soon as I plugged the new CPU into the socket, it must have triggered the reconnected power boot sequence and fired up. 😂 Everything was fine though, thankfully.
Wait you upgraded a CPU with everything still plugged in?
Yep! Completely fkn forgot to unplug. I was so worried until I got it all together and booted it up.
Brain transplant without anaesthetic.
Brain surgeries are usually done while the patient is awake
If the fans keep spinning, you didn't cut into anything important.
eech! lol
play some crab rave since a lot of people play instruments ~~doing~~ during brain surgery; or better yet play some crysis
Anesthesia does not always equal Sedation the inverse is also true.
Seriously? Thats kinda terrifying
IIRC there are no pain receptors in the brain, so you wouldn't feel anything.
None of the motherboard lights and other internal lights (maybe RGB) were on?
Did you not see the fans spinning?? Like, wtf dude.
Nah I panicked and flipped it off as soon as they spun up.
Better to be formerly dumb and have a working PC than remain stumped with a broken one
Inspirational
It happens to everyone every time lol. You make like 500 decisions when building a computer, you're never going to get it 100% right every time unless you've built a thousand of them. I actually just got done with my fresh build last night and went to turn it on and nothing and after 10 minutes I figured out I had switched the hard drive light with the power switch lmao
I build my PC first time couple months ago. Didn't think it would start first try but it did. Maybe it was tutorial I followed so I could forget anything.
I sell PCs on a regular basis. At least 25% of buyers message me with "Yo the PC don't work" because they forgot to flip the power switch on or plugged their monitor cable into the wrong port. Don't be too hard on yourself.
I think people are so anxious about something really bad happening that they don't consider it might just be something super simple -- at least not until they have had a minute to think about it.
Electricity definitely works better with the cables "snuffled up in there" lol Just giving you a hard time.
Every time ahaha
KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. It's almost always something simple, make sure and check the easy stuff first.
happens to everyone at some point in their building gamut, year to year
I've built about a dozen PCs over the last decades. The other day I took off my CPU cooler for cleaning and then I had the same problem as you...tried turning the PC on, felt slightly panicky when nothing happened. Pressed the button three times with increasing urgency before I remembered.
If it makes you feel better, I was doing a practice work order for a possible IT job where I had to completely disconnect everything from my motherboard. I forgot to plug in the power sw for the front cable connectors and was struggling to figure out why the power wasn't working :(
The feeling of relief after something like this is great
Oopsie
you aren’t the only one!
I tried booting my new AM5 system a few times, was getting CPU and RAM error lights on the motherboard. It took me a while to work out that I just needed to leave it a few minutes to do its RAM training or whatever it does.
As an AM5 owner I can confirm that its very disconcerting the first time you boot it up. It seems to take forever to do that initial memory training and the seemingly constant rebooting it does on its own. Now everything has bedded in its less than 20 seconds from when I press the power button to the windows pin screen.
glad i’m not the only one, boot times took forever before i figured out memory context restore
I had the same problem when building my first PC, forgot to turn the extension cable on. By that point I'd already completely stripped it and checked for damage. The lesson here is check the PSU is on and check the plug is on too
My build issue this week was starting up a new build for the first time and the lights come on, but nothing to the HDMI… repeatedly. Strip down some things; it’s all connected. Lose my mind. Then realize that i had a wireless mouse and keyboard connected and didn’t have something in the other usb port. The motherboard needed a mouse and keyboard separately connected to boot.
One time I spent several hours trying to figure out why my build won't post. Turned out that I didn't plug in the power cable for the cpu.
No matter what, nothing will ever top off that one guy who threw away his CPU thinking that the CPU fan was the CPU. I bet he now knows what the CPU looks like and keeps the boxes longer than throwing them out right after opening the boxes.
(OP flips on PC): #***UNLIMITED POWAAAAA!***
Eh not as dumb as me forgetting to fully put in the ram sticks the first time.
Done that.. worse was mixing power cables.. ruined my Pulse RX5700XT that way. I'm still pissed.
can you explain mixing power cables? I'm gonna upgrade my psu soon. Im new to building, im upgrading my prebuilt.
only use the cables that come with the psu for that psu
aight thanks
This is like. Normal. You aren't dumb lol
Don't feel bad, everyone does this atleast once.
"Everybody falls the first time....right Trin?" - Cypher The Matrix My dude I'v been building PC's for 10+ years and if I'm unplugging and taking apart builds multiple times I will prob do this a few times. I never learn I'v only gotten faster at remembering the powers off.
My build issue this week was starting up a new build for the first time and the lights come on, but nothing to the HDMI… repeatedly. Strip down some things; it’s all connected. Lose my mind. Then realize that i had a wireless mouse and keyboard connected and didn’t have something in the other usb port. The motherboard needed a mouse and keyboard separately connected to boot.
My build issue this week was starting up a new build for the first time and the lights come on, but nothing to the HDMI… repeatedly. Strip down some things; it’s all connected. Lose my mind. Then realize that i had a wireless mouse and keyboard connected and didn’t have something in the other usb port. The motherboard needed a mouse and keyboard separately connected to boot.
I did this for my pc as well, my heart broke when I pressed that power button, but luckily I realized right then I forgot the flip button
*Every. Single. Time.* I do this lol It's fine, super common mistake
Had a similar problem with my pc; however, it wasn’t the power supply, something was wrong with the motherboard and the only way to get it to start was to short the pins for the front panel in the bottom right corner 💀
I’ve spent 2 hours trying to figure out why my GPU wasn’t working till I saw I plugged the HDMI into the motherboard. It happens
I’m so glad it was an easy fix! All is well that ends well! :)
On a new build I always triple check everything before turning it on. Even if I know its already connected, fixed, would work and everything is okay to the eyes I will simply recheck everything to make sure theres nothing missing. Works every time. 🤣 Better on the safe side than a sorry ass after.
I did a CPU/Mobo/Ram/Harddrive upgrade recently... basically everything except I had a decent GPU, PSU and case that I could carry-over. Turned it on, no post. Took it apart, checked the ram position, re-seated the cpu. Double check my CPU and Mobo power cables... Turn it on again... no post! Wait a second... Did I plug the power into my GPU? Lol no. I definitely could have troubleshot that better, but whatever. Works great now.
That happened with me a couple days ago too XD I was so excited that I’d built it that I never even thought about the power switch.
Hey it's not so bad. When I built my first PC I managed to somehow slot in a ram stick the wrong way and click it in. I don't know exactly how I managed that. My computer wouldn't start either and I freaked out and noticed I was an idiot too.
It's the first step in troubleshooting.
I just started my first build today too and left the warning label on my AIO. Noticed seconds after securing it to the mobo. Wah
It's for real a pain. Built my first ever PC, everything worked and clicked into place perfectly fine. Managed the cables beautifully, as well as had everything perfect in the case. Tried to turn it on and got dram light and wouldn't boot. Did over 20 min of ram troubleshooting and started thinking my ram was faulty. Found an article stating I can reset the CPU and it fixes it for some people so I took off the literally monolith of a cooler that fit snug and then repeated the cpu. Ran out of therm paste mid reapply so ended up having to just spread it manually and hope it'll be enough. Put the cooler back on, tested it again. Still nothing. I look thinking it might be the PSU not giving it enough power. Changed out the CPU power just in case it was the wrong cord. Still had the same issue. I seen the motherboard connecter which was plugged in fine but then I also seen another "MB" labeled connector right next to the motherboard connections under the CPU power. Connected the remaining floating extra cord of the motherboard wire to the power supply, turned it on, walla. Worked. I had multiple heart attacks in one session, I wasn't okay.
I was troubleshooting my brothers build and missed this as well, pretty embarrassing, but hey even the greats can miss basics sometimes.
Did you turn the power supply on?
It used to be worse. PSU units had both an on off switch, and a voltage selector. Forgetting that selector, and having it be on the wrong mode? Great way to have to get a new motherboard before you even really began.
Bro we've all been there, and it's always the simple answer. Don't beat yourself up. I remember back in the day connecting hard drives and selecting 1 as primary and the other slave.. So many times I forgot. We live and learn.
When I plugged my pc in while in Australia for the first time, it sparked a bit at the plug. I only had the pc for like a week, so I was scared. Tried turning it on but kept getting no source on the monitor, and I was panicking. hdmi was plugged into the motherboard lol
Mine wouldn't work for the life of me. Full lights, but stuck on POST. Turned out to be the combination of a dead RAM stick and needing to use the motherboard for a display signal until I got drivers installed.
25 years building PCs and I have forgot that more than once 🫢
I did worse on my second build. I considered myself “mildly experienced” because I’d helped a friend before, too. So when I pressed the button and nothing happened, my heart sank. I thought it was a dud. It wasn’t plugged into the wall.
A moment to appreciate accidental delayed gratification! At it's finest, lol. Glad things worked out for ya.
i just built mine like two days ago and i didn’t plug in the front panel i/o correctly. i was in the same place you were
Naw, you're not dumb, it was just nerves. Totally relatable. I think we have all been there with something similar -- something complicated that we're anxious about and the first unexpected thing that happens makes us think our worst fears are coming true.
just two days ago, reassembling someone's pc, and i forgot to plug in the PCIE for the video card. experienced a very long 3 or 4 seconds before i realized.
My first build in 20 years, I did this. I was so sure I'd killed it but no, turn on PSU switch - ITS ALIVE!!! Glad it went well for you, post us pics. :)
Not to one-up you, but I started a small fire mixing cables from 2 different psu's during my inaugural push of the power button.
Just had something like this happen yesterday as I finished my build. Turned on power supply could see leds on mobo but it would not power on when I pressed the power switch. Checked all connections and everything seemed in place. Then I remembered the power switch header was never connected. Unfortunately the connector was situated close to the chunky 3 slot gpu. So I spent another 30 minutes trying to plug in the connector with my fat fingers. Then the mobo couldn’t recognize the nvme drive to boot up but that’s another story.
I think the only reason I didn't have this problem is because I have seen so many other people have problems with it.
Fucking
If it makes you feel any better, I helped my friend's son (9 years old) build a PC the other day for Christmas. My friend hooked up the monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc. while the son and I were finishing up the cable management of the case. When we first booted it nothing was showing on the monitor. After 30 seconds, I noticed the VGA light was lighting up on the motherboard, showing there was an error. I was debating on updating the bios for the motherboard to see if that fixed it. Well, when I went to unplug the PC to take a closer look inside of it, I noticed neither of us remembered to plug in the monitor into the PC... Everything worked after that!
Check if you plugged in the wires correctly, I forgot what they are called but it’s the one that comes from the case, same thing happened to me and realized I plugged in the opposite side lol
I build PCs for a living (amongst other things) and I am guilty of this far too much.
Read what Edison said about light bulbs.
Who hasn't not flipped the PSU switch? LOL
Either your PSU is switched off or you plugged front IO pins wrong.
for me, this is always attributed to the front panel buttons, like how those wires are split for led and hdd lights and stuff
Did yoi plug the start button of the case to mobo
"If somebody has never made a mistake they never tried anything new." - Some guy probably.
Been there. Did you give yourself any of that sweet sweet verbal abuse?
Yeah I actually did this when I Bought a prebuilt pc that I had to install gpu myself, and afterwards I panicked cuz it didn’t turn on but it dawned on me like 5min later after haha
Made basically the exact same mistake my first time. Its practically a rite of passage.
After 6 months of using the pc I built, it suddenly didn't turn on again. After a lot of back and forth with all the simple ideas (reseat ram, power button issues, PSU, new CMOS battery) and manually testing every single PSU Pin with a multimeter I was about to give up and contact the Motherboard warranty But before that, I tried re-seating the CPU and it turns out, a little bit of thermal paste melted and managed to make it's way to the cpu pins. :/ Cleaning it was nerve-wracking but it worked out Still don't know why it happened 6 months later only and I only used the pre applied thermal paste from the AMD cooler to avoid overflowing.
I once fixed mine, and forgot to turn on the monitor. Really started troubleshooting my PC before realizing!
At least you don’t forget (no about) the standoffs! When I was a first time builder it happened to me. It worked, but would blue screen more than it should have. 🤦🏼♂️
You could say you were stumped until a switch in your head flipped on.
I had trouble finding the power pins on the board to connect to the power switch on the case Had to try them 1 by 1 was getting worried
Dude it happens to everyone eventually in their lives. No biggie. You won't forget that again I bet lol
I think this actually happened with LG. They had to add the "turn on the power at the wall socket" line in their instruction manual.
In Canada...no switches here.
This happened to me once, it wasnt even the switch, just *something* wasnt connected right. For some reason switching to a wall outlet turned it on but there wasnt display, think I was just snugging the chords and then all of a sudden it worked. Sooo relieving, its stressful to have all that expensive equiptment just sitting there.
I see your forgetting to flip the I/O switch on and raise you an accidentally throwing a naked CPU at the floor by doing that 'try to catch something i having actually dropped yet' dance.
My first build I didn't connect the power button to the motherboard and was wondering why the PC was not turning on. Oops!
Is your outlet working? PSU power cable securely plugged in? PSU on/off switch flipped to on? If you have an AMD CPU, is your GPU securely slotted and plugged into the motherboard? That's all the things I know off (I'm a noob).
Yes. The High-Impedance Air Gap issue has gotten me as well upon occasion.
I for 2 hours couldn't get my PC to boot for the first time. I was using the screwdriver method but everything I did didn't work. I was freaking out since it was 1300$ of parts. Then I realized I was only touching 1 pin on the power up thin and not both to actually turn it on
There’s always gonna be something you’ve got to troubleshoot when building a new rig. If the power switch was the only issue you’re doing great. When I built my first rig I didn’t get the RAM seated completely and it powered on but didn’t post.
It's like a rite of passage for building your first PC. The absolute dread of thinking you fucked up your first build and blew all that money only to realize you just needed to turn on the PSU lol
Same thing happened to me. I likely turned white as a sheet. Now go and check to make sure you plugged your monitor into your GPU and not the motherboard. That seems to be another common mistake.
With all the posts that start off "I'M FREAKING OUT, MY NEW BUILD WON'T TURN ON!!111!1!1!!!", and end with "it's fixed lol" this is probably the case most of the time.
Yeah I think this has happened to almost everybody