Member Avatar for griffo

hi all, my 1st post here.
I have a dell gx260, celery 1.7ghz cpu, 512 meg, 40 gig hd.
sometimes the power switch works fine, sometimes it doesn't work at all. by that I mean it does nothing! no lights/beeps/fans.
it's as though it's not even connected (I checked & it is).
I've seen this before on other systems & I've always tossed the whole box before (minus ram/drives/cpu/fans/battery/cards) but I'm hoping that someone out there knows of this prob & better yet, knows a fix for it.
I rebuild old systems & give them away to schoolkids who are trying hard in class & who's parents can't afford to buy them one. it's mostly old p1 machines, some p2s and the occasional p3, but I'd really like to give something a bit better, like for the top (financially challenged) student of the year or similar.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by djnichol

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Brief summary and what to focus on: ’s symptom — completely dead on some tries, then comes to life on others — usually means an intermittent electrical / contact problem rather than a software or BIOS issue. and were right to suspect the case/front-panel area and the PSU, and ’s experience shows a marginal PSU can finally fail. The goal is to narrow the fault to one of three domains: the front‑panel wiring/switch, the motherboard’s power-control circuitry (or cold solder joints), or the PSU (including its standby rail).

Non‑invasive checks first. With the case open, look for cracked solder, burn marks, or bulging/leaking electrolytic capacitors on both the motherboard and PSU — old Dell systems commonly show failing caps. Gently wiggle the front‑panel cable and the switch while attempting to power on; consistent change of behaviour when you move the cable points to a broken wire, loose connector, or bad switch contact.

If you can use a multimeter (advanced, take care): with the PSU plugged in but system “off” check for the +5V standby (purple) at the ATX connector to ground. Then observe the PS_ON (green) line while pressing the power button — it should be pulled low by the board when the button is pressed. If 5VSB is present but PS_ON never goes low, the problem is in the switch/wiring or the board’s power logic; if 5VSB is missing, the PSU standby is faulty.

Practical fixes and safety notes: clean or replace the front switch/connector if continuity is flaky, consider recapping or replacing the motherboard if capacitors are degraded, and replace the PSU if standby or main rails are unstable. Work with power unplugged for continuity checks and use proper safety practices when measuring live voltages; if unsure, have a competent tech perform the live tests.

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Member Avatar for disophisis

When you say you checked to see if the power button was connected, do you mean you checked the motherboard itself? or did you check the button assembly in the front panel? when you press the power button, it touches those two wires together, which shorts and causes the psu to start. if the button is busted, it won't be touching the ends together properly, and so it won't turn on your pc. if you disassemble the case, you could pull apart the button (rip the wires from the button) and press them together to turn it on. you cannot really fix the button after you've ripped the cables out, though, so you may have to just call dell and request a replacement button assembly.

This happened to me when building my first computer with an Apevia XGEAR case.

Member Avatar for griffo

the button is connected properly on the mobo, and after not working I'd try again the next day & it works fine. then the next time after that it doesn't. then it does... etc... ad infinitum... :(

Member Avatar for disophisis

You may want to contact dell and see what they can do about a new power button. does this computer have a reset button? if so, plug the reset wire into the power button pins on the mobo and try using the reset button to start up. other than that, you could yank the wires out of the power button and just touch them together to start up the PC

Member Avatar for cguan_77

hi griffo, check your psu it could be faulty, or try to power on manually by shorting the two pins in which your power button is connected, see if it will works..if it can work properly then your power button could be faulty, if it doesn't try using another psu..

Member Avatar for griffo

thanks guys, I'll try both those options. I might even bodgy a switch from another box into it.
anything's worth a try...

Member Avatar for aboltenko

Hey, I need advice on disassembling GX270 case to change the switch that is on the front panel

Any suggestions?

Thank

Member Avatar for djnichol

I've recently been having the same issues and through my own trial and error Ive came to the same conclusion. I tried the shorting trick and the reset switch even went so far as to use a bridge pin to get my rig up and running.I noticed that between boot up tries the number of times it took creating the short varied. And once on it would simply cause a brief power loss or complete and utter psu failure. This is my third build and I've never had this happen before so after a complete cleaning and tear down and several weeks of agony. It was just a dead power supply.

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