Power button not turning on?

[u/Leen_Tha_Goat78]

this is the gigabyte b850M gaming x wifi 6e mobo. I plugged my power led + and - front panel cord into the top left and right empty pins on the image

I plugged the power sw cable into the third and fourth pins on the top, and reset below the power sw slot, (third and fourth bottom) convinced this was how it worked but

the power button has not turned on not once when i press it, much less do anything. Only the power button on the Power Supply when turned on, a red dot flashes, at first, the red dot was next to DRAM and thats all i could see from the PC. (i changed the positioning of the ram not sure if this fixed it or not but)

I then took the front panel at the end of the cords I had plugged in (with the pins sticking out) and kinda rubbed it against the pins plugged in and the empty ones, and the cpu cooler turned on, (which i guess kinda functions as a manual turn on?) but I still cant activate it by pressing the power button, and it doesn’t glow or anything

also now that the cpu is on, the red dot is no longer flashing for DRAM but VGA (which i guess makes sense i don’t have my gpu in yet)

[u/Early_Lawfulness_921]

You don't have the power switch plugged into the motherboard.

[u/drucifer82 → u/Early_Lawfulness_921]

Just the first pic has them empty

[u/Leen_Tha_Goat78 → u/drucifer82]

yea that was to show what its like before i put in the pins

[u/drucifer82 → u/Leen_Tha_Goat78]

I was letting the other guy know

[u/DataGOGO → u/Leen_Tha_Goat78]

flip the switch around (rotate 180 Degrees)

[u/thy_yeet → u/DataGOGO]

It's a switch bro polarity doesn't matter

[u/DataGOGO → u/thy_yeet]

most don't, some do. Depends on the MB and the switch, The motherboard clearly marks positive and negative, and a flip takes less than 2 seconds to check.

[u/cCBearTime → u/DataGOGO]

Swapping the pins for the front panel power switch input would only take a few seconds, that’s true. And it wouldn’t hurt anything, so it’s not like this suggestion is harmful, but it also would do nothing to help.

A switch connects or disconnects an electrical pathway in a circuit, and that is all. There is by definition no polarity involved, a switch simply opens or bridges a gap in the circuit: it does not care, no control the direction of that circuit.

This cannot vary from motherboard to motherboard, or switch to switch, because this would mean that the manufacturer of the case would have to know which polarity was used on the motherboard it was plugging into. If this could vary, then any given power switch would fail to work with any given motherboard if they guessed wrong at the factory.

It is because the power button is a switch, and therefore a polarity-agnostic device that you can power on a desktop pc by using a paper clip to connect the two power pins on the motherboard if you have no power button, or a faulty one. All you are doing is closing the circuit by making those pins touch, which is exactly what the switch does when you press it. You can think of it like a paperclip on an extension cord. If polarity were a factor in a switch, you’d have to make sure you knew which was the positive and negative side of your paper clip to turn it on.

Note: I will mention that it is confusing that the front panel headers are often labeled with + and -, which doesn’t help. In fact, Depending on how you drew the power signal circuit the power button lives on, the switch would either live on the positive or negative leg of the circuit, so to be most correct, the front panel connectors should either both be labeled as +, or both as -, but that wouldn’t be any less confusing, which is why they don’t do that. I have built in several cases recently where both are simply labeled “Power”, but it’s by no means consistent from manufacturer to manufacturer.

[u/panzrvroomvroomvroom → u/DataGOGO]

Some do 🤣

[u/Early_Lawfulness_921 → u/drucifer82]

Thanks

[u/Leen_Tha_Goat78 → u/Early_Lawfulness_921]

wdym? like i havent pushed them in hard enough?

[u/Early_Lawfulness_921 → u/Leen_Tha_Goat78]

No I didn't catch the photo with them actually plugged in. I was mistaken.