I unplugged it all like normal, put in wireless network card, plug everything back in, hit button--computer won't start.  There's a blinking green light on the back below the plug for the power.  Unfortunately this is on my mom's computer and no other computer in the house had this issue...so she's going psycho.  What does this mean?  It's a Compaq HP Pavillion a610n

Dead motherboard?

How could it happen? I think I came to this conclusion...I don't know anything about hardware, nothing at all--are you able to take the motherboard out of another computer and put it into this one and everything will be ok? Is the harddrive affected?  Will everything be ok (as in files still there on harddrive)?

If I unplug all of the wires from the power supply to things like cd drive, whatever, the light is green but it still doesn't turn on.  It seems the power supply is bad from what I've read...

Mother board is a possibility due to static electricity because I take it you werent wearing the "braclet" you are suppose to wear when working with your hardware. As for the files on your hard drive, I highly doubt these were affected... I strongly suggest taking the computer to a pc repair business and have it checked out =\

Try a new PSU if that fails remove your hardware peice by peice to see what the faulting one is. If you are left with nothing then it's probably the motherboard.

If anything try the same PSU on your moms computer on a different PC

[img]http://realityripple.com/Uploads/hack_naked.jpg[/img]

Static can be very dangerous.

[quote author=UserLoser link=topic=15798.msg159101#msg159101 date=1159397253]
How could it happen? I think I came to this conclusion...I don't know anything about hardware, nothing at all--are you able to take the motherboard out of another computer and put it into this one and everything will be ok? Is the harddrive affected?  Will everything be ok (as in files still there on harddrive)?
[/quote]

You'll have to reinstall the OS if you switch motherboard. at least windows, i don't know about mac/linux.

hmm, was power supply.  thanks though everyone.

Mmm. Dead PSUs. That's always fun. :D

[quote author=l2k-Shadow link=topic=15798.msg159108#msg159108 date=1159407930]
[quote author=UserLoser link=topic=15798.msg159101#msg159101 date=1159397253]
How could it happen? I think I came to this conclusion...I don't know anything about hardware, nothing at all--are you able to take the motherboard out of another computer and put it into this one and everything will be ok? Is the harddrive affected?  Will everything be ok (as in files still there on harddrive)?[/quote]You'll have to reinstall the OS if you switch motherboard. at least windows, i don't know about mac/linux.[/quote]

He will probably be fine.  Even Windows can survive a motherboard replacement, Microsoft just chose that it should not (because it thinks it has been copied).  The only reason he'd need to do any software work would be if he installed hardware which needed a driver not present on the system.  I doubt that situation applies here.

[quote author=UserLoser link=topic=15798.msg159109#msg159109 date=1159408503]
hmm, was power supply.  thanks though everyone.
[/quote]

That's good.  As far as I know, Windows is not sensitive to changes in power supply. ;)