Motherboard Power on question. (Really Easy)

[gutharius]

Is it bad to connect a motherboard to a power supply and the case power on button and liight then power it on without any processor, ram, drives, agp/pci etc... connected? Does it hurt the board?

 

[johnjkr1]

Welcome to the forum gutharius,

Nope, it just won't do anything without a CPU.

 

[gutharius]

including PC POST beeps?

 

[huesmann]

It should beep at you to tell you that you have no RAM, no CPU and no video card...is that what you mean?

 

[johnjkr1]

No, a motherboard can not give you beeps without a cpu. I believe Huesmann is incorrect on that one. For post beeps you need a motherboard, cpu and power supply. And a pc speaker attached, of course.

 

[LeetestUnleet]

Actually, while that might be a generalization, I know that there are exceptions. I have worked with a few computers in the hardware lab at my school where there was no CPU present, and the computer would power on (no speaker so I don't know if it gave beeps). The fans whirred, but nothing more (obviously). The same is often true with a dead CPU on some motherboards.

Having nothing connected will not damage in any way, shape or form. It's actually good to do that for troubleshooting purposes. Whether or not it will power on depends on the motherboard itself, but in most cases, johnjkr would be correct.

Welcome to the forums

 

[gutharius]

A big thank you to all for your help! I was asking this question so I could try to figure out a power budget for my PC. But I was scared I would blow a $100 mobo.