Guy at the electronics recycler told me to check the power button wire in my sleeper build

I was building a sleeper in an old 90s beige tower and couldn't get it to power on at all. I spent two days swapping the PSU and motherboard before I talked to a guy who runs a local e-waste dropoff. He said "check the power button header, those old cases have corroded pins." Sure enough, a little rubbing alcohol and a gentle scrape fixed it right up. Now the machine fires up every time and runs my games at 60fps. Has anyone else run into finicky old case wiring that looked fine but wasn't?

2 comments

2 Comments

sarahsullivan1mo ago

Honestly though, "cracked solder joint on the switch" is pretty rare in those old case buttons. Those switches are usually just a cheap piece of stamped metal that closes a circuit, no soldering involved at all. The real killer is always corrosion on the header pins or the little metal tabs inside the switch itself. I've fixed three old cases from the 90s now and every single one had that green crusty stuff on the pins, it's like they were designed to oxidize over time. A little isopropyl and a toothbrush beats chasing phantom wiring issues any day.

johnson.lee1mo ago

Blind me with a soldering iron, I never would have thought to check the pins themselves. Usually it's the wire getting snapped inside the insulation or a cracked solder joint on the switch. Two days of swapping parts over a little corrosion, that's brutal but honestly kind of impressive those old headers can get that crusty. Good tip from that recycler guy, filing that one away for sure.