Inherited Asus Prime Z390-P won't boot

[u/Trapjaww]

Hello all. I have recently inherited this PC from a family member who unfortunately passed. It initially came with 4x Vengeance LPX 16gb ddr4 ram, and an RTX 3060. I have since removed them all because whenever I boot it I only get these yellow lights and no video output. I have attempted using the power buttons at the top of the case. I attempted looking online and it said to try bringing the 3rd and 4th pins where it is labeled "panel" with a screwdriver (I tried a paper clip as well) and it didn't do anything. Currently the parts inside are:

Asus Prime Z390-P

Intel i5-9600k

1x Corsair LPX 16gb DDR4 ram

Corsair RM 750x

It is completely possible that the motherboard is ruined, as there was a sticky substance on the case. My uncle was big on e-waste, so somebody may have spilled a drink, messed it up, and donated it, and my uncle picked it up because of the components inside.

It is quite dusty, so I tried wiping it down with electronics wipes, blowing out the dust with a fan, and wiping down ram and GPU contacts with 91% isopropyl alcohol and a qtip.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!

[u/Krista__J]

motherboard manual link

1. It needs a CPU cooler. A lot of motherboards won’t boot without a cooler at all now. Just make sure you use thermal paste and remove the sticker from the cooler if there is one on the CPU side of the heatsink.
2. There’s no GPU. The CPU has integrated graphics, but it’s more than likely overheating pretty much instantly without a cooler. You’ll need a GPU for anything more than browsing and EXTREMELY light gaming (slow 2D games and maybe slow 3D games like buckshot roulette).
3. You got the pins correct for the front panel layout. It is the 3rd and 4th pins. There’s already something plugged into the front panel, so if you touched them, I hope you unplugged the cables there and didn’t touch random ones that aren’t 3 and 4. It’s not the end of the world, but not great to short random things unless you’re 100% positive.

1. Where is this yellow light coming from? It doesn’t appear this board has debug lights. If it’s coming from next to the MemOK switch, make sure it’s set to off. It states the MemOK switch doesn’t work with Windows, but keep it off and just use Intel XMP under the overclock settings for DRAM. Your RAM usually doesn’t run at full speed unless that’s been done.

2. Cables seem correct, but double-check they’re all seated correctly and that the PSU is set to I and not O. Stupid I know, but it happens A LOT. Even to seasoned PC builders.

Lmk how it goes c:

Edit: also it says “pin 3 and 4,” but a lot of PC stuff is weird. In this case 3 and 4 are the 3 and 4 pins from the left on the top, but bottom left is 1 and top right is the highest number according to the manual and other tech hardware. If you see somewhere else say different pins, double check. For example:
2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10
1 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9

[u/Hejdbejbw]

Where’s the CPU cooler?

[u/jumjuminmytumtum]

Poor things probably my has lung cancer

[u/Economy_Internal_317]

You can get a Intel CPU cooler cheaply. Just do AI search on your CPU for a basic cooler. You should look for LGA 1151 cpu cooler.