Just be careful about crossing the wires, though. If you do it wrong or incorrect, it'll short-circuit.

Also, one more thing. What model is your motherboard?

*JM*

I want to try this because it does sound like a possible cause for this whole fiasco, however I still don't clearly understand how to do it and don't want to risk an attempt unless I'm sure. Isn't it possible to provide me with an image marking which pins you mean in particular, anything to give me some visual clues.

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I'm worried about trying the above thing without being sure of exactly what to do. My motherboard before the PC died is a 'Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard'. The replacement motherboard I purchased and installed is a 'Foxconn G31MV G31 Socket 775 VGA 6 Channel Audio MATX Motherboard'.

Your motherboard manual will tell you exactly where the power switch pins are located.

Just for the record, I've yet to get around to doing this but I will bump the topic as soon as I've tried it letting you guys know what the result is. Or, worst case scenario I won't be able to figure it out even after checking the manual, at which point I'll also bump this up. Work has been keeping me away form the house lately.

That's fine, we'll be here

My friend just said this about the whole checking for shorts thing:

Thoughts?

If you can do it the best move is to take the mb out and run it out of the pc. Put it on a newspaper or good insulator and start it by quickly shorting the 2 pins for the power switch so you rule out the switch. If there is any short or fault switch it will out of the pc.