Mac Mini won't turn on [Just isn't my month, is it?]

Mac
#1

Welp, as far as I know, this 2010 Mac Mini was working just fine before I decided to do the dual drive upgrade to it. I opened it up, took it apart, put in the new harddrive and caddy, and put everything back together. It won’t turn on. At all. No power seems to be getting to it at all. I’ve tried multiple outlets. It just doesn’t respond. So, I very carefully took it back apart and put it back together again. All the wires in their proper places. Still nothing. Did I trip something I need to reset or did the Mac Mini power supply die on me?

I’ve never had this happen before. I have had issues of course, but I was always able to determine if there was power flowing, even if I couldn’t get things to continue to work. This has me flummoxed. Worse, this Mac Mini doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to my union, where I am the IT Director. Now, it’s at my home, and I can keep it here for a little while, but I’ll either need to return it in a working state or face the music that I potentially broke it (of course, it also is 8 years old, it’s also possible this is a failure which is simply coincidental).

UPDATE: I went ahead and put it all back together as it was originally. Still no power at all. Tried NVRAM/SMC resets, of course nothing. I’ll take it to the Apple Store to have them test it there to at least tell me what part might be the problem (or if I am really just stupid and missed something obvious). I suspect the power supply or the logic board. Either of these are, frankly, cost prohibitive to fix for the union (unless someone has something they are willing to ship to me to Japan, note, even with the shipping, I suspect it will be cheaper than purchasing in Japan). As it is, I am really the only Mac user in the office, so I don’t think this is getting repaired. It MIGHT be replaced, but if so, almost certainly it will not another Mac Mini.

#2

The only suggestion I can give you is to try and piece together the computer outside of its shell. Putting Mac minis back together generally always requires a pull-apart due to the hard-drive mounts, but it shouldn’t stop the machine from booting.

Having the guts on the outside will let you confirm everything is plugged in correctly.

#3

Already did that. There were no issues I could detect.

#4

Are you absolutely positive that every single wire is in place?

The reason I ask is I once upgraded our imac (installed an SSD, 2011 21.5" model). I followed the video instructions on youtube and everything was Dandy. Except… I broke one particular connector/wire, and it happened to be the one going to the main power button. So without that, the imac would not turn on. I could not find a replacement connector and so had to come up with a home made solution (I pretty much jammed the wire in the hole and stuck it up with blue tac. It’s still working fine today, though don’t anyone tell the Apple repair nazis).

Point is quadruple check everything, or even put it back to the way it was and see if that makes a difference.

#5

Pretty sure. I redid it multiple times and it’s now back to the original way it was. I can always disassemble it again and assemble it again.

I made a report tonight. I was shocked that my colleagues didn’t even care. Probably because I’m the only Mac person and it had essentially become my office computer. Seems the only one hurt by this is me.

The office had an unused Acepc AK1 mini PC. I’m going to try to Hackintosh it for fun.

#6

How frustrating! Power faults used to be easy to check. You just use a multimeter to check for faults, starting from the incoming power connection. Modern devices do not always have many , or even any, possible test points. It annoys me to think that a device is written off when it may be just a poor connection or broken wire.

#7

My hope is that Apple has the tools to tell me. I won’t avail myself of their servicing, it is a 2010, but if it really is something loose or what not, maybe they can just reseat it, or I will have a better chance of fixing it?