PC won't boot up – any ideas?

When I power on my PC, the fans spin up, but there's absolutely nothing appearing on the monitor. I've already double-checked all the cables and reseated the graphics card after cleaning everything out. Now I have to wonder: is the motherboard dead, or could it be something else entirely?

Honestly, you don't have much choice but to troubleshoot this thing component by component to pin down where the failure is. Of course—to actually do that, you’re going to need some spare parts on hand. Maybe ask a friend or a neighbor if they can lend you a stick of RAM or a different power supply for a bit?