My Dell Inspiron 530 will not turn on.

The paper clip test for a PSU is to check it the PSU can put out power to the rest of the components although its a good sign the PSU fan is spinning. What green light are you referring to?

There is a small green light on the back of the PSU. It turns on when the psu is plugged in and then stays lit for a few seconds after it is unplugged then it goes out.

That light is normal then, I imagine the orange light is not normal for the motherboard but can't be sure without knowing your motherboard.

This is what I bought from DELL.
Intel® Pentium® dual-core processor E5200 (2MB L2, 2.5GHz, 800FSB)
1 3GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 DIMMs
1 Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse
1 20 inch S2009WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel Monitor
1 Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
1 320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™

I am not sure if that tells you anything about the motherboard that it has.

I believe dell makes aftermarket mobo's...if I remember correctly, are they still on the opposite side as a normal atx mobo?

It turns on when the psu is plugged in and then stays lit for a few seconds after it is unplugged then it goes out.

I have this exact same problem.

I was using the computer yesterday and it just turned off. Now it doesn't turn on at all. I also have the green light on the back of the PS, and the orange light on the motherboard.

I cleaned everything perfectly, and sometimes when I push the power button, my CPU fan will start to spin for just a faction of a second, and then NOTHING!!!!!

No PS fan running, no other fans running, no beeps, nothing. Just those two lights.

I can push the power button or push and hold and nothing happens. Is it for sure the motherboard, or PS and how do I troubleshoot?

Thanks in advance, and any help will be greatly appreciated.

I actually have not fixed mine yet. I have a lap top that I use and have been too busy to really mess with it anymore. Sorry

The orange light on the motherboard just means that you've got the system plugged in, it's always on when plugged in.

Check the Dell's user forums for more info (and for a second opinion), but from what I recall of my Dell experiences it sounds like a dead power supply which is fairly common on PC's of that vintage.

I have the same problem but it's not the PSU i bought a new PSU an ULTRA LS 400w the computer still has the solid orange light but still doesn't start also the fan turns on then stops so it's defiantly not the PSU i went to dell forums and made a post about the problem. This is what they responded

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3...