Found my issues were too much to reconcile and will be building a PC from scratch.  Thank you to all who contributed to my thread! You folks really helped me keep a level head when I was pretty upset. If I end up with another Dell I know exactly where to go for help!
I bought a refurbished Optiplex 980 for a starter PC because it could do the bare minimum I needed and it’s all I could afford. Now I’m trying to upgrade the PSU and GPU and I’ve checked everything just about 5 times and still get a blinking orange light. Unplugged and replugged everything, checked all the connectors multiple times. I removed the connector for the DVD drive entirely because my new PSU didn’t have an extra connector for it. I even added 8gb more RAM in case it needed it. It doesn’t show any screen prompts or anything when plugged into my monitor. Other people say numbers light up but I don’t see that happening. I can get the light to stop blinking by holding the power button but if I press it again it just flashes.  I'm REALLY hoping I don’t need to get a whole new PC…I know it’s somewhat behind the times but I can’t see any real reason this is happening. I’ve even made sure the power supply was directly suggested by the forums here before buying it. You good folks here on the forum might be my only chance of figuring this out. Please let me know what might be happening.
Optiplex 980 upgrade failure