Fixing a Viewer's BROKEN Gaming PC? - Fix or Flop S5:E6
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- čas přidán 11. 03. 2024
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Welcome to Fix or Flop! We're up to Season 5, Episode 6. This viewer's gaming PC doesn't work! Can it be fixed? By the way, if you live in the Orlando, FL area and have an issue with your PC, apply to have it (possibly) fixed for free today! gregsalazar.com/fix-or-flop
Check out other Fix or Flop episodes in this playlist: • Fix or Flop
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#FixOrFlop - Věda a technologie
Mistake # 1 - Letting Geek Squad touch touch it. Mistake # 2 - Adding Norton. But hey, we all live and learn. Great video!!
I used to love Norton products back in the 90s and early 2000s, but then they started becoming bloatware and I switched to a different AV and security suite.
Same....seems so long ago now.
Norton in 2024??? facts!!! Back in the late 90s, Norton used to be useful, somewhat lol. Damn, I'm old.
I once let Geek finish and correct my mistakes on my first PC build. The result was not horrible.
Sounds like mistake 1 and 2 are the same since they’re the ones who installed Norton
i had an issue with my rig and watching your video's helped me fix it for free. keep up the great content greg
Thanks for watching!
Hey, Greg! Could you maybe update us in the future if the owner says the problem returned? This is one of those cases you can never be sure if it was fixed or not. Really strange, but interesting at the same time. Thanks for the video :D
Second this as I'd like to know if it stayed fixed or if the issue returned.
as somone who was fixing pcs before this guy was born..i still like his videos
Wonder if the issue was just caused by the I/O connectors being slightly loose or something like that, and it got fixed when you reseated them. That's the most likely explanation, especially considering how cramped that area looked. Anyway, great job as always!
Exactly what I thought, doubt geek squad actually disassembled like Greg did and put it all back together
I thought the size of the graphics card was pushing on the IO connector making it slightly loose.
@@TwiLightVidsMy brother worked for Geek Squad up in Alaska for 3 yrs and he told me they look at it first and if something looks off or broken then they'll take it apart, but if it looks okay and they can't replicate the issue then they just write it up as the owners issue and just charge them for the diagnostics. So I agree they probably didn't do anything but plug it in and it booted normally and they just gave it back to the owner.
Yeah, it was some cable/slot connection issue and Salazar reseating everything 10s of times fixed it.
My thoughts exactly, the extensions were probly randomly not working
Considering anodized aluminum does not have very good conductivity touching that connector to the backplate might not have actually completed a circuit. Touching to bare metal like the silver PCIE border piece might have completed the circuit and also having it grounded before pushing the power button might have resulted differently depending on the sequence of the boot tests. If you did get it to complete the circuit on the backplate it might have happened after the system had already passed that test in the sequence which it would have passed.
I was thinking this too. Should have touched it to another material just to be thurough
He should have insulated that connector anyway, I think it might have been touching also something in the motherboard, sending voltages where it shouldn't have and caused the problem that way. And now when it is not insulated that might start happening again, especially when PC is being carried to different location.
Plus if that wire was straight from the led there would be no power it would be one wire straight to the anode and one wire straight to the cathode.
"Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling it?" goes hand in hand with "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
the other one that bit me square in the a$$ was, have you updated your bios?, Me: "yeah!", Have you updated ALL the BIOS? Me: "DAMNED GPU BIOS!!!"
Oh frak... I had to buy a 2200g or 3200g, something cheap just to update my motherboard bios, which wipes out the savings I got from buying used and cheaper...but I've never thought to update GPU bios. I kind of have lots of those...@@yissnakklives8866
Thankfully, usual advice on such things is don't if it's not needed.
Don't forget to jiggle the cord!
@@nps5886 don't forget to turn the power strip on
Not the Norton Vírus!
I still can't get people to stop using and paying for the Norton Virus. I think the only thing worse is the McAfee Virus.
viewers breaking their shit again🤣
Im really sad they destroyed the brand name as they have. Norton Commander was great!
A Norton virus is peak irony 😂
@@itsZombieMan but it's true Norton has become a virus seriously🤣🤣🤣
Norton does not fight viruses anymore it's just a resource hog nothing more these days🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
not the Norton not the Norton not the Norton🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
Greg lying on the floor contemplating life is my new favorite segment.
This is the most useful series in any tech channel. We are really bored of product reviews.
I guess I am! :D
I've been flipping PCs in my local area for about a decade now and still learn something new every day. Personally, on PCs where I can't find a visible issue, I will take it apart anyway. I had a similar issue with an X58 build years ago where it would refuse to power on or suddenly power off, but when I took the side panel off and played with the cables it would power on with no problem. This was my personal rig and it went on for the year that I ran that platform. I case-swapped it after about a year to get it ready to sell and found the issue. It was a standoff that was out of place shorting out the motherboard. I didn't have the issue when I took the side panel off because the heatsink wasn't pressing up against the side panel causing the standoff to make contact shorting out the board. Loose screws or out-of-place standoffs can cause this issue of shorting out the motherboard even if it doesn't do it when you're looking for the issue. In my case, I didn't see the problem because with the side panel off the standoff wasn't making contact to short out my motherboard.
This viewer's heatsink looks pretty tall and may be pressing against the side panel causing a loose screw or standoff in the wrong place to be coming in contact with something on the back of the motherboard.
This was my thought as well. After his initial testing I would've checked the motherboard standoffs to make sure they were all in place and lined up correctly.
Interesting point and a very good one. My guess was that it was a motherboard short somewhere. The uncapped HDD plug may cause it as well if it was hitting against a part of the motherboard.
As a technician with three decades experience across multiple technologies I've come to believe in the magic of breaking and re-making connections. PFM is the technical term.
Agreed!
PFM... Pure Fucking Magic?
I refuse to believe computers are technology that people made and understand instead of some black voodoo magic and problems arise when the machine spirit is upset. I've had multitude of bizarre problems and their solutions were just as odd.
14:37 you can really see the back of the card sagging severely, perhaps the pcie lane connection between card and socket is being tweaked by the sag?
That's my thought as well. Could also be the card flexing the motherboard just enough to have the motherboard short on the case somewhere. Would explain why it works after reseating the card.
Don't be sorry for the ending. This is actually a very valuable lesson to anyone out there: check connections, reseat components, before sending your PC in for what could be costly (and unnecessary) diagnostics and repair.
yeah something might have crawled loose and all the pulling out and putting it back in fixed the issue it can happen over time to ram so might have been a ram modules crawled out of the slot for all he knew and putting everything back in fixed the issue by accident
It’s like a car with an intermittent issue. Unless you’re willing to dedicate days to testing and living with it, you just do what you can and sometimes they either resolves themselves or finally break enough to finally fix.
doing what they did is like a mechanic doing a complete engine rebuild when all you need is a set of sparkplugs.
I don't like the sag on those gpu's. So possibly an issue with the pcie slot. Both the test cards are lighter than the customers gpu I suspect.
i put a screw in the back of my card jay2cents showed it before and my 7900xtx doesnt sag hell it doesnt even move where the (plate and case meet)
This was my opinion. that card is super slanted, probably putting pressure on that PCIe slot, and could be causing it to cause errors. maybe even coming unseated (the difficulty unlocking the PCIe slot lock would also support that concern) slightly. then it causes errors, shorts, and reboots. Reseating the card resolved it for a while, but the drive back to the guys house may dislodge it again.
This may be 100% hogwash, but it's a valid hypothesis
@@TheMatthewLedbetter That's my thought. Though I do have a gpu latch that sticks bad on a horizontal MB in my home office. Of course I also have a bias because I have had one gpu all but die without known cause recently, well not entirely die, just lock the system hard anytime I try and go past the bios screen, even trying to boot a windows install image from USB. and I was having problems with screens blanking briefly and my gpu had a bit of sag. That turned out to be a weird driver version + chrome + video codec pack that only had issues while watching you-tube with more than one video tab open. change any of those and the issue went away. still added in a cheap anti-sag stand.
Fun story. Built a PC for a friend. Upgraded same thing a bit later and friend settled for a used 6800XT (I ordered one for each of us from Ebay, mine was the Power Color Red Devil and his, the ASUS TUF Gaming OC. Only reason it landed like that was the ASUS came in first. Other interesting piece of info, both our Motherboards are identical: Asus x570 Tuf Gaming plus Wifi. Initially no issues, but over time and with newer games, his PC started behaving oddly. Start a game (HElldivers/Avatar/Robocop/Cyberpunk) and it will run for a bit, no temp issues other than his GPU hotspot was warmer than mine while doing the same things with the fan profiles identical, never overheated, but then the screen would go black and the PC would hang (determined later it was rebooting but no display would appear until a full power cycle was done). Traded him GPU's since my Red Devil was working flawlessly. Now his Red Devil is working flawlessly and "my" Asus did all the same things. Turns out a GPU Bios Update, then a full purge (DDU) of the Radeon drivers fixed the issue very well. Always remember that other components have BIOS too....
Half way through reading your comment I was already thinking driver and bios update probably. Good job figuring that out. So you did a bios update as well as wiped and updated drivers?
@@jsteezy80 yeah, I'd ddu'd the thing several times. The real difficulty was that it wasn't always reproducible until Helldivers 2 came out. That game caused the issue every time after no more than 10 minutes. And my pc troubleshooting has seriously atrophied during the past 20 years of process management
06:22 maybe a contributing factor: it seems the power LED is wired up backwards. The red wire goes to led (-) in the wire adapter.
I've found so many times that just unplugging connectors and reconnecting fixes problems so many times... I've never been able to explain it but it does happen so often I've decided that it must be to do with discharging static and then leaving it alone. Weird but wonderful!
16:13 I can imagine an improper connection causes inconsistent behavior. The trope of smacking/kicking something and it working again does have a plausible explanation behind it, maybe the tight spacing of the IO connectors meant something wasn’t connected all the way. Jostling the system in a car might’ve even contributed to the inconsistent behavior to Geek Squad and back
Yes! You covered a few things I was thinking about in the episode! Most excellent!
Tons of us have ideas, more ideas than we'll ever explore, but I thank you for sharing what you thought through to cement some of the ideas I may not have considered enough.
Those people at Geeksquad who oversaw his computer, need re-education for what they did to this client's PC. They did absolutely nothing, except install bloatware that made the computer even worse, then charged $500. And if this is a problem throughout the company, things need to change. Pronto.
As a guy who repairs and fixes PC's in Texas, Geeksquad sucks so hard, I get all the business from there horrific work!! They totally SUCK! Keep up the good work Sir!
How did the client know there's bloatware, if he couldn't boot the PC...
@@gamerdweebentertainment1616He said the computer would boot intermittently.
Geek Squad has been this way for 20+ years. I cringe any time someone says they paid Geek Squad for any service. I went into Best Buy about 10 years ago because I needed an SLI bridge. I didn't think they had them, but on the off-chance I was wrong, I figured I'd stop at the Geek Squad counter. Nobody at the counter even knew what an SLI bridge was. They looked at my like I had lobsters coming out of my ears. That was the last time I went there for anything. LOL
@@sig3ldunc4nI even after "repair"? ok
Most likely the video card was not seated completely and needed to be reseated. I have had that problem with big cards like that. Moving the case around can cause it to get dislodged. It did look like it was loose moving around, not screwed in all the way.
is the issue it overheating?
from to much dust in it?🤔
I used to work for the white, black, and orange team way back in the early 2000s, back then we were mainly a bunch of computer nerds that wanted cheap stuff from BBY. As time went on and BBY wanted to just make more money it was run these standard tools that look for virus, spyware, etc and sell them these extras (norton/trend, spyware software), and then send them on the way. Bigger issue? Well then just have them buy a new PC, the PC is almost 3 years old anyway and we have these great financing offers. Make sure to sell them the service plan, and these add-ons.
Greg if you ever have a junk case, pull the power switch from it and keep it around, this is easier than trying to fit a conductive screwdriver into the case and jump it manually.
Good call on the power button. I was thinking about buying him a momentary power button on Amazon and sending it his way. I have one attached to my desk so I don't have to reach the PC which is in an awkward place
I can't tell you how many cheap power buttons I've had on expensive setups that don't work. 🤷
It's truly amazing how many I've had that don't work. 🤣I have the power button curse. I've even had friends get the same cases with no issue.
I cringe every time I see Greg use a screw driver on the power pins! They have wired push buttons on Amazon!!😲
Great video! Always a good reminder to check connections. I've had to completely rebuild a system because of some funky issues like this. Hard to know where the fix was, but going over the system carefully and double checking connections helped.
Best of the best when it comes to the pc building community. I appreciate the informative, entertaining, to the point, drama free channel. First time pc builder here as 40 year old dad , and now recent gamer if you can believe it. Thanks for the great videos
Sometimes poor connections can cause issues. You did a great job testing the components and the system. Maybe it's just the salt in the air. Also appreciate you explaining how you are able to fix local computers at no cost to the customer.
I think you are right in that it sounds like it was a random short somewhere. Also, don't apologize. This is good content. Lets people see what real life troubleshooting looks like regardless of the ultimate outcome. Personally speaking, that is what I am here for. There is more entertainment and information in the journey, not the destination.
Thanks for the video, very interesting. I think you were onto the cause of problem at the end when you spoke about a possible short with IO cables. Those ITX cases are fantastic to look at but a pain to build and often you find yourself folding, cramming wires and cables into any spare space in the case which can sometimes mean headers become loose or wires end up getting pushed against another component causing a short.
My best guess is it was the front panel connector with the extensions. Once you started jumping the pins it rectified the issue. Its possible that either it was connected wrong and then you fixed it upon re assembly. Or one of the many single pin connectors wasn't seated well. Thats my best guess as to the unknown solution. Love watching these and seeing the solutions and also trying to think of the solution before its revealed. Great video Greg!
that is the most utilitarian build i've seen in a long time
I'm proud to tell you that I reset my Cmos today and that fixed my issue
What was the issue?
Lol
Quite the odd situation, but the pc is up and running.
The owner is probably happy that its now working.
Looking forward to the next video
I wouldn't be to disappointed Greg, sometimes reseating components is all that really needed to be done so there is a lesson there. I've ran into that before and practically beat my head against the wall trying to replicate the problem, but at the end of the day you just have to take the win and hope it stays that way.
I came to the same conclusion myself. Reseating the card as well as it's power plugs probably was the fix. Imo it's either because of the card sag causing intermittent connection at the PCI slot so the reseat helped that (but could run into the same issue in the future) or maybe one of the power connectors not making a good connection and the power supply was going into protect giving too much power on the connected rail or the voltage was spiking from the one barely being connected. I didn't catch the power supply wattage, brand or rating though. For a second there I thought he was going to have to replace the dudes 3080 TI and that's not cheap for sure
Greg, you're the first person I've seen talking about the KryoSheet mentioning that they're electrically conductive (doesn't mean others aren't, but it's the first time I've seen it). That was the most useful bit of product information I've heard about it - I have 3 systems I was looking to put the sheet on, but without knowing it was electrically conductive, I would have just slapped them on. Now that I know, I can take the proper precautions when applying. Thanks for the info!
FoF is my fav series on yt, gotta love it!
I'd say it was the front I/O connector. I couldn't see it so it originally so maybe it was crammed underneath the graphics card and was touching something. Don't know what Greg saw before and as he was pulling out the graphics card, but I think the issue most likely resolved after the card was removed and the connector was originally moved and then removed. Great video!
This series is always on my recommended when I open CZcams and I’m here for it, love this videos
I've had customers get similar problems. I remember that one time it was a fault in the switch of the power button on the case. It would some times remain in closed mode after you let go of it. The result was that the computer would turn on then off again a few seconds later. On another machine the reset button would work in the opposite way it was intended to. That means it was normally closed, opening the connection when you pressed it. That resulted in the motherboard never entering post as the reset was continually engaged. Both are things that can happen. The switches used for power and reset are cheap and not the highest quality in the world.
Another similar problem was a customer who had installed an extra distance for the motherboard. That is there was a screw distance on the motherboard plate that didn't fit a mounting hole in the motherboard. It was placed directly under the memory slots, and depending on how hard you had pressed the motherboard when installing the memory it either caused a pin on the memory bus to connect to ground or not. This caused a lot of work. The customer received two replacement motherboards and yet the problem remained. These were server motherboards costing well over $1000 so we really wanted it to work. I had to drive to the customer and have a look in person. This took about six to eight hours each way, and it took me replacing the motherboard twice before I figured out to count the distances. There turned out to be 13 distances in the chassis, but only 12 screw holes in the motherboard. As the distances were riveted in place it took a drill to remove it. Then the machine worked fine.
But the most common problem has to be the PSU. Just swap the PSU and see if the computer will still have the same problem. This tend to solve the problem way to often. It can also expose a bad motherboard in a quite nasty way. I had industrial PSU's that lacked just about all protection circuits. Most telling was that they had no over current protection. This could burn leads that were shorting, smoke PCB traces that were shorted, or remarkably often explode capacitors that malfunctioned. In the last case the motherboard would usually work once the capacitator were destroyed. It wasn't repaired, but it worked. If the machine was under warranty the motherboard would still need to be replaced, but if it wasn't it was up to the customer to either take the chance of using the "adjusted" motherboard, replace the capacitator or pay for a new mobo. I had a test motherboard where I had blown a capacitator and then replaced it. Never sold that to a customer but used it to test processors, memories and graphics cards.
Those industrial PSU's are great. I once test drove an eight processor machine using a 460W PSU. The redundant PSU's in that machine was a four module redundant PSU where each module could supply 1100W. So that 460W PSU was a bit overwhelmed. Still the machine passed POST. We ordered these from Taiwan and the owner of the company was still actually working on PSU designs. They had a lot of specialized PSU's, including versions intended for medical equipment. Now those were rather expensive. The thing is they matched a lot of performance requirements and the components were not going to outgas when they got warm. I think they had some volume requirements also, but never looked to much on that segment of products..
Simply reseating the psu or front panel cables literally could have been the solution, i agree. The first step to any troubleshooting is always reseating things. Second is to breadboard the components (to isolate shorting issues like you described).
My pc didn't boot after installing a new cpu cooler. I had to remove my ram to install it, after I installed it I put my ram back in and heard both clicks, so I assumed it was in all the way. I tried to turn my pc on and got a dram led light, I was worried I over tightened my cpu cooler, but I just re-seated my ram and it solved the issue
I am an IT tech and its funny you showed this because I have issues a couple times were a laptop wouldn't load. The fix I accidently found was removing the RAM card and putting the same one back in. Don't know why that works, have really found a positive answer why it worked it just worked. I have done it twice and it worked both times. Crazy how some stuff fixes by just unplugging and plugging back in.
Even though this one was a head scratcher, It's still informative. Thanks for doing these videos. This series has helped me with my own troubleshooting skills. In fact, it even saved me after I sold an old system of mine and realized it was something as simple as the CMOS battery. I wouldn't have even thought to check that without your videos consistently pointing it out. Its just so obvious lol. Computers are complex and all sorts of weird/complex things can happen. The more troubleshooting steps we see and the more unique problems that crop up, the better we can all be. "Thanks for Learning/Teaching" lol
I would consider cooler mounting pressure, or perhaps bent cpu pin or pins. Just bumping the cooler or jostling the case may change the mounting pressure enough to change things. Just a thought. Enjoy learning with you Greg!
This is a good point, and considering how tight and janky everything was in that case, it's very possible someone bumped something.
Hi I'm new to your channel and I enjoy learning more about pc's I'm just starting to get into pc gaming and about to do my first build keep up the awesome work
In the Thermal Grizzly ad, was the voice over Steve from Gamers Nexus? Sure sounded like him.
Cool that I watched a Fix or Flop while I was ACTUALLY “in or around the Orlando Florida area”
I’m on holiday in Cape Canaveral, landed in Orlando. Great video as always!
Using zip ties instead of rubber bands is a quick fix for CPU HSF's that are missing brackets or have weak brackets. Those rubber bands don't look like they are going to last much longer. Nice fix overall.
Ah Greg….i can tell you what it was. The front panel connector grounding to itself. Each of those pins is hot and ground. If in that patch that spare connector was touching its grounding pin to the pins in the power or reset button then it would display the symptoms described.
Maybe the painted backplate was insulating the short and it was hitting a screw or a pin or something before?
Also the 3080 backplate has some exposed areas and without it's original shroud the heatsink fins are more exposed too. The cables could have been touching anywhere at this point.
I have a Torrent compact. Similar case. The power button was sticky on mine.
The strange ones are always very fun to watch. Love thinking along during the process.
I have the fractal torrent, the big one not the ITX. There was a recall on those case it could make a short on the fan controller.
I agree with your assessment. Probably a snagged cable or short. The powering on and subsequent, " oh shit!" Shut down suggests that.
Likely the GPU was loose in the PCI-e slot causing some pins to perhaps be where they shouldn't so it trips the PSU. Happened on my test bench too till i saw the GPU bracket was stopping the card from seating.
At least you are not boring. Good educational video for pc.
Greg's awkward entery into the shot...love it as it's good for a giggle.
Yeah that geek squad precinct was not correct at all. I work for Geek Squad at the Best Buy in New Braunfels, TX and I would have NEVER assumed it was software issue with Windows since there’s obv a hardware problem going on. Also, that specific GS precinct that didn’t fix anything did not follow procedures because we are supposed to show that the system is operating properly according to the repair notes in front of the customer. Whoever did that repair was not experienced and/or trained. Good job for Greg for properly showing how it should be done👍
@GregSalazar The only other test I might have done is power off the PSU, discharge everything via the case power on switch and leave for a while and try powering on again. You probably did that though and change the CMOS battery 😁. Other than completely dismantling and looking for shorting parts or extra mainboard standoffs then that was a wierd one 🙂🖖
Reminds me of the pc problem I had yesterday. Picture suddenly developed streaks to the right of every line of text or block of color, so I powered the system and monitor off, cut the power at the strip, then disconnected and reseated the hdmi connector on the gpu, then the connector on the other end of the stupid hdmi2vga adapter I'm forced to use, powered everything back on, and KABOOM!!! The streaks are GONE! Picture seems noticeably sharper too!
In the first shot, you were cleary able to see, that the fuse inside the power supply shut it down. So either the PSU is slowly dying (would not show on the tester) or you had a short (maybe from the led - your test on aluminium does not work) or there is some other short, like a broken wire in a cable or something...
First thing can be found out with a stress test. Second with shorting the led on something that is actually conductive. XD
I like how you noticed you had your hands up and was thinking "wtf am I doing with my hands?" about the same time I was thinking "wtf is he doing with his hands?" lol.
i actually think you found the problem with the hdd LED pins!!! but when you replicated it you tried to short the pins on the PAINTED part of the backplate... i think they where shorting on the bare metal heat sink before... just a tought who knows...
love this series BTW keep it up! great work
Definitely a fix greg. Most likely it was a cabling issue because there are so many odd configurations to the build, you should recommend the owner change case and run wiring properly without modifications.
Along with resetting the bios on systems I've looked at that don't work and blowing out the dust. I unseat and re-seat everything. If it can be unplugged or removed and re-installed it is. This has actually solved the issue over 1/3 of the time.
I think it's the front panel connectors to blame here. Maybe it's loose or something. Good thing you pulled it out and reconnected again.
Loved the editor's commentary! 😂😂
User complained of intermittent issue that went away when reseating parts. You reseated parts and it started working again. To me that would indicate something, probably the GPU, is moving. I'd have looked into an anti sag bracket or something like that.
Hey Greg. I love this series.
Reseating components appears to be the fix on this one 😁 Take the win! 👍💪
You had gremlins in the machine. lol
Damn i'd never thought i'd hear Tavaresh mentioned on this channel, dude is a legend
I had a similar problem where it turns out that the simple fix was to check if everything was seated in all the way in. That means giving everything a little push, not too hard though, because of how fragile PC parts are, and that fixed my problem, and I'm kicking myself for not checking that sooner. My problem makes sense because at the time I was moving my PC around a lot, and another thing you can check is if your power supply is broken or if your GPU is getting enough juice.
My take on this from you removing the gpu and putting in another machine might have curred some kind of pcie i/o problem with the original board bios. I think this macine pretty newish and i no some times board revision and such could cause erratic behavior.
Im an old 20+ retired pc tech/shop owner and enjoying learning of the new hardware out there great channel love it keep it up fellow floridian!!!!
Greg is a saint! I would have taken one look at that state of the graphics card and cpu cooler and said I’m not touching this mess!
Have done the same thing a few times. Take apart something that was not working and put it back together and presto, it works again.
When you showed the extension for the power reset etc. it looks like the reset male pins were just out in the open. If it was touching the case, it would be the same as holding the reset button down when you were starting it.
I'm thinking you were still on to something with the HDD activity cable. It's possible those the cable pin were making contact with an UNPAINTED surface somewhere on the case or video card. You demonstrated touching the pins to a painted service. In the end, the user is getting an operating system back and that is all which matters. Good troubleshooting.
Love your videos thanks for making them
Sometimes, just reseating cables ends up fixing the issue. A couple of years ago, I replaced pretty much every part trying to find out why my system would intermittently restart. Ended up being some gunk in the reset switch itself. Had I watch these videos before, I probably wouldn't have spent so much money to find an easy fix.
I'm loving that rubberband hack ngl
Great series!
Thanks for watching!
Textbook troubleshooting, Greg! I honestly think the user should keep an eye on the Mobo. It might be the culprit in the future!!
Tavarish seems even more like the nicest guy ever now! Not sure how but a collab would be cool
Great video, you do a great job.
The power led polarity appears to be swapped on the extention at 6:20 in. Perhaps this was the cause of the intermittent issue.🤔
I personally think you're onto something regarding the HDD led header, It might have touched somewhere else, the anodized GPU back plate won't be causing a short since it's well anodized (oxide layer) meaning it's won't be conductive. So that pins could've touched somewhere on bare metal like a screw,post,mobo or anything that's maybe grounded
was thinking exactly this.Greg didnt tap the header pins on a truly reactive metal surface to make his point, but the theory was still pretty sound and exactly the type of thing that could have been the issue. I think the cable replug / parts reseating check does make a diff too - that is part of the takeaway lesson in this ( and I once had RAM sticks clicked in but not fully IN, causing boot loops)
I think it was just caused by the some cabling connection. Removing and reseating items sometimes works. (Still nice quick fix on your end) Love your videos
That entire rig is held together by thoughts and prayers.
Front panel connector "power LED" extension was wired backwards...at 6:21 you can see the red wire from the extension is connected to the Power LED - connector. I'm pretty sure the power and hdd LED's have to have the correct polarity...but the power switch and reset switch don't have a polarity.
Something was loose or shorting and you just didn't see it. That isn't a criticism. With all that stuff crammed in at the bottom it was likely easy to overlook. .You did a good job As always. People who ask you for her help are lucky that you are consciencious. Yes you aren't a charity but you are helpful.
16:00 Greg, what if the front panel plug wasn’t seated correctly or not all the way in? Maybe that’s what you did, that’s pretty much the only thing you did to get the system up and working again. Great Vid
It was probably a pinched cable, the samething happened to me one time when I was upgrading my mom's SFF Dell optiple. The DVD drive flips out and if your not careful when you flip it down it will pinch the a fan cable, I was going crazy trying to figure out what was wrong and once I noticed the cable and moved it out of the way everything was fine again.
The only thing that you didn't seem to rule out was the extension on the front panel connectors. After verifying that you could jump the pins to start up, I would have tried the front panel connectors without the extension to see if posts consistently after that.
My issue with that is why would it turn on and back off again? All it needs to power on is a short between the 2 pins or a momentary switch like what comes with the case. Unless you are saying something on the front I/O was hooked up wrong to the board causing it to shut down due to a short
@@jsteezy80 I'm no expert, but my line of thinking was 1) Once the front panel connectors were removed the PC seemed to boot properly. 2) Does that mean the actual cables are somehow causing a problem? 3) Remove the extension, then connect the front panel directly to see if it continues to boot properly.
The idea being that maybe something was up with the wires within the extension triggering the power response or something. Similar to holding down the power button to turn off the PC and then starting it back up. I had someone who didn't realize their power button was a bit stuck and so sometimes the pressure was enough to shut down their PC.
Regardless, it looks like it started up fine after everything even with the extension, but I think it was a simple thing to check just to rule it out as a potential issue/point of failure.
I have a computer that stopped posting one day. I would hit the power button, fans would spin up to 100%, and that would be it. Since it had been replaced by another computer, it got put in the back of the closet. Every year or two, i'd plug it in and see if it worked. Nope. One day I decided to try and fix it. I reseated the video card and voila. It worked! No idea what i did. Fires up every time now.
Here's a thought. Weak / 'bleeding' capacitor causing a problem with cold boots after sitting awhile. Or possibly a memory issue, I had similar with Crucial Ballistix in my 5900X. Every 8-12 cold boots, it would POST with no video. Different memory fixed it -- DIMMs were not on board's QVL.
I've watched dozens and dozens of your videos so far. Great videos, by the way. Great troubleshooting and train of thought. Clean and proper job. Well done, Greg. Two comments, though. A. In some cases I believe a little BIOS update could do wonders. Maybe you should think about this process more often, especially when the problem is CPU and RAM related. B. The broken PCs you are dealing with, are mostly AMD based. I'd say that the percentage is 90% AMD and 10% Intel. That makes me think that AMD CPUs are more sensitive than Intel CPUs or that they are not so well designed. I've always had that feeling about AMDs and that is why I always build PCs with Intel processors. They offer me peace of mind although in this particular video, the only thing that's not foul seems to be the AMD processor :)
Nice episode. You did your best, that's what matters.
Must have cleared the CMOS off camera! 😃😂😂😂
i mean, the issue could of been a loose pcie cable or the graphics card itself being loose, other than that i am just as clueless as you, great video!
Hi Greg.
I had an almost identical issue with an older custom build, as in randomly shutting down. Sometimes, it would boot into Windows, and other times, it would shut down just as Windows was loading.
I couldn't figure out at the time what was causing it. Bios showed everything was fine, and i didn't have many spare components to try out.
A couple of months later, after building a new system, i decided to give it another try before i disposed of it.
Bingo,,, the bios showed that there was a problem with the 3volt rail. I checked the 24- pin connector with a volt meter, and everything tested fine.
Under close inspection, i found that some of the terminals had splayed out ever so slightly. More than likely age related.
I carefully pinched them together with some tweezers, reconnected the plug, and the issue was solved.
Granted that i now only use the old system occasionally. However, it is now 14 years old, and still working fine.
If you look at 4:10 you can see it is touching the back plate and if you look at 5:49 it is very near to the hole near 'C' of "GeforCe". It is very possible it was touching to the screw hole which is usually connected to the ground. You probably could not replicate it because you were touching to it to a different card and not the holes.
In addition to this, where outlet or socket the machine is plugged into could be a potential problem.
When this pc gets shipped back to the owner I'd have them test their outlets and make sure they are working properly.
I have the same case and had the same mainboard. Yes the frontpanel connector is in a bad spot but i dident had to put extensions to connect it with the mainboard the case cabels are long enought and there is a HDD led, the powerbutton blinks red . The cabelmanegment in general is a dream in this case there is so much room behind and on the top for all cabels, i have white extensions for all main cabels 5 fans an corsair commander core xt and a arctic freezer 3 aio there is no cabel mess in front like in this build. The gpu cooler is very weird too i put a 4070ti super in my builld witch takes up to slots like this one and underneath 2 Corsair AF120 RGB Slim witch are low profile 15mm fans , all fits perfect no need for such a contraption like this one. The only issue i had was with the mainboard. The MSI B650i edge wifi has a design flaw on the IO shield were the clear cmos button sticks out and in the package presses non stop on it and drains the battery so that you cant make an bios update if you buy like me a 8000 ryzen cpu. Returned it and bought a Asus ROG STRIX B650E-I and after that no issues at all and the Frontpanel connector are in a good spot not like on the MSI board.