Fixing a Viewer's BROKEN Gaming PC? - Fix or Flop S1:E1

this here is a viewer's recent pc build it both  the ryzen 5 5600x and asus 3060 ti and i believe   16 gigs of ddr4 in a month case with airflow  prioritized now you might be wondering what on   earth am i doing with this build well first off  the owner happened to live in the orlando florida   area which is nice i could meet him in person  he's having issues he just built this system right   and it's not posting and if it does post that he  got a post one time but then he wasn't getting   any video out and his motherboard was throwing  the vga error oh the vga air is an awful one to   deal with so i told him i would give it a shot try  to troubleshoot i have tons of parts here that i   can swap out with it always it's always nice to  have extra parts to swap because that'll pretty   much narrow down what the issue is at least at  large there might be a specific issue on the   board of said component that is actually causing  the problem that you're experiencing but at the   end of the day i can at least narrow it down to  the part so which part is the problem which one do   you need to rma or you know file a warranty claim  for whatever so i told him i would do that for   him we're going to figure out what is wrong with  this build in this video also want to take care of   a few cable management issues just a few things  i mean i'm being kind of picky here he actually   did a pretty good job but he told me that behind  the motherboard tray that's where it gets messy   so we're going to tackle the posting problem  what is causing the system not to boot properly   then we're going to tackle cable management  all right stay with me to get rid of that   annoying activation watermark hop on over to  vip std key and purchase a windows 10 pro oem   key for fractions of the price of retail just  use a secure payment method like paypal receive   your key in seconds and activate your os here  bye bye watermark and be sure to use our new   offer code skgs for a sweet discount now the first  thing you'll want to do in a situation like this   is replicate the issue especially if you're  not you don't have personal experience with   what's going on here which i don't i've only  just heard what was happening to the system i   have not seen it happen in person so we're going  to power it on and we're going to see what happens so the system is lit up checking for picture because he said that was the  most recent issue he was having right before he   dropped it off yep we're not getting any picture  that'll be a bit difficult to see with this camera   angle i understand that but there are series of  leds over here just to the right of the dimm slots   and the led that's lit up right now is uh for vga  and that is obviously our video cards referring   to the video card video out and that's the problem  um the thing is i don't think that this 3060 ti is   dead so it is lighting up here so it is receiving  some power i'm not sure if it's receiving power   through the eight pin supplemental cable or not  but it's definitely receiving power through the   pcie slot the fans i'm looking down below the  fans aren't turning but i think this is one of   those zero rpm cards or if it's not under load the  fans won't turn now interestingly enough down here   at the bottom of the board doctor debug code a a  indicates that the system should actually post it   should be showing something on screen right now so  there's no inherent issue with the way the system   is set up but we do have that conflicting led  again at the top right of the board uh signaling   there's something wrong with the video card so  based on what i've seen so far the next thing   i'm gonna do is swap this card out with one that i  know works i'm gonna pull it from a working system   i'm gonna power the system on with that new card  in here and see if we get a post if we do then   we've narrowed it down at least to the graphics  card might be an issue with the hdmi cable based   on the other indications i'm getting from this  board um so we'll try different ports once we   kind of narrowed it down to this piece of hardware  so we're going to disconnect this eight pin here   and slide this old card out when you're doing  this by the way you want to make sure that your   system is fully powered off disconnected from the  wall and that you've drained any capacitors by   holding down that power button after it's been  disconnected for about 10 or so seconds leds   should all be shut off that's when you're good to  work on your system so we've got the old card out   i'm going to slide this new card in here and  this is actually a gtx 1660 from gigabyte uses a   similar supplemental 8 pin so no wiring conflicts  there i'm not even going to bolt it to the case   we just need to connect it real quick power  the system back on and see if she posts what   is going on with this cable and we're going to  power it back on see if we get any leds up top   that's interesting we're getting the  exact same vga led up top card's lit up   fans are spinning the card itself is fine i know  this card works so i think that's good news i mean   in light of how expensive a lot of these newer  graphics cards are nowadays i think it's it's   safe to say that this 3060 ti here is not the  problem and this is probably the most expensive   component in this build so that's good news i'm  i'm concerned now if it's this graphics card   maybe this uppermost pcie slot i mean the card  is in there now the next thing on my list with   the original card back in the system will be to  reset cmos so maybe maybe there's some motherboard   software conflict some just weird juju that's  getting in the way here i've seen clear cmos   buttons fix the strangest of problems so we're  going to turn the system back on and hold this   bios button down okay and i decided to reset  the system one more time after that bios reset   and the led indicator has changed it is no  longer lighting up next to the vga line it's   sliding up next to the dram line suggesting  that there's now a problem with dram you know i   i really hope it's not this motherboard it's  gonna be a pain to take everything out of this   so we've powered up the system i'm gonna pull  these sticks of ram out i'm just gonna leave one   stick in slot two and that's it and we're gonna  see if we can get around that dram problem dram   is lit looks good all right moved on from dram and  we're back to the vga ladies oh no back to dram   again what is going on what is oh no i guess  that's just training memory i think that it   freaked out when i swapped modules so dr debug  down at the bottom right 9c right now a zero   you know it's cycling through still no picture  on screen should switch to aa there at the bottom   oh no we've got a light  that says boot what is this   wait so why don't we have a  picture then where's our picture   that boot light wasn't on before why is there  no picture look just so you guys are seeing the   same thing i'm seeing that boot light up top  that's a green light whereas the vga light is   white so we're still getting that white vga light  which isn't good we're not supposed to get that i   don't think but that green light up top there that  wasn't on before so switching to just one dim fix   that that's that's weird but okay that there that  code shouldn't be there as far as i know zero two   indicates an issue with i believe storage device  so i'm going to go to the back of the system i'm   going to double check all of his connections his  power cables and the like i'm kind of surprised   that we're getting so many conflicting signals  from this board but uh yeah some something's fishy   okay so i checked all of his connections back  here they look pretty solid this power supply   is non-modular so there's really nothing i can  do on that end uh but the one thing i did notice   is that his hard drive is powered via sata but  it's not sata data cable connected which means   that his hard drive is getting power for some  reason but it's not actually doing anything   so i'm going to connect the sata cable i'm i would  be very surprised if this was the issue but i've   seen weirder things in this industry so let's give  it a shot no more zero two code so that's cool   we're back to doctor debug code aaa which means  the system should be i mean it should be posting i'm running out of ideas i mean i gotta swap the  motherboard that's all i can think of at this   point swap the motherboard reseat the cpu um what  else is there we're also missing that boot led now   i'm gonna try taking out that second dim again and  see if that fixes that all right there's only one   more thing i can think of before we resort  to it being a motherboard or cpu issue and   those troubleshooting steps are going to be a bit  more time consuming i'm going to slide this thing   into the bottom i guess this will kind of narrow  down the slot issue i'm moving this into the next   highest 16 lane actually i mean no it's only an  eight lane slot but it's a full length pci slot   i'm gonna reconnect here this is really cringe  i apologize i know this is gonna like it's gonna   bother some folks but i've got to do it just to  just to narrow down these i'm going to hold the   card up too because there's some cables underneath  but i don't want to get snagged in that graphics   card span shroud and reconnect reconnect and  power on just to see i can't even see dr debug now no way no way that was it are you  serious it's a dead it's a dead pcie slot   why else would it work here  but not at the uppermost slot what the heck is that on camera i mean look at  that we get a post this thing is freaking out   because we've reset it so many times but this is  the first time we've actually gotten a display out   like an image on a screen from this build since  we started troubleshooting now i sure as i don't   want to hold this card up myself and i think  it looks really stupid down here at this lower   full length pcie slot so what i think we're gonna  have to do is swap motherboards now just for a   sanity check i'm gonna swap back to his kit of  ram his kit's actually better than this kit here   so i definitely don't want to swap them  out if i don't have to i'm gonna put these   back in their original slots yep there we go so  definitely not the ram it's not the dim slots   themselves it's not the graphics card it's not the  cpu we're getting a post here it is that uppermost   pca slot the full length slot the 16 lane slot  what the heck now feel bad because in order to   test this i had to remove these two lower pcie  slot covers normally wouldn't be a problem but   these are the ones that are like fixed in position  and if you remove them you can't reinsert them so   he's going to have a weird gap down there i could  have used a riser card but i didn't have one   on hand most of those are in systems currently  but i do have a solution i think it'll kind of   make up for this here i'm going to get a system  fully working because i have the exact same board   as the one that's in this build so if you guys  remember a few months ago i released a video   about how to update your amd builds bios without  an amd cpu installed and this applied to those who   maybe wanted a i don't know ryzen 5 5600x maybe  like this person here bought a b550 board but   that b550 board doesn't have the the native bios  needed to get 5600 x's to post um you can actually   flash boards like this you can update the bios's  without cps installed which means you don't need   a zen 2 or a zen plus or original zen cpu install  to do that and most don't have multiple cps laying   around so that video actually was super helpful  for a lot of people i'm glad i uploaded it and   this is the board that i use to demonstrate kind  of good the tutorial um so yeah i'm just going to   swap this one out with with the one in here and i  believe it's the exact same board so he won't even   know that i changed anything i'm going to tell him  that i swapped the boards but i got this sent from   asus um a while back and it just kind of sits in  the closet so uh more than happy to give him this   swap here so at least he can use his beautiful  rig so for this process we have to remove not   only the cpu and the ram but also the m.2 ssd he  hasn't he told me he had one of these don't want   to forget that's the only drive in the system so  first off gonna remove this stock cooler always   kind of sort of a pain give it a little  wiggle system really couldn't heat up too much   and there we go you know now that i've  had a bit more time to think about it   i'm just looking at the slot on both of these  boards i don't think the slot itself is i don't   think there's any real physical damage here i  think this goes back to possibly a setting in   the bios i've run into this once before and i  don't know why just now i'm thinking about it   but there there have been issues reported where  the board will default to pcie gen 4 or vice versa   pci gen 3 for a gen 4 card and the fix is always  to swap to the opposite of that so if this board   has pcie gen 4 enabled by default which might  have happened when this viewer updated this bios   that i've read online and i've actually  witnessed this once with one board that i have   that can prevent your card from properly sending  out video signal so i'll probably follow up in   a separate video with that um i'm still going to  swap boards because i know that my board which is   again the same as his uh but this is one i've used  uh for a few other videos i know this works with   gen 4 and gen 3 cards the way that it's set up  now so even with you know it i don't really know   case in point you know if i really  wanted to be picky here and dive   even deeper i could probably figure  out what's wrong with this board   you know on the software level um but just looking  at the hardware i mean we know the motherboard's   at fault but what specifically about the  motherboard is wrong that is the ultimate question   i just don't really have time to diagnose all  that this viewer wants the system back tomorrow   so i kind of have no choice there i i want to you  know i want to give him a working system so i'm   just going to swap boards for now i'm going to  keep this board though his board and i'm going   to see if i can fix it might swap cpus around and  then if i can get into the bios which apparently   i can if i put this card in the lower 16 or well  the lower full length full size slot i should say   because that's only an 8x slot or x8 slot then  then if i get in the bios i think i can change the   16 lane generation from three to four or from  four to three i think that'll fix it but uh   yeah separate video for that just want to get this  guy's system ready to go he just built it i feel   bad that it's not working for him so i'm glad that  we found at least a quick fix for him and with   everything swapped over slide the new board back  into this build try to keep it out of the range of   a lot of these wires i've left in here motherboard  swaps are the freaking worst they're just like   the most work all across the board and all right  now for cable management a couple things i did   right off the bat that really make a difference  here because he had his fan cable just kind of   like hanging here plugging straight in not routed  at all same goes for the rgb cable so i took that   fan cable very easy to do especially if i cut out  up top for eight pin eps for cpu power just run   that fan cable behind there and this one's long  enough i could run it behind the motherboard tray   connected to this fan header down here so that  fan cable is totally out of sight now looks a lot   cleaner as for the rgb cable this one is it's a  bit tricky to deal with these uh thicker cables   here that come with these amd stock coolers what i  did in this case was run it actually kind of along   the kind of heat sinks i guess this is the chipset  heating here and then you know the mm.2 heat sinks   both of these actually ran the cable underneath  the bottom one you can see it just passes   if i can get out of the way the light here passes  right underneath this bottom m.2 heat sink which   works out especially on these newer boards have  a lot of heat sinks you can kind of play around   with uh get those cables running underneath  there going to look very subdued especially   once the graphics shirt is in you won't even know  that cable's back there looks totally hidden much   cleaner cable management overall and as for  right side cable management this is more or   less what it looked like before just kind of a  rat's nest didn't use any zip ties or anything   and this is what it looks like after i mean  it's it's not like you know the perfect cable   management setup ever in a case like this it's  kind of difficult and with a non-modular power   supply okay these are excuses at the end of the  day it still does definitely look better than   what it looked like when it first came into  the office and that's pretty much all i was   going for last thing we need to do then is throw  the graphics card back in wire it up there we go   much better and now we just need to see if this  thing posts i will look like a mega doofus if   it does not swap the motherboard for nothing  everything's letting up dr debug showing up there all right it is looking good yep there we go   vga light is gone we have the green boot led  got my keyboard here let's go ahead and press f1   and what i'm going to do is reinstall the  operating system for me told me that he was in   the middle of doing that when everything kind of  screwed up on him so i'm going to reinstall it on   his m.2 drive just to be safe so that when he gets  a hold of it he'll just be able to log in with his   credentials and have a fully functioning system so  see this is a screen here that i'm kind of worried   about i think this may have been what went wrong  with his motherboard again i'll confirm this in a   separate video so stay tuned for that but there  is a window in the advanced tab of this uefi   that allows you to change pci generation so the  uppermost 16 lane slot you can see this one here   if i click on it and swing down i can select gen 4  manually or i can select gen 3 manually or i could   just keep it on auto this board is set to auto  and everything appears to be functioning fine   so i'm curious if his board has the same setting  set to pci4 or maybe set to pci3 these are pci4   capable cards even though the 3060 ti is not  going to fully saturate gen 4 bandwidth it is   still a gen 4 capable card so uh there could be  conflicts there and again i've run into this issue   with only one board of all the boards i've tested  in the amd uh am4 lineup but uh i will look into   this further i'm gonna leave things as is for his  build uh because it's working as is i don't wanna   change anything and screw it all back up so yeah  operating system reinstall that and we'll be good   to go finally well that was fun and holy crap do i  need a haircut sorry about that uh this was fun it   was um a bit a bit odd this kind of problem i've  only seen like i said once or twice before um and   that's probably why it took me a bit longer to  diagnose this issue than than otherwise would you   might be watching this thinking oh well you should  have swapped the graphics card in the lower slot   before doing anything else well it's easier to  suggest that when you're watching it hindsight   is always 20 20 and i really didn't think that  would be the issue very rarely do you see software   conflicts with that top 16 lane slot and even more  rare than that i would say do you see physical   defects in those uppermost 16 lane slots that  prevent cards from sending video out what's weird   though is that the motherboard tried to post and  that was what was really throwing me off so this   is a very unique problem i understand totally why  this viewer was was confused and worried but um   i yeah i'm glad i'm glad it's fixed and i'm glad  that i could give it back to him in working order   i did tell him up front just in full transparency  here with you guys i told him that i cannot   guarantee that i will be able to fix the problem  i said at the very least i can look at it i can   tell you what i think it is um but uh you know i  i can't guarantee that i'll fix it what i can do   though is not charging anything just give me a day  or two to make a video about the troubleshooting   process that's all i ask and uh so i appreciate uh  this viewer for uh for being patient with me there   and uh glad to deliver the good news so i'll meet  him tomorrow drop the system back off if you uh   live in the orlando florida area i guess i'll go  ahead and suggest this too you know depending on   how well this video does i think this could be a  really cool series um a lot of people are sitting   on older hardware hardware that they wish they  could upgrade but can't because of the current   climate economic climate pc industry climate um  so you know that's why i started the pcdc series   i wanted to clean systems that people have been  sitting on that they can upgrade just to kind   of get them by for the next few months next few  years maybe um while uh while they wait for prices   to come down or for new stuff to come out that's  not going to be price gouged but yeah maybe we can   also do that with just troubleshooting issues if  you have a problem with your system and you live   in central florida or willing to drive close to  me to drop your system off and then again to pick   it up a few days later i will happily check out  whatever issues you have if your system is not   posting if you get a black screen maybe your fans  don't turn on whatever you happen to diagnose i   can't guarantee that i'll be able to fix it but  i can at least tell you with all the hardware   that i have here i can swap a bunch of stuff out i  can tell you what the problem is and then that'll   narrow down you know the the choices you have in  terms of rman warranty claiming uh or if you just   want to outright buy something new to replace  it you don't have to you know buy tons of parts   and swap them yourself i can do that for you so if  you're interested in that um rather than emailing   my wife because she's very very preoccupied with  the pcdc stuff right now um i would suggest that   you guys tweet at me if you just tweet at greg  salazar yt and then send your problem the issues   you're having in a tweet uh i will see that that's  what david did here that's how i found him um he   was very quick to let me know that he would live  in the area he'd be willing to drop system off   so if that is you and you're having an issue  and you're willing to drive to me around the   orlando area in florida um yeah i'd like to give  it a shot at least and i won't charge you a dime   i would just you know hope that you'd give me a  day or two to diagnose it that's all i ask and   then i can make a video out of it and kind of  a win-win for both of us at the end of the day   so thank you all for watching this far into the  video uh thank you david for giving me a chance   to fix your system i'm glad i was able to it's  a coincidence that i have to have the exact same   motherboard that you have in your system here so  that worked out but i had other b550 boards that   would have swapped worst case but uh that was  really cool really fun to troubleshoot and i'd   like to do more of these in the future if you guys  like this video a lot sure to give it a thumbs   up i would appreciate that consider clicking  the subscribe button that'd be cool thanks for   listening to me ramble this far into the video my  name is greg thanks for troubleshooting with me

Channel: Greg Salazar

Views: 761,395

Keywords: finance, credit, college, apple, tech, pc gaming, how to build a pc, gaming pc, computer hardware, fixing, broken pc, how to troubleshoot, troubleshoot pc, dead pc, broken computer, broken gaming pc, no post, no picture but sound on tv, pc won't post, pc problem, how to, computer cleaning, cable management, how to cable manage, how to fix a pc that wont turn on, how to fix a pc that wont boot up, computer repair, gaming computer, pc no video out, no video out

Id: BfRLeCEdvq0

Length: 22min 1sec (1321 seconds)

Published: Tue May 18 2021