This here, is another viewer's broken gaming PC. Let's try to fix it. I don't know too much about the specifications of the system. Obviously, it's using a Phanteks case. I'm not sure what the graphics card is, probably a GTX 1050 or 1050 Ti. This is an Intel platform. You see the stock Intel cooler there, but the CPU does not have integrated graphics. So it's an f-SKU from Intel. This build's also quite dusty. We won't deep clean it, but we will take it out front once we're finished troubleshooting and give her a quick rundown. I hope you're as excited as I am about this one because I have absolutely no idea what I'm getting myself into. We may end have fixing it. We may end up not Fix or Flop. There's the playlist. Stay with me. If you want to make your home feel safer, there's no better time than now. Simply Safe has given you early access to all their Black Friday deals, 50% off or more on their award-winning home security systems. 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Save 50% or more on your Simply Safe Security System during their biggest sale of the year by visiting SimplySafe.com/GregSalazar. You can also click the link below to learn more. Now for those who are new to the fix or flop playlist, the premise here is simple. I reach out to folks in and around the Orlando, Florida area and offer to clean and fix their systems for free. The cleaning part is kind of just if it needs it and I don't even go as far as I do in the PCDC series. That's dedicated specifically to cleaning systems, but in this case, right, this system is rather dirty. There's a lot of built up dust. I'm gonna take it outside and clean it for you. Whether or not I can fix it is kind of beside the point, but I will try to fix it. I have plenty of hardware here to troubleshoot with, and I don't charge a dime. This is a $0 and 0 cents service. I can monetize these videos externally with YouTube and other ads and other brands that want to throw ads into these videos so that's kind of the point. That's where I make my money. I don't feel like offloading any of that cost to the viewer who was already gracious enough to loan me his or her system. So let's get started with the email, the original email I got from the owner of the system. Said, "Hello, Mr. Sal," I have people call me Mr. Salazar. I'm just, I'm 27. I'm not like a fellow or a doctor or anything like that. Just call me Greg. You guys know my name's Greg. "My name is Lucas and I'm a UCF student." That's University of Central Florida, very close to where I live in the Orlando area. "My PC stopped working after I tried to enable secure boot "in my BIOS to upgrade to Windows 11. "The problem is that when the PC boots, it doesn't post. "And I fact just get a black screen right away." He can't even enter his bios. Says he tried clearing the CMOS both by jumping and removing the battery and neither of those things worked. He also tried switching the PCIe slot for his graphics card and that didn't work either. The only other thing he said he wanted to do was part swap with a friend, but he just, he didn't really have the time. And that's when he reached out to me and said, "Greg, work your magic, or at least try to." Now the only component I'm kind of, sorta worried about being the issue is the motherboard. Obviously the graphics card causing a black screen that that's probably likely, and I don't really have a replacement (Graphics) card because I don't get cards from vendors and they're very expensive. So I usually just kind of say, well, you're up to your own devices there, but at least I can narrow down the card itself so you know what to replace. The other thing is the motherboard. Now I can get, I can readily get motherboards from manufacturers, right? Piece of cake. They'll happily send a one, two, $300 board in exchange for exposure on the channel. It's well worth it for them and they can just write off the products as marketing expenses. And for me, I don't have to dip into my own pocket so it's a quid pro quo, but I will happily dip into my pocket if it means saving several days worth of shipping time. These are, remember, viewer systems. I don't want this to sit in my office for weeks. I'll happily spend a $100 or $200 bucks and get something overnighted from Amazon. I live right next to sorting facilities here so sometimes I can even get same day delivery and that just makes a world of difference, especially when we're talking about viewer systems. These folks are waiting for me to fix these for them and I don't want them to be waiting several weeks if I can help it. So I might need to order a replacement board if it is to blame for the black screen, but yeah, given the symptoms described, I don't really think it's gonna be the problem. So let's go and give it a shot and I'll pull up my portable monitor. And we're going to plug this thing in for the first time and try to replicate the issue he's describing. Remember no Post or no Picture Out so we should just get a black screen. I think that everything will turn on and appear like it's working so we'll get fan spinning, LEDs on, things like that. So let's see. So with our monitor connected to the card and power cables connected, flip the switch at the rear and try for a post. Yeah, so as I suspected, we are getting power. So the components look as though they're functioning properly, but if we're not getting a post then yeah, there's really no point to that. Yeah, the hard drive is initializing over and over. I can hear the Fan-Curve kick in over and over as well so it sounds like the system is "Boot Looping". We would know a bit more about what was happening if we had a Dr. Debug LED, I could connect a speaker and that might tell us a bit more. The first thing I'm going to do is reset the CMOS. Now I know the owner of the system already said he did that, but for rather obvious reasons, I don't trust anybody when it comes to troubleshooting. I just like to see this stuff in action, myself with my own eyes so that I know for a fact it was done correctly. So it's not that I don't trust this viewer, I just don't trust anyone ever :D when anyone says they've done anything. (Therapy... I know) [Sound of PC fans turning on and off in a Loop] Not sure if the mic's picking that up, but yeah, you can tell, it's just boot cycling, trying to fire up over and over again. And to clear the CMOS, it's very straightforward. You have a battery in here that's providing power to the BIOS chip that keeps track of the clock and things so that when your PC's disconnected, it knows what time it is, despite that lack of power. We're going to make sure that the system is powered off at the rear. We're also going to drain capacitors, already done those two things. Next thing we're going to do is take something magnetic, like a screwdriver and we're gonna jump these two pins here. There are only two. Sometimes there are three and you'll have a little jumper cap you'll need to move over. We're gonna hold this here for, ah, it depends. I'd say 15 to 20 seconds is usually good. Some recommend longer than that. But usually the CMOS will clear after a few seconds. When we're finished, we can remove the screwdriver and try firing the system back up again. And so that didn't fix anything. That's okay though. Look, if it had, right, I'd be kicking myself in the face for not testing this sooner, if I had just taken this person's word for it and it turns out they didn't actually play the CMOS correctly, or they didn't know what they were doing, then yeah, I just wasted a bunch of time. So that's why you always check the simple stuff first. It's also why you check things despite what the owner says, he or she already checked, just for peace of mind sake. So let's move on to more intensive troubleshooting. Now I've given RAM (PC Memory) a once over. This is one of the first things you want to check. I've checked all connections, a few slightly, they're engaged, but they're still slightly loose. Just made sure those were secure. Everything else looks wired up correctly. Front (Panel) IO (HDD Light/Buttons) is wired correctly. We've got the supplemental 6 pin for the graphics card. I'm inclined to test the CPU because in order to get this kind of weird pattern here where it's like "Boot-Looping", but not sending a picture out, I don't think that's the Graphic's Card. (GPU) Usually if it's a Graphics Card that's like bad or not connected properly or whatever, you'll just have a system that looks like it's functioning properly, but no picture out, but it won't be rebooting the way that this one is. This one you can tell is power cycling over and over. You can hear the Hard Drive initializing repetitively. And I think that might have to do with maybe CPU seating or maybe the CPU itself is bad. Maybe the Cooler's mounted improperly. It feels like it's good to go, but who knows what the system has experienced? So now we'll try booting it on right now. I don't think that's gonna fix it. Then we'll try disconnecting everything except for the 24 pin and the eight pin EPS and the supplemental 6 pin so we'll disconnect all the secondary cabling and see if that fixes it and if it doesn't, then I think I'm gonna swap a CPU first. A few moments later. So of course, rewiring everything. It did not work, disconnecting non-vital components did not work. One of the good things about, well that's really the only good thing about the stock Intel Cooler design here is that it's actually fairly easy to remove. It doesn't require any screws or anything, but it sucks as a cooler, generally speaking. It's also quite loud. Let's get this up and we can see what CPU he's got in here. It is a Core i5-10400F. Does that make sense? He said he had an f-SKU so he does not have an Integrated Graphics Processor, which means we needed a discrete card in order to get a picture out. It looks as though it's seated correctly, always kind of awkward having to swap these out with the case standing upright. It just works better for video. We'll check the pins in the socket and make sure that none of those are damaged because that could certainly cause one of the symptoms we're seeing here, but it looks like the socket is fine. We have no debris in any of the pins and I don't see any broken or bent ones either. I will take some compressed air and lightly clean this out just to be safe. But the next thing we need to do is check the contact points on the back of the CPU itself. And the CPU looks great as well, immaculate rather. Pretty clean. It is a newer chips so I'm not really surprised, but I want to swap this out for our Intel i9-10900K here, because I just have a sneaking suspicion this is to blame. I'm probably wrong, but why not? I mean, the symptom that we're seeing, where it just keeps kind of boot cycling. I could come down to a number of things, but the CPU, for some reason, just, you know, it was the first thing that came to mind. So let's see if the new chip fixes the problem. Kind of excited about this if it works. Gonna be pretty proud of myself for getting this on pretty much the first try, but if I'm wrong, well, at least you got to enjoy watching me be wrong on video. Come on. (sigh of disappointment) I was wrong. It is cycling now. I can hear the fans just kicking in over and over. GG well played. Good try. Moving on then. This CPU is likely fine since swamping it out didn't really change any of the symptoms we were seeing. I'll set this to the side for now. Now we're going to tackle the elephant in the room. That being the Graphics Card. Now, rather than just swap this out with another card that I know works like our trusty GT 710, I can just plug the HDMI cable directly into the back of this motherboard, because remember I've still got my i9-10900k in here and that does have an Integrated GP (Graphics Processor). So in ya go. Now we will try both with, and without a graphics card. It's possible that just the card being there is preventing this from posting. Is I don't think it is. I don't think it's gonna do it. So let's try this again with the card removed. Thank you very much. I'll take that. Hey, there it is. Well, I really shouldn't be happy about that because that means this graphics card doesn't work. That sucks. So now we'll get his CPU situated back in here, just add some Thermal Paste and then reapply the Stock Cooler and we'll install a placeholder discrete Graphics Card. Remember his CPU doesn't have an Integrated Graphics Processor. So this is needed to get picture out. Is this seriously cycling again? (I need some Chicken Nuggets)... It's doing exactly what it was doing before. This should have worked. We isolated the card and it wouldn't work unless this card was removed. But when I put his CPU back in, we don't get a post with a known working discreet card. the GT 710 we always use. I'm really stumped by this one. We changed nothing else. Why is it just this particular combination of hardware here is not working? (deep sighing) I don't really know where to go from here. I guess we could swap back in my i9-10900k, just to make sure that that works with the GT 710. Maybe it's a slotting issue? So it won't boot with the Graphics Card in the lower full length PCIe slot either. So it's not a slotting issue, at least as far as I can tell. It's really weird. I don't, I'm still kind of confused. This is really weird. So the system refuses to boot up whenever discreet card is connected and now it's just randomly shutting off. And whenever I insert his Core i5, it, I mean, we have to have a card connected, right? So there's no real way to test if this chip works or not. I think it does because we're getting the same symptoms with my i9-10900k that I know works with any discreet card candidate as well. I think it will post if we take the card out and that's what it did before. So let's go ahead and give that a shot. I think the CPU might be getting a little too hot with the Stock Cooler. That might be why it was shutting itself off. So let's power off real quick. We'll remove this card and then we'll just, we'll just give it another shot without changing anything else. Power at the rear, power upfront. My hypothesis is correct. It should post. There it goes. See, so anytime a cord is connected, it doesn't matter what cord, and I know that this card works. So, this card probably works too. It's probably, it's probably good news for him and more good news. I actually have a replacement board. I forgot that NZXT had sent me one a while back. I used it for one build when I put it back in the box and never touched it again. It's perfect for this. Oof, yeah. CPU is definitely throttling hard. You can see voltage there as 0.9 volts. I feel like this isn't correct here. I don't think this would be sustained any way at under 1 volt but yeah, that aside, I'm not gonna let this run too much longer for obvious reasons. I just want you to know that the BIOS was reset. We did see that confirmation warning pop-up message when the system posted. So I know that there's no setting in this BIOS that would prevent the motherboard from functioning with a discreet card in either of the two full length slots. So I think his motherboard is bad. I think the motherboard is ultimately what's keeping the system from fully booting up. So we're gonna disconnect remaining cables. There we go, 24 pin was a bit stubborn. We're going to take out this WiFi card here at the bottom, and we're gonna try to get a "Post" with everything that's already in here, reconnected to the new boards, not changing any variable apart from the motherboard, seeing if that fixes the issue. In fact, I'll put his original CPU back in, along with his original graphics card. I'm that confident that swapping boards will fix the problem. So the motherboard has been swapped out in there now as an N7 Z490 board. I do have his original CPU in here as well as his original Graphics Card. I've wired most things up, but we still need to connect the USB 3.0 cable and stuff, but we'll take care of that once we verify that this indeed fixes the prevailing issue. So we'll flip the switch at the rear, power it on and we will cross our fingers. This should work. I'm pretty sure it was the motherboard. And what specifically about the motherboard? Who knows, but I think, yep, that's it. The rest of its components work. I mean, we've got everything that was originally in here in here and now we get a Post. So, something's wrong with his board. And I don't really know what. I mean, anytime anything's connected to any PCIe slot, it just craps itself, which is kind of weird. You know what though, there's still one thing I want to test. I'm kind of kicking myself for not realizing this a bit sooner because everything's already out and we've already swapped boards, but I never really thought about this. I just kind of took this for granted it was there. I didn't really assume that this would prevent the system from posting. Is it possible that we were just being maybe overloaded on PCIe lanes? Maybe not on the CPU side, but maybe the chip set, just maybe there's some setting or some board default that just didn't like the fact that two different parts essentially were connected to PCIE slots at the same time. Is it a coincidence that this system would Post and we could get into this board's bios with my i9-10900k installed, but with no discreet card, but with the WiFi card installed. But then when we went to connect the discreet card, nothing worked, but we know that the card works because we just tested it in the new board. It can't be just, it can't be coincidental because we got picture out through the IGP (Integrated Graphics) and the i9-10900K. So I know that's not the issue. I think maybe just the fact that two things are slotted into this board at the same time, this being a B460 board, who knows how the lanes are allocated. I'm sure this is a PCH lane here, but maybe that the fact that this card was inserted here was throwing off some sort of lane allocation setup standard in the board. I don't know, it's a stretch. I'm really just grasping at straws at this point, but I can't really think of any other obvious sort of explanation for why this board is behaving the way that it is. Because again, we could get into the BIOS. So it's not like this thing refuses to post outright. We could get into the BIOS so long as the CPU has an IGP (Integrated Graphics) and we don't have a discreet card installed or discrete Graphics Card, or maybe it will post with a discrete Graphics Card installed with the WiFi card removed. That's what I want to try. Just as one last hurrah, I really hoped that this would work. You still got no picture out. I know the setup is kind of jank. Just bear with me. We're just trying to see if we can do the posts, but it's not working. And I have a good feeling that if I remove that graphics card and plug the HDMI cable directly into the board, we'll get a picture out. Again, something finicky with the PCIe slots in this board. It just doesn't like anything connected. I really don't understand it. So that's great news then. We were able to get a system back up and running a few other housekeeping things to take care of. We need to clean the system up a bit. I'm gonna take my electric duster to it. And then we will also fix cable management, another thing I'd like to tackle if it hasn't already been taken care of and usually when these make their way into the office, the cable management's a bit all over the place and a few of you pointed out the fact that they were probably part swapping and not too worried about cable management in that interim period, which makes sense. But I'm still gonna do my best to clean it up before I give it back to the viewer in question. So let's take care of those two things right now. Looking pretty good. And I already cleaned up the front. Let's flip this around and yeah, voila. [electric duster buzzing] Well, not what I was expecting. I got it wrong twice. And this one, I originally thought it was a CPU just going off of a hunch based on the behavior of the system. That wasn't the case. Then I thought it was the Graphics card. And we were kind of fooled at one point in the thinking that the Graphics card was to blame because we removed it and the system posted, right, just through the IGP and the i9-10900K. But then we continued testing. Troubleshooting's all about the scientific method. You have a hypothesis, you test that hypothesis and you continue testing. You keep testing, even when you think that there's no other variable to test, you continue testing because you never know, you might run into something else that points in a different direction. I'm glad that we didn't stop at just, oh, it's the GPU (Graphics) because it wasn't, right? It was a Motherboard, something specifically wrong with, I don't know, PCIe lanes interconnect when the CPU and the chip set, who knows? At this point, replacing the board is the simpler and more efficient solution and I'm more worried about getting this back to the viewer in working order and in a timely manner. So he's got a nice upgrade here with the Z490 board. It looks very sleek. We cleaned it up for him and we cable managed for him, This build is looking revitalized if I do say so myself. Now, if you live in the Orlando, Florida area and you have a system that is in desperate need of repair and you suspect that it's a hardware related issue, I don't like dealing with software or infrequent blue screens, things I can't replicate here in the studio readily, then you're the perfect candidate. Okay, so hardware related stuff, if you suspect is hardware, send me an email. (Link in Description) You have to be local, though. If you are not local, I won't respond to you. I get so many inquiries from people that live all across the planet. Hey, I promise you I'll ship you the system and I'll pay for everything. You guys don't realize how expensive it is to ship a PC, especially across the Atlantic or the Pacific. I mean, forbid, it comes from India and it's gonna cross two oceans. There's no way that it'll make sense to you because you'll spend more in shipping and in customs and all that junk right? Just the taxes for import duties and things like that. You're gonna spend more on those things than you will just to outright replace the entire system. Okay? So I recommend that if you're at that point where you just desperately want to ship it and spend a thousand dollars that you go to reliable local PC repair shop, I'm sure you live near one. And if you don't live near one, hopefully these videos help. It's kind of why they exist, right? They're meant to inform. Yes, they can be entertaining at times, seeing me make a fool of myself, guessing on a whim and getting it wrong multiple times. But at the end of the day, I think there's still quite a bit of a learning factor here. And if you're new to PC building, I think this is a good step in the right direction. It should get you a bit more comfortable with troubleshooting if you run into an issue and chances are, you will, at some point. PCs, as much as we love them, they can be a bit finicky, especially in the software side, but even on the hardware side. So if you suspect you have a hardware issue, maybe check out earlier videos in this playlist or later ones if you're watching this after subsequent episodes are published and you might pick up on something and you might figure out what's wrong. We've had plenty of testimonials. People tweet me and leave comments saying, "This video helps so much. "Thank you for pointing me in the right direction." And that is the end goal. It's just, it's so nice to hear those things from folks who are being inspired by these playlist and just kind of being motivated to jump into their builds. Maybe they bought a prebuilt and they're afraid to touch it. Right? I get that, especially if you've never built a PC before, but it really isn't rocket science. I know I've been doing this for years and it's easy for me to say, but it's really not. It's adult Lego and I'm not oversimplifying that. The wiring, yes, can be a bit difficult than the software can be a bit difficult but when it comes to hardware and part swapping, it is literally plug-and-play. It's Lego and I would encourage anybody young or old to give it a shot if you have no other alternative, and you're not interested in spending hundreds of dollars in a PC repair shop for an issue that could take several hours to troubleshoot. Save the money and learn a thing or two at the same time. It's a win-win. So if you want to submit an inquiry, the info is in the video description. Again, you need to live in Orlando, Florida or somewhere around there. I need to basically see you in person. That's the ultimate requirement, no shipping for any reason at all, even if you're one state away. You need to be able to drop it off and pick it up in person. Other than that, you guys enjoy the video, give it a thumbs up. I'd appreciate that. Consider subscribing if you have not already, I'll give you a few seconds. (You better do it) I appreciate that. And I will catch you in the next one. My name is Greg. Thanks for troubleshooting with me.
