- This here
is another viewer's broken gaming PC.
And this one has been through the ringer folks.
Let me tell you, the owner of this one
has swapped out pretty much everything he can think of.
He swapped the CPU out.
I'm pretty sure he swapped the graphics card out, the RAM.
He has tried so many different configurations
to get this thing back up and running,
and he still has not been able to pull it off,
which is why it's here in the office.
Specifications for this rig are pretty solid.
We've got an Intel ninth gen core i7 non K-skew in here,
so it's not over-clockable, which is why it's bundled
with the stock cooler, which I think,
it just bothers me so much that Intel
bundled these things with stock coolers.
Whether they're locked or not, no Core i7
should ever be paired with this crappy, cheap, stock cooler.
Anyway, that aside, RTX 2070 here from Gigabyte,
that's sweet.
Looks like we've got two different sets
of DDR4 modules in here.
It's unlikely that's causing the issues
being described here, but we will play around
with that config just a bit.
I also noticed upfront, he has three fans
but only two of them are set to intake for some reason,
and then the one up top is set to exhaust.
And then we've got an exhausted there.
I assume the owner thought it would be more beneficial
to have two intakes and two exhaust fans,
and that's why he did things that way.
But I would recommend, especially in this case here,
we have a pretty restricted front panel that you swap
that front fan to intake.
So you have three intakes to work pretty hard
to get fresh air in, and then just one exhaust,
you'll have passive exhaust pretty much everywhere else,
including up top here in this case,
which it's not my favorite case by a long shot.
It is an iBuyPower pre-built.
And so, yeah, sometimes these companies
like to cut some corners.
They might cut corners in the case,
they might cut corners on the power supply, or maybe both.
I did check this motherboard out.
It's a B365M Ultra Durable from Gigabyte.
It natively supports both eighth and nine gen Intel.
It's only a micro ATX board, so it looks a bit weird
in this mid tower ATX case, but that's beside the point.
I'm going to check to see what bios provision it has,
though there's a couple that we could update too
assuming this has the base revision because there's a pretty
big security patch that came out a bit later
for this that we'll probably wanna tackle.
You could also straighten up
some DDR4 inconsistencies as well.
By the way, very quickly, if you have a broken system
and you live in or around Orlando, Florida,
I'll have a chance to fix you or build for free, a chance.
I might not fix it, but at least I'll be able to tell you
more than likely what's wrong with it.
And we have plenty of hardware sponsors.
They send us parts all the time
so you won't have to pay a dime.
That's my goal, is to charge you nothing for the service.
Don't expect a bill, that's not what we do here.
I monetize this content and that's how I make my money.
And I'm just appreciative that you're allowing me to create
videos that are both informative and entertaining
to some extent for the channel.
So thanks very much for the support.
Just you viewing this video allows us to continue doing
what we're doing.
So let's get into it.
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So with that outta the way, let's jump straight into
the troubleshooting process.
Starting first with attempting to power the system on,
we need to replicate the issue described by the owner.
In this case, it should be the system powers on
but then we don't get a signal to our monitor.
So what are we dealing with here?
Power on at the rear, power button upfront.
That sounds pretty healthy right away, but nothing.
So just as described, no post or at least no signal.
It might be posting, but we're not getting
any signal to the monitor.
So, right.
I think we should start with the obvious,
we'll clear the CMOS, that takes just a few seconds.
That's not likely to be the issue here,
but it is just worth getting it outta the way.
We'll also check RAM seating
because I am under the impression that has
something to do with this.
And then we'll start playing around with other hardware.
We'll probably swap the graphics card out
just to rule this out as the problem.
Everything just powered off again.
And it powered back on.
And it powered back off.
I don't know.
I wanna make sure it doesn't post this time.
- [Announcer] A few moments later.
- All right, so let's start first by clearing the CMOS,
I'll show you how to do that, it takes just a few seconds.
This might be a tad difficult to see, because again,
this is an mATX board, and normally,
it'd be somewhere down here.
The graphic card's covering it up just a tad.
We've got a clear CMOS little inscription here on the PCB
and the actual jumper for clearing the CMOS is to the right
quite away so it can be a bit deceiving there,
the location of the label and where the pins are
that you need to jump.
You wanna take a screwdriver, something that is made
of metal, and we're gonna place it just over these two pins
and we're gonna hold it here with the system
fully powered off for about 10 to 20 seconds.
This will utilize the onboard battery
and reset all bio settings.
So if there was an issue with some sort of setting
in the bios to begin with that was keeping the system
from posting, doing this here should get rid of that.
It'll reset to factory defaults.
The next thing I wanna do is break down this array
of DDR4 modules to a single stick.
And I'm gonna use a stick that I know works
from my own inventory just to rule out any possibility
that we might have a dead DIMM here.
Well, I'll just go with a single stick,
of course, they're Vengeance pro.
Clearing the CMOS did nothing,
but maybe this will do something.
So DRM is lighting up.
It looks like power delivery
across the board is okay.
And still nothing.
So clearing the CMOS didn't work, swapping memory,
trying multiple slots just to make sure that we're bypassing
any potential memory channel issue, still nothing.
And it's still flickering on and off.
I don't know what's going on.
So this,
I don't think is a graphics card problem.
I will, however, swap it out very quickly
just so we can set it aside.
I think this is gonna come down to maybe, like bent pins
in the socket because the owner already told me
that he swapped out CPUs thinking that was the issue
and it didn't actually fix anything.
So that's where I'm gonna probably end up spending
the bulk of my time.
Again, power delivery looks fine,
I don't see any issues with the power supply.
We can test that as well, very quickly.
But let's get this graphics card outta here first.
By the way, we also just tested running off of integrated
graphics to plugging the HDMI cable directly
into the motherboard to run off of the CPU's IGP,
if it has one, I'm not sure if it does
if it's an F-skew or not.
However, we still get nothing.
And another thing I did off camera was disconnect
all non vitals, including HD audio at the rear,
front panel, which could be to blame,
we've run into that before.
Disconnected RGB cables, et cetera.
Only the 24 pin and the eight pin EPS
are connected to the platform at this point.
And yeah, we're still out of luck.
So let's get the trustee old GT 710.
Actually, no, dang it, we keep calling this a GT 710,
it is not, it's an XFX card, and they only make AMD stuff.
So there's no way this could be that,
it's gotta be some sort of Radeon card,
but it's still nice to have.
It's just an extra little place holder
when going about troubleshooting, you know,
swapping this out for a beefy card
just makes a lot more sense.
It's also nice that this doesn't need
supplemental PCI-e power, so it just keeps things cleaner,
you can install it faster.
However, upon booting, we still do not have a picture.
So yeah, I think we're gonna have to move on
to the platform itself.
At this point, I would be willing to bet there is something
wrong with the socket or just the motherboard in general.
Again, the CPU, if what the viewer told me is correct,
having been swapped already for what I believe
to be an identical one.
I mean the odds of two CPUs
just dying or being dead on arrival,
those are pretty, pretty slim.
Let's see.
What do we have?
I believe it's a 9700 from what I'm told.
Yes, oh, it's a 9700KF it's a K skew and it's an F skew,
so yeah, connecting to the motherboard
was a bit silly in hindsight.
But this is also a K skew, I thought it was not a K skew,
so that makes the stock cooler even more of an insult
for this thing.
This thing wants to just scream in pure agony
for overheating under the minor loads
that this system would endure.
I cannot believe a stock cooler's being used with this.
Oh my gosh.
Let's go ahead and take it out and we'll analyze the socket.
And at first glance here, oh yeah, definitely,
definitely a bent pin over here to the right.
This is all it takes folks.
I'm not saying this is the only thing wrong this system,
it very well could be, but yeah, just having one pin
bent slightly outta place in these LGA sockets
and your system will not post.
I'm gonna use a sewing needle like I usually do
to try to bend this pin back into place.
It looks like it just needs to be pushed a bit
closer to the camera.
I've gotta be very gentle here, and bending too much
will snap these pins right out of the socket,
at which point, you're pretty much done.
The damage could probably be repaired professionally
but in an office like this, there's just no way,
you might as well replace the board.
Oh yeah, and this pin is definitely flimsy.
I think that'll do it.
I'm not sure if the camera's seeing it or not,
but the pins look pretty straight now.
Again, I only saw that one that was pushed
a bit to the center where it shouldn't be.
But I'm gonna go ahead and try to power it back on now.
Again, I don't think it's a CPU problem
just because we've replaced, or the viewer has replaced
one of them already, but I do have a ninth gen Intel chip
I could put in here if fixing the pin, if that was
the issue, doesn't solve the no post problem.
And just in case you're wondering, the underside of the CPU
in question looks very clean, no issues here.
So we'll carefully drop the CPU in and we'll close
the socket lever, and we'll load this back up into the case.
Normally, I'd keep this stuff outside, but at this point,
if the motherboard needs to be replaced,
then we're gonna have to take this all back out anyway
in the order of replacement, it'll be a few days down here.
So I'm not too worried about, the extra 30 seconds
of putting this back in the case.
Normally though, if you're troubleshooting,
just keep it out, everything out on a test bench
or something would be much easier.
Let's see then if this is our solution.
So power is on pretty quickly.
HDMI is connected to our swapped in graphics card,
whatever it is, I still need to figure out
what kind of card this is from XFX.
But it isn't looking too good.
Man, I was really hoping that bent pin
would be the solution to our problems.
All right then.
Let's try swapping the CPU out.
I don't think the CPU is the problem.
I think it's the motherboard, but we'll swap it out
just to be on the safe side.
I will say however, that in watching this thing
just kind of chill without sending a signal out,
the system hasn't reset itself since we fixed that bent pin.
So we may have more than one issue on our hands.
I'm gonna try just to rule it out, again,
because it was brought to my attention by the owner,
I'm gonna try moving this DDR4 module to one of the outer
two slots to the different channel.
Because if we have a dead memory channel,
it could be the reason why we're not getting a picture out,
on top of the bent pin, which would've caused the system
to reset the way that it did.
Let's give it a shot.
- [Announcer] 2000 years later.
- Nope.
Once again, in this playlist, we are either back
to the motherboard or the CPU.
So the easier of the two to swap, because I have
one of these on hand is an extra ninth gen Intel core,
I think I have a core i9, like a 9900K, definitely not
what you should be using with a stock Intel cooler,
but we're just gonna swap it out to rule out
his CPU as the issue.
And then if his motherboard is to blame,
that is something I will need to order.
I don't have any B365s laying around.
I might have a replacement Z series equivalent,
which I suppose would be an optimal choice
considering his CPU is a K skew so you can't overclock it,
but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
And with one of my known and working ninth gen Intel chips
in there, that's his old one sitting on the table,
still, a black screen, which means it is very likely
his motherboard which also means
I need to buy a motherboard.
We'll be right back, we're gonna fast forward a few days.
And we're back.
I know it was like a few seconds for you guys,
but for me, it took a few days.
And we have the replacement motherboard.
Now, I went out of my way to order an ATX board
this time around so it'll look a bit better
in his mid tower, he was rocking a micro ATX.
This also does have wifi, his did as well, I'm not sure
if he has a a solid, like, you know, cable LAN connection,
wired LAN.
So I made sure that I also got him a wireless LAN board
like the one that he currently has.
I checked the pins, everything looks really clean here.
It was packaged nicely.
So the only thing to do then is swap over his components
into this platform, and we'll power it up.
This is literally the only thing we have left to swap.
So if this doesn't fix it, I'm just...
I don't know, I'm just gonna throw in the towel,
I don't know, it should fix it though.
We'll get this rear IO shield situated.
We've relocated standoffs to accommodate
the ATX board this time around.
Try to move all these cables out of the way.
It just looks so much better, so much more complete
with the full size motherboard in here, love it.
RTX 2070 going back in, everything has been...
We gotta move one slot down.
Oh, these are the stupid,
like, one time use PCIe slot covers.
That sucks so he's is gonna have a bit of a gap here,
but not the end of the world.
Put this 2070 in here, and yeah, what I was saying is
everything has been rewired including now,
the graphics card.
So we are just about ready, if I can get this stupid cable
connected, we're just about ready to fire it back up
and I'm gonna be crossing everything I got
that this motherboard swap fixes the issue.
Here we are then, this is the moment of truth.
I'm anxious, been building up for several days now
all to this moment.
It just powered off again.
Is there a reason why the fans aren't lighting up?
There it is, that is a post.
I'll get my keyboard, we'll hop into the bios,
enable XMP, whatever I need to take care of.
That's a relief.
So XMP profile one looks good.
We'll tab over to save an exit.
And I think we should boot into windows this time around,
I've got the boot drive as well as the additional storage
drives connected to the motherboard.
The only thing at this point that the owner will need to do
if he wants to tweak anything in the bios, he can take care
of that and also potentially upgrade that CPU cooler
because boy, oh boy, it's gonna need it.
I should probably, actually power these drives on
and connect SATA data on the other side
before attempting to do this.
Sometimes, yeah, sometimes I have a bit
of a brain fart or two.
Eh, here we go.
And looking good on the LEDs again,
we're into windows, fantastic.
Well then, great way to end this one.
Always with good news.
Happy to see the system is back up and running.
We also, I guess in a small sort of way,
gave him a bit of an upgrade because he's got
an ATX motherboard now, which I think fits the case
a bit better.
Still has all the features he's looking for.
The only thing that I again, would recommend he upgrades
is that cooler which is gonna be crippling
that K series i7 skew.
This is the point where usually, I'll get a few folks
in the comments, "Why don't you upgrade them Greg?"
I upgrade almost every single build
that comes into this office, okay?
I can't always do it.
I always try, but I do have a couple of coolers
that I already have allocated for other builds
we're working on that you may or may not
have already seen depending on when I decide
to publish this one.
So I think the big takeaway here is that the system
is working again at least so he can get into his...
Get into his rig and his files and do whatever he needs
to do with it.
So with that, if you guys again have broken systems
and you do live in or around Orlando, Florida,
you have to be local or at least willing to drop it off.
I have people that say, they'll drive eight hours
to come see me and like, "Okay bud but if it takes a week
to fix which in this case, it did because I have to order
stuff, you're either gonna have to drive down here twice,
eight hours each way, or you're gonna have to get a hotel
and stay here for an indefinite amount of time.
That's a lot of pressure on me, especially, because I...
Then I feel like I have to rush to fix it.
And what if I don't fix it?
Then you drove down here for nothing, so just,
that's why I insist on being local because I don't want
to be, you know, I don't know, attacked
for wasting someone's time when that's what I always say
upfront, this could be a flop.
But I'm glad this one worked out.
So if you do have a broken system, again,
the description's gonna have a form where you can, yeah,
sign up to be considered.
If it looks like a hardware issue especially,
is the ones we tend to target first.
And please don't submit the same thing like 20 times.
There's like a couple people who are resubmitting
their same entry over and over and over again
and we just end up blocking those.
Because if they haven't already been considered,
there's probably a reason why.
And we're working on changing the way that our notification
system works on that form so that you're notified
if we either approve or reject the submission.
So growing pains but we'll get there.
Other than that, leave a comment down below.
Let me know what you thought about this one.
Did you get it right?
Did you think it was the motherboard?
I'm not sure what specifically about that board is bad
but we fixed the bent pin issue.
Elsewhere, could be chip set related, could be a fried,
I don't know, transistor, who knows?
But yeah, the end result is at least a positive one.
Consider liking, consider subscribing
and I'll catch you in the next one.
My name is Greg, thanks for learning with me.