Fixing a Viewer's BROKEN Gaming PC? - Fix or Flop S5:E6

[@rockerbuck967]

Mistake # 1 - Letting Geek Squad touch touch it. Mistake # 2 - Adding Norton. But hey, we all live and learn. Great video!!

[@Joreel]

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.

[@steveblease]

Same....seems so long ago now.

[@NowThatsPCGaming]

Norton in 2024??? facts!!! Back in the late 90s, Norton used to be useful, somewhat lol. Damn, I'm old.

[@WatcherKoops4677]

I once let Geek finish and correct my mistakes on my first PC build. The result was not horrible.

[@makaiwise4609]

Sounds like mistake 1 and 2 are the same since they’re the ones who installed Norton

[@jamieleehartley-c7s]

i had an issue with my rig and watching your video's helped me fix it for free. keep up the great content greg

[@GregSalazar]

Thanks for watching!

[@medraawd]

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

[@Joreel]

Second this as I'd like to know if it stayed fixed or if the issue returned.

[@groenevinger3893]

as somone who was fixing pcs before this guy was born..i still like his videos

[@StrixLuke]

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!

[@TwiLightVids]

Exactly what I thought, doubt geek squad actually disassembled like Greg did and put it all back together

[@beasty7063]

I thought the size of the graphics card was pushing on the IO connector making it slightly loose.

[@Joreel]

​@@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.

[@f4u5t00]

Yeah, it was some cable/slot connection issue and Salazar reseating everything 10s of times fixed it.

[@dhgodzilla1]

My thoughts exactly, the extensions were probly randomly not working

[@Eric-0153]

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.

[@Wabajck]

I was thinking this too. Should have touched it to another material just to be thurough

[@leevi6026]

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.

[@Goldstacker1972-kp2bh]

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.

[@Stratos1988]

THIS

[@uberjedisniper]

Greg lying on the floor contemplating life is my new favorite segment.

[@dmxerkan]

This is the most useful series in any tech channel. We are really bored of product reviews.

[@tradingnichols2255]

I guess I am! :D

[@notatechguy1209]

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.

[@Roman8707]

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.

[@dashkatae]

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.

[@jeffreyoldham55]

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.

[@djtribo8925]

Agreed!

[@Pestilence86]

PFM... Pure Fucking Magic?

[@DoktorJammified]

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.

[@patbluetree4636]

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?

[@TheBrownSys]

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.

[@bertro514]

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.

[@SaraMorgan-ym6ue]

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

[@DanteJDM]

"Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling it?" goes hand in hand with "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

[@yissnakklives8866]

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!!!"

[@tradingnichols2255]

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.

[@nps5886]

Don't forget to jiggle the cord!

[@shreyasdharashivkar8027]

@@nps5886 don't forget to turn the power strip on

[@belizoalves1719]

Not the Norton Vírus!

[@cael_1303]

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.

[@SaraMorgan-ym6ue]

viewers breaking their shit again🤣

[@sp00n]

Im really sad they destroyed the brand name as they have. Norton Commander was great!

[@ArctecGemini]

A Norton virus is peak irony 😂

[@SaraMorgan-ym6ue]

@@ArctecGemini 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🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

[@mcwolfbeast]

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.

[@kaseyboles30]

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.

[@yamisniper]

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)

[@TheMatthewLedbetter]

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

[@kaseyboles30]

@@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.

[@Spartan536]

I used to work for Best Buy's Geek Squad, and Circuit City's Firedog, as well as Staples Easy Tech, but that was almost 15 years ago. Some people I worked with back then were IT professionals and knew what they were doing, others were people that just took a class on how to build a PC and then thought they could get into troubleshooting. One of the first things I check when systems do this is the PSU, check to make sure its getting the right voltages, then check the power draw of the system as sometimes older PSU's can't deliver the power required due to capacitance discharge over time, then I start checking all the connections to the motherboard. By following that checklist I can definitively narrow down the culprit without losing my mind as to why "X" problem is happening. Love the series Greg, keep it up!

[@JohnCraig-y6f]

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!

[@SextonHardcastle85]

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.

[@andrewmurray1550]

doing what they did is like a mechanic doing a complete engine rebuild when all you need is a set of sparkplugs.

[@brent8255]

The power led polarity appears to be swapped on the extention at 6:20 in. Perhaps this was the cause of the intermittent issue.🤔

[@watercannonscollaboration2281]

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

[@tradingnichols2255]

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.

[@yissnakklives8866]

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....

[@jsteezy80]

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?

[@yissnakklives8866]

@@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

[@RobausYTTV]

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!

[@Valfaun]

that is the most utilitarian build i've seen in a long time

[@johndouglas8846]

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.

[@brandon_gb]

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

[@PhilipHouston-u5q]

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.

[@annareismith6843]

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.

[@SaraMorgan-ym6ue]

is the issue it overheating? from to much dust in it?🤔

[@itsnotludo]

This series is always on my recommended when I open KZbin and I’m here for it, love this videos

[@exxor9108]

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.

[@johncundiff7075]

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!

[@gamerdweebentertainment1616]

How did the client know there's bloatware, if he couldn't boot the PC...

[@sig3ldunc4nI]

@@gamerdweebentertainment1616He said the computer would boot intermittently.

[@TooBokoo]

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

[@gamerdweebentertainment1616]

@@sig3ldunc4nI even after "repair"? ok

[@chippercash4942]

The POWER SWITCH if you can tell its completely off center that happened in my old old rig that pin is bent would power on cycle off or not turn on. Straightned pin and pushed it back down. System worked until i retired it. Pause at 6:15 and 2 of the connectors are loose that's why jumping it worked immediately. Only other thing you changed at the time was gpu and we know it wasn't that

[@jakethis3355]

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.

[@razorsz195]

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.

[@MrPruske]

14:50 could be the hdd front panel pins were touching the gpu or mobo, also, that is a lot of gpu sag, more heat and vibrations might be bending it too far? also also, that is a tight bend on the gpu power cables and i would give them a good jostling when running to see if there is maybe an internal break. seen it more than once

[@duby149]

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.

[@klorslug]

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!

[@justsumguy2u]

I wouldn't be surprised if the motherboard is intermittently shorting out on something, like a standoff where it shouldn't be, part of the case, etc. There's also a bit of GPU sag, too---maybe intermittent connection?

[@twrex-13]

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!

[@GB-zi6qr]

Believe it or not, some times just reseating a plug is the fix. Great video.

[@TheRobstar1983]

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.

[@squalley]

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

[@Houtka86]

The strange ones are always very fun to watch. Love thinking along during the process.

[@Miniputt_999]

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

[@SimonZerafa]

@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 🙂🖖

[@gamertrem1884]

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

[@TheXentios]

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.

[@nbrowser]

Greg's awkward entery into the shot...love it as it's good for a giggle.

[@chaz21b]

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.

[@warpspeedracer]

I have a Torrent compact. Similar case. The power button was sticky on mine.

[@DOPES4MAGA]

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.

[@jsteezy80]

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

[@tradingnichols2255]

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.

[@wallychambe1587]

I cringe every time I see Greg use a screw driver on the power pins! They have wired push buttons on Amazon!!😲

[@dogecode386]

3:45 The only problem is they’ll inevitably dry-rot and break after a certain amount of time and then the fans fall out. All rubber bands seem to do that after a few years

[@joshman5217]

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.

[@CrimFerret]

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.

[@tech1m502]

FoF is my fav series on yt, gotta love it!

[@Freddie1980]

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.

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

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..

[@DameshofDunemaul]

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.

[@jsteezy80]

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

[@DameshofDunemaul]

@@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.

[@pork123100]

At least you are not boring. Good educational video for pc.

[@caedis_]

From the short glimpse at 6:22, it looks like the power led header is reveresed in the extensions. Negative is connecting to the red wire. Can't tell if its a red/black wire

[@GregSalazar]

Polarity was correct for LED pins IIRC. Checked it up close later in the video.

[@dennishudson9723]

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.

[@tfawns1147]

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.

[@fredericktaels3880]

At 6:22 : is the power led + connected to black wire (GND)? Shouldn't cause these issues, but looked wrong to me?

[@muteaquariumnerd8080]

I'm proud to tell you that I reset my Cmos today and that fixed my issue

[@AdmrlSpeedy]

What was the issue?

[@narwhal9852]

Lol

[@HugoFaria-AZ]

6:20 you can see the power led wires wrongly connected.. + on black and - on red..

[@lotsoflife8236]

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!

[@AtomicAJ74]

Am I the only one who noticed? Do a slow frame at 6:21 and check the Power LED connectors. They were swapped. The case connector for Power LED has the positive side up top, and the motherboard connector/jumper has the Power LED positive side down (red wire).

[@OtakuAnime01]

Very hard to notice at 6:22 I see the red wire coming out of POWER LED by your left thumb is on the bottom of that connector, while the POWER LED+ is on the top in your right hand. Red wire is usually live and Black wire for Ground. I can't tell if the wire above the Red wire by your left thumb is black or not. Possibly the right wires are switched? Again hard to tell but you also got it back up and running in the end. I'm not a hardware expert so I'm also a bit clueless.

[@blaster-vv8so]

It sounds like reseating the graphics card fully fix the problem. it may have been loose or the pcie power cables were loose

[@Mortal_Synz]

Maybe the painted backplate was insulating the short and it was hitting a screw or a pin or something before?

[@kamui004]

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.

[@xxrune909]

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.

[@TimBoundy]

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.

[@matthijsvandeweerd1415]

4:14 you can see the HDD LED wiring touching the GPU. I think what happened is as soon as it tried initializing the HDD (thus illuminating the LED) it shorted. Unplugging that fixes it. I bet that 1070 doesnt conduct electricity as well, cuz it wasn't powering off.

[@DeviRSilva]

6:22 "Power LED - " is connected to the red wire (so it is switched around). Could it have been it? Done that multiple times by mistake and all I got was no led working ..everything else worked fine.

[@EinhanderSn0m4n]

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!

[@MeepMeep88]

5:34 dang, I'm not brave enough to flex the gpu like that nor is my hand that long to reach the release. I've got this long flat piece of hard plastic that I can stick between the the gpu and the heatsink and it just pops that lever right out.

[@philrdaly]

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.

[@jsteezy80]

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

[@davidhines7592]

a short sounds likely because the psu refused to turn on sometimes after the system briefly started then shut down. that sounds like the psu protecting itself, and switching off at the psu reset the trip switch. if the cable in question ran close to fan blades and got vibrated, it might intermittently make contact and short sometimes and even trip the psu self protection; and contact a painted surface other times and not short at all.

[@MurpheeLaw]

I agree with your assessment. Probably a snagged cable or short. The powering on and subsequent, " oh shit!" Shut down suggests that.

[@stephenhood2948]

I wonder if it could be an issue with a solder joint on the PCI connecter on the motherboard?? If this was mine I would very closely inspect that connecters solder joints for a loose pin where it is attached to the motherboard. I wonder if carrying it around, maybe set it in the back of your car and bring it back in would result in another failure to POST?? These new giant GPUs can put a lot of strain on a PCI connecter, if it left the factory with a marginal solder joint a giant 3080 could have dealt the death blow?? Or not, just something to consider.

[@genesisfan029]

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!

[@vinnyfisher1776]

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.

[@scottseverson4311]

I had a bad DP cable that did this to my machine. I want to say it was from Monoprice. Got a new cable, never had the issue again. Reset GPU, remove C14 and open PSU switch, then drain caps with the momentary. That would be the only way for it to post.

[@wolfydan121]

one thing i have notice when working on other peoples pc is i always check the motherboard screws as i have found some are in the wrong place and short it out starts power cycling and works sometimes and even has little bend in the board

[@mizinoinovermyhead.7523]

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.

[@EastyyBlogspot]

I do wonder with front IO connectors....they have remained pretty much the same for so many years really would have thought we would have got something else by now

[@Lichti82]

Was it a kind of reflection or did I just see an unloading flash at 13:55 (close to 13:56) after Greg put his fingers away? I used YT frame skip

[@ejeckk]

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.

[@rayweston2298]

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

[@TheRoamingHistoryador]

I believe that the PC case should be replaced, because it cannot accommodate the parts inside. Plus the connection is very difficult to manage.

[@anonymousinc6330]

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.

[@danielpajkic9798]

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.

[@essentialone1]

Im paused at 11;15 as this reminds me of a very similar issue i spent hours troubleshooting, pc did same, turned out the PCI cables had been used from different PSU so wasn't powering up when GPU was connected but worked when not, Corsair type 4 cables do not work with gigabyte psu was my advice to customer, no mix and matching.

[@fredsorre6605]

I would run the power supply test in OCCT for a few hours just to make sure it's fully stable and that the issue does not pop up when the computer is on full load or after it comes from full load I have seen some broken processors in the past where they would work fine until you fully load them and then they start to show issues afterwards.

[@DeathGrandMaster]

I've had some problems with the same pattern, once it was the USB front connectors that didnt allow my PC to boot jsut like this one, the other was the cooler mount pressure that was too high and the memory slots werent being recognized causing the PC to kept on loop trying to boot, and the last one was a strange one with the windows drivers that wouldn't allow me to boot with the GPU, and to fix it i booted on CPU alone and reinstalled drivers for the GPU and it worked again. Eletronics are just like magic sometimes

[@johnqsak]

One weird thing I had couple weeks ago, customers PC stopped POST, after RAM upgrade. or so they thought. It switched to iGPU. would not see their GPU at all. after all test parts and trying their GPU in our DEMO PC and working. I found that the AIO cooler was not screwed down tight enough, after screwing it down the GPU was seen and working fine since.

[@Epico-Maniac]

have you checked the CPU pins? sometimes a bent CPU/motherboard pin causes these sorts of issues...

[@NaotoTainaka]

I had this exact issues before! It took many hours to diagnose it, I even took out RAM and my GPU to see if it at least turns on--but nothing. So, everytime I turn the switch on the PSU and then press the power button on the case, the PC turns on for a second and then turns off immediately, and then if you try to power it on after that, you just get nothing, you have to switch off the PSU and switch it back on before pressing the power button on the case for it to turn on for a second before turning off, and then nothing if you try to turn it on again. The symptom does mean that something is shorted. I accidentally fix it by.....literally just touching the PSU cables when I took it out of the case (didn't unplug anything). To elaborate; my PC did this weird power thing after I clean it and push some cables around (just to make it tidier), so when the power issue happened I EVENTUALLY assumed that maybe something got unplugged when I cleaned it, and so that's why I took the PSU out to see the connections on the cables--and nope, nothing got unplugged, but I did push on every cable to make sure it's plugged in properly (there wasn't even any play on any of the cables, all were connected properly). And then after I put the PSU back in the case and press the power button.......it just turns on, that's it, nothing was wrong with my PC at all. So I think the PC this episode might have the exact same issue as mine was--just some cable not properly...connected? Somehow??? It's literally just needed "unplug it then plug it back in" type of fix 💀💀

[@theamazingalsome]

KZbin put an ad right when you first tapped the hdd led to the GPU. As much as I dislike ads, gotta give them props for that one, lol.

[@alanaeichsteadt]

I’m only at 8:11 in the video but as soon as you powered it on the first time I was like oh! That’s a short somewhere.

[@BeastofBourdon]

check the cpu, intermittent power up failures are common for bent pins and seating issues. Especially having a big cooler like that, a seating issue could change behaviours every time the case shifts

[@lexluthermiester]

@GregSalazar Maybe that DriveLED connector was shorting on something important and you have solved that problem by unplugging and reseating everything. This has happened to me a few times.

[@thomasjackson9218]

In the Thermal Grizzly ad, was the voice over Steve from Gamers Nexus? Sure sounded like him.