Fixing a Viewer's BROKEN Gaming PC? - Fix or Flop S5:E19

[@leonardocirizola6659]

@GregSalazar, thank you very much for the assistance. I was not aware of the firmware bug. I was able to purchase an adapter off Amazon and recover the files that I needed with my docs and such. Again thank you.

[@GregSalazar]

Glad you're back up and running with recovered docs! Thanks again for making the drive!

[@kennymilsom]

@@GregSalazar This is the reason I use " OneDrive ". Knowing that my important files and photo's are backed up in a cloud is very comforting.

[@stuartround]

@@mr2miach I was going to say the same, if you have a second 2TB drive and important files you never want to lose, take a backup. You can schedule backups with Macrium reflect, and if you enable virtualisation you can even mount your backups and boot from them, like a virtual machine. It makes reinstalling Windows so much easier, you can have the new installation and the old one running at the same time and move files across super easily.

[@randomph7569]

​@GregSalazar I find peace in watching your videos...

[@xXDarthBagginsXx]

@@mr2miach Also Clonezilla is another option - can capture the image so it can be easily cloned to a new drive as if nothing happened. Personally used to running Clonezilla or Acronis, but I get Acronis for free due to a PE toll I have access to.

[@ChairmanMeow1]

Nothings worse in the world than sitting down with coffee at your PC to start your day and the PC is totally borked.

[@GregSalazar]

100%. Will ruin your day, guaranteed.

[@Sup_D]

Well, once my sister sat to do work on PC with coffee on side, which she accidentally spilled on the "Keyboard" later, and it crashed the whole PC. I mean, the coffee fell on the Keyboard and no where else, but the PC just crashed out because of it, and didn't want to boot back up again. Had to take it to a technician who thought that the issue was with the RAM, so used an eraser to clean the pins on the RAM sticks, and the PC worked after that.

[@Adam1984_]

@@Sup_D I'm certainly no expert, but the only reason I can see a spill on the keyboard affecting the RAM is if it was a laptop. In that case, the spill would've gotten inside and reached who knows what other components.

[@Sup_D]

@@Adam1984_ It was my old Desktop PC, and it happened nearly 12+ years ago.

[@Adam1984_]

@@Sup_D Yeah, I'm very confused how a spill on the keyboard had any affect on the RAM. It must have already been defective or something. Who knows.

[@jamesnissel]

The Samsung 980 Pro had a firmware bug where it basically bricked itself after a certain amount of time or usage. It's possible they never updated the firmware to avoid it.

[@nyghtzzz]

Its also possible they turned it into a boomerang and threw it around the outback. I think they tried to do that.

[@josanchez1536]

There is an update on the Samsung website. But the damage already done is permanent

[@chrismoule7242]

Yes I remember updating mine as soon as I got it because I was aware of this issue & so were they...

[@TewaAya]

Only for 980 pro or other nvme? My windows 10 980 had to be reset since all the files are gone.

[@sovereigntyofvoyagers7380]

I've had a 970 evo plus that went "read only" when it was my boot drive, and when that happened it didn't blue screen at all. It only booted to the bios, and I only figured out it went read only after I installed Windows on another drive and tried to recover files. I think the drive here still partially works, but not enough for it to possibly boot into Windows at all.

[@ribeirinhu]

that guy just wanted the free cable-management

[@GregSalazar]

Don't we all.

[@jamesolcott4388]

Yes we do

[@gamerforever5105]

@@GregSalazar hahahahaha yes indid ,lucky florida residents for having this amazing guys fixing for free,i want to give my new AM5 platform so he can fix my fan lighting and to enhance the performance for better gaming

[@mtgcardzandreview2756]

You know free cable management can worth it's weight in gold.

[@ThePanickedMonk]

I'd be cool with a mini series on cable management. Here we have Fix or Flop, perhaps Tuck & Tidy - How to manage your cables :)

[@JohnCraig-y6f]

I'm an ancient Yorkshireman who's been building and using PC's for over 30 years. I cannot, for the life of me, understand how people are unable to comprehend how important it is to keep backups of critical information! I even have members of my own family who come crying to me about how they have lost all those important pictures and music files which are so precious. Every time I ask about if they have a backup I get a blank look, ( Huh?) I've got to the stage where I tell them to go to a repair shop and ask about data retrieval rather than spend another minute banging my head against a brick wall! OK! Rant over! I still love this series because even after all this time I can still learn new stuff! Thanks Greg! 😇😇😇

[@GregSalazar]

Thanks for the insight! Back up for important docs, folks!

[@caphowdy666]

In this day and age, you have so many options. With internal storage, external storage and of course the cloud. One of my most important things on my PC is my music collection. I have that backed up onto at least three different drives. Back when I only had a small 500gb drive in an old PC, I was never able to have it on the PC itself and used to have a single external drive and my MP3 player which was also 500gb that had all my music on, and somehow they both went tits up at the same time. I was thankfully able to recover what was probably 300gb of music off the MP3 player over the course of several hours as it would stay on a few mins at a time allowing me to pull files of piece by piece and only lost one single MP3. Since that I now have a PC with a much bigger internal drive, plus a secondary internal drive, and a couple more external back ups. Photos and docs etc are saved to the cloud. Oh and I should also say that I had a friend with a PC that was obviously having HDD issues many years ago and I managed to get it all working again for him, but I told him to buy an external and back everything up as I could guarantee his drive was not going to last. Every couple of weeks I would ask if he had done it, and even gave him links to well priced reliable HDDs (this was pre SSD). Every week he would say the same "I am gonna do it". One day he messaged me to say his HDD had died again. So I said "Well at least you have everything backed up, right?" I think you can guess his answer. I said to him "Well guess what, you are fucked as I am not gonna waste my time trying to recover it again"

[@JohnCraig-y6f]

@@caphowdy666 Good story my friend! Keep spreading the word!🙏🙏🙏

[@lockabar]

Backups don't always work I recently lost about 1TB of data. I had copied the files to an external drive and when the original drive went bad I plugged the external dive in to retrieve the files and discovered that drive was dead too. I'm not sure how this even happened. The original dive was a Western Digital and the backup was a Samsung. Both were mechanical drives. The Western Digital was about 5-6 years old and the Samsung about 2 years old.

[@geofftottenperthcoys9944]

@@caphowdy666 I backup everything important, but NOT to the cloud.

[@jbanar36]

Windows: "Critical Process Error." Alright Windows, what process? Windows: *shrug*

[@TheBlueBunnyKen]

I have a critical error regarding Call of Duty Black Ops 3, no other games. Tried eevrything to fix it, but gave up and uninstalled the game

[@Yuriel1981]

Windows: can't tell it errored. Lol good luck bruh.

[@krtwood]

It was the process that was going to explain what process died that died.

[@JeffDeWitt]

Have you ever had to deal with LabVIEW? Sometimes the error messages are actually helpful, but more often than not it's just gibberish or something as generic as that Windows error.

[@samsowden]

What process? A critical one.

[@animedrawer69]

A tip for people that want to recover files from a drive that won't load windows. You can install Linux to a USB drive and copy files that way.

[@eaglegaming88]

Or you can use Hiren’s BootCD PE to recover and backup of data, which can be recovered.

[@zellar1]

Bent? How? WOW! Never seen that before! Crazy! Good hunt it down and fix!

[@danielhulan3058]

I love the illustration of a broken solder joint on a bga chip, Greg. Lol it was awesome!

[@danielhulan3058]

Also Greg, those 980 pros have issues if they were manufactured in Vietnam in like 2021 (or other year, double check that) and doesnt have the firmware patch. The files become corrupt and it locks the drive down. If you do the firmware patch before the corruption it will be fine but if the files become corrupt, theres nothing you can do. I have 3 980's in my rig that all fall in that batch of messed up drives and they are fine because i used samsung magician to patch the firmware.

[@GregSalazar]

This is great to know. I should have researched this in the video in the off chance there was some sort of bulletin on this specific drive.

[@Dirtzoo]

Play fix that Samsung magician you can download the updated firmware for that

[@Dirtzoo]

Doesn't that motherboard have a self test for M2 drives in the bios?

[@Lurch-Bot]

In general, keeping firmware up to date is a good idea.

[@Caderynwolf]

this "might" explain the issue I've been trying to figure out with a friends PC. Basically the gpu only works when pressure is put on the case (we place a 1.5L bottle of water on top - problem goes away), if soldering has issues it might be the extra pressure on the case means proper contact is being made in gpu socket. Tried everything else I can think of/can't think of anything else it could be.

[@marre2355]

Exactly what i needed right now.. fix or flop episode.. Really love this series...

[@foxfff123123]

PSA, there was also a defective firmware for the 980Pro drives, that can be updated via Samsung Magician software. The bugged firmware affects units from 2021 and it results in degrading detected storage capacity and eventually forces the drive into a read-only state. The drive at that point cannot be recovered. To avoid premature drive death, if using an affected unit, download the latest firmware and experience a trouble free 980 Pro

[@bmanrockwell2174]

Greg has discovered the banana SSD

[@nightbirdds]

So, that Samsung 980 Pro has issues. Someone already mentioned the firmware update, but I have worked on a system recently where I did that firmware update long ago when it first came out. The bending is heat related, and it just seems like those drives get too hot for their own good. Data might be recoverable if hooked up as a secondary. In my case I wasn't able to boot that drive, but I could read the contents if I hooked it up via a USB enclosure.

[@GroetenUitNederland]

Always looking forward to another Fix or Flop episode. Learned so much from both the onscreen content and from lots of comments from other viewers. Greg shows it all. Even if something goes wrong. Thanks Greg 💯

[@Molasar54]

Another Great video. I have dealt with pc's since 1989, but you can always learn new things. Thanks so much for posting your interesting videos. Hope the new house is doing well.

[@barrystone2186]

At around the 6 minute mark you remove the nvme heatsink along with the drive attached. From what I could see there was no retention stand off or screw holding the other end of the drive in. High temps and bad mounting pressure seem to have adhered the unsecured drive which would contribute it it bending like that. It seems you edited it in a way so we did not see the missing drive standoff.

[@kapeq2320]

seems like just yesterday that he started the series. keep it up and cant wait for PCDC to continue as well

[@angeldelagarzajr9464]

I want to say thank you for these types of videos. A couple weeks ago I went to turn on my PC and it would boot and it gave me a cpu and dram debug light. I took the time to test every item and discovered it was PSU issue. Your videos help me not freak out and look for the problem.

[@tylermengele7567]

love the videos greg. been here since season 1 and have fixed my pc a few times on my own from the things you’ve taught me

[@leifgunnartoth8070]

So nice to see a "simple" fix aswell. Not all have to be tested for hours and hours on end to find the fault. Another perfect job, and happy gamer :D

[@Miniputt_999]

This is fresh knowledge for me, so this was good information, always enjoy a FoF video :D Looking forward to the next one :D

[@marioStortuga]

I feel like I was back in school 7:14 great Job Greg

[@craven3190]

Lessons learned. Back up back up back up. My backup strategy is to use Acronis I set my back up for the 28th of the month. It backs up to an 8 TB hard drive in a dock. I get a notice on my phone on the 27th to turn the drive on. And after the backup, I turned it back off that way ransomware cannot encrypt the drive if I get infected. Acronis true image has a lot of other great features.

[@WizardsBear]

Awesome job. At 76 and though I can trace back pre Commodore 64 or Colt, technology long ago passed me by. Your videos have at the very least often given me a starting point to what is wrong or what to avoid on future buys. Thank you.

[@duncanwilliams2350]

I don't blame you for just going for the "I clean my hands of this approach," but I might've tried to at least dd the drive to a new one while it still sort-of worked.

[@GregSalazar]

Not worth the risk IMO. Would rather someone who's specialized and insured (specifically in the data recovery realm) tackle it.

[@mymojoinyourjojo6655]

Kinda feels nice to see other guys using these little boxes as gpu holders tbh 😂😂

[@Airbigbawls]

My case came with a gpu holder but my gpu is so big that it would sit in the middle and look weird. it doesn't sag so i don't have anything there but the box would be a better option lol. Also it's supposed to be mounted from the motherboard mounting screws.

[@rainerbehrendt9330]

Some Motherboards make use of a little Spacer for some NVME (i think single sided) to prevent Bending. This is a litttle Piece of Foam with doubleside Tape.

[@pieteryts]

just around 30 min ago, my son just called me with the same BSOD. after a reset, the drive are not detected. it seems the BSOD are related to loading windows with intermitten drives. as for my son PC, I'm going to replace his SATA SSD with NVME one in the future. nice troubleshooting one man. you nailed it in the first try.

[@emmettdaster]

I absolutely love fix or flop. I am a bit of a nerd so this is great entertainment for me lol. I have learned alot about troubleshooting because of this series. Also someday I want to fix computers for people too! Thanks for all you do Greg. Keep it up

[@GregSalazar]

I've learned a ton from it as well! Thanks a ton for the support.

[@hodaboy1]

Michigan here. It would be great if you could do a video with a recovery expert in the future. I would like to see how they can get broken ssd/m.2 to run again long enough to get files and photos from.

[@johngangemi1361]

That SSD is broken for sure. It has cracked the PCB tracks or broken the solder joints. The SSD mounting screw is there for a reason. The screws should not be overtightened either. Nice rig. Good troubleshooting Greg.

[@pcbuilderlover4271]

I am glad it all worked out. Looks like the original Samsung drive was not installed correctly. Looks like it was sitting on top of the hold down tab. Then the heatsink pressed in hard. The owner should be told to install the drive first and have it support itself before installing the heat shield.

[@mikefellhauer3350]

You should have mentioned for the important non-replaceable files backing up (like the 3-2-1 backup method). There's no excuse, other than laziness, to loose irreplaceable files. People laugh at me, but as a photographer I still have a Bluray burner that I use for one of my backup methods (in addition to external SSD and a RAID drive).

[@jeffreyparker9396]

The one thing that I would say is that you can encounter the blue screens when drivers load and some of the drivers load pretty early in the boot process. In these cases you can get the same or similar symptoms without the drive being the problem.

[@dirkjewitt5037]

Certain 980 pro's were failing in 2023. So, it depends on what serial number you get. I have both a 980 and 990 pro. I'm just counting down the days.

[@BreakingDimes]

It's a firmware bug update the firmware you avoid that

[@danutlucian1911]

In every video we learn something new!!! Great video!

[@Ladioz]

Greg I love that sag bracket. You made me buy it. Well done Lian Li!!! What a great product! PS. I hate those metallic sticks that people use on their high end builds. This is much better

[@mysticalpotato86]

Agreed, they make it look so unfinished.

[@lakephillip]

I've had that problem, however I put drive in an enclosure was able to get data. Formatted the Drive, and Disk Info It passes it.

[@benjamintan2733]

Yeah, like you said, the memory chip contact may have disconnected, which resulted in system kernel panic. The chip may still be good and the data may be in good condition. But just to remind everyone: backup your data often, and DO NOT store sensitive data in your OS Drive. This is in case your OS corrupted or the disk drive failed, your data will go with it especially Windows 11 now bit lock your OS drive and extracting the data requires you to punch in the decryption keys.

[@Mech4MS]

At least my guy is trying to fix his GPU sag, you don't know how much it hurts when I see sagged GPU's on your channel man

[@Lurch-Bot]

Pretty easy to fix that drive, for someone who has SMT rework skills. The PCB is toast but you could swap the NAND flash over to another working drive to recover the files.

[@kens32052]

Once booted into Windows I would have plugged the drive in an external drive caddy to see if it was recognized by Windows.

[@rulewski33]

My First Guess was immediately the SSD as i had the same Problem the SSD was dying. Put in in a new One and it worked like a Champ again

[@djGLCKR]

The moment I saw 980 Pro. the first thing that came to mind was the firmware fiasco from a couple of years ago. Maybe the drive got stuck in read-only mode due to accelerated degradation? MAYBE it's viewable as a secondary drive, perhaps on a Linux live CD? Although the bend reminded me of a drive I bought not too long ago that looked _slightly_ bent and couldn't be recognized by two PCs. RMA'd it, everything went okay, ended up with a 2TB upgrade.

[@AssassinModerPL]

There is a rubber piece under SSD and there are 2 variants of it, one is for single sided chips and second one for dual sided chips. Viewer might use wronge one or 2 of it. Also might be bad placing on the screw side

[@desolatefix]

u know...if it has 2 slots for m.2 u can hook the new drive up load it once loaded then hook the old m.2 drive up and since its not the main drive or running the os u can just pull the data off that way would also help in the future to have an external m.2 drive enclosure for just such an occasion

[@GregSalazar]

Yes, I know... and like I said, I didn't want to touch that drive any further once we discovered it was the issue due to sensitive files. We removed it and set it aside.

[@smallville2407]

I so enjoy these 😃

[@GregSalazar]

I appreciate your viewership!

[@b0ne91]

I just wanted to point out that it's perfectly possible to get into the BIOS with broken RAM or a CPU. Ryzen with dead cores or heavily degraded cores or cache is 100% BIOS stable but then will instantly BSOD when loading Windows unless you disable the cores, fix voltages or frequencies, etc. For RAM, often just one IC becomes unstable and you need to read/write memory to it and maybe even just the broken cells to trigger the BSOD. It could've also become unstable at certain voltages and not be able to handle advertised timings anymore but be perfectly fine running at JEDEC spec. Only the most broken of RAM (or an unstable RAM overclock) will mess up your BIOS and can even corrupt it. You can even "trick" the board into booting with unstable timings by choosing lose primaries and then using tertiaries that are way too tight. It'll break Windows processes by corrupting them and only a re-install will help - if you can make it to Windows.

[@PileOfEmptyTapes]

Can confirm. Had a laptop with what seemed to be a semi-dead i5-8250U recently (deballing?). Got into BIOS fine but couldn't boot Windows, hung at detection in Memtest86, could start Memtest86+ but after a while it either threw a pagefault (never seen that before) or once just went blank. Super weird. No, the RAM was fine. Temps were OK, paste changed anyway, no dice. Our old Sandy / Ivy Bridge rigs with socketed CPUs were more reliable...

[@DiegoPCMR]

A man of fine taste. I have that same case. Amazing space though it is a bit difficuly to make cable management.

[@BowsettesFury]

That’s the most bent SSD I’ve ever seen 😂

[@michaelthompson9798]

It’s amazing how many people I hear don’t backup their drives with personal data / photos and then complain about losing their data ….. a usb external drive is cheap and been imo essential for many years now 😇👍

[@IanTheCat]

Just had a Laptop that did the same thing, had to completely wipe and re-install windows. worked perfectly fine after

[@westfield90]

Nice job Greg

[@HOBOTw1tcH]

“My Dr said a bent stick was okay” Greg “nah it’s deballed”

[@viperdemonz-jenkins]

you do not want a bent stick not very effective.

[@genkugames9616]

It doesn't necessarily need to be deballed but i'll be damned if i saw a chip like that and instantly assumed it does work, greg has his fair share of flopping, but I'm with him on this one

[@studiotwopointeight]

@@genkugames9616 dude the "bent stick" was a metaphor for certain human anatomy. lol

[@Trainbuff26]

If you do have a failing hard drive or solid state drive, is there any kind of realistic fix for them at the consumer level, at least enough to get your data off of them? Or is it a "Turn it off and take it to a professional ASAP" kind of deal?

[@alexh.9550]

Weird thing is that you’re talking to a camera, but if you’re talking to a camera that means when we the viewers watch the video looks like you’re talking to us, great video lol

[@simplysimon966]

Great video thanks Greg 😊

[@fortunefiderikumo]

nice having some simple fixes now and then

[@kalmtraveler]

so that bent m.2 drive seems to be somewhat common - due to thermal pads which are too thick. This is on the motherboard's heatsink. I had the same issue on an Asus ITX Z790 board but I noticed the bend right at the start and replaced the Asus 2mm pads with better 0.5mm pads which got rid of the bend. Drive has been fine for 1.5 years so far.

[@spookyghost7524]

I think the most important lesson from this is have backups, your hardware can be replaced easily, your important files not so much.

[@CoreyPL]

This is why I hate most of the motherboard heatsink m.2 solutions, especially those single slotted top ones. I have seen so many banana drives with the PCs that I service that were not user/builder errors. Most of the time the drive has no support from the bottom side. This makes the thermal pad to not have enough resistance from the drive to compress properly and in effect will bend the thin PCB of the drive instead. When I'm assembling a PC for someone the above is the reason I always mount the drive on the motherboard and do a visual inspection before I place it in the case. I often carefully lessen the tightness on the heatsink screw until I see full thermalpad cover while the drive is not bending. Some motherboard manufacturers started to include rubber support for a single and doublesided drives a while ago, which is great. If there isn't one, I just cut out a piece of the rubber and add it with a double sided tape. Few cent solution can save you a big headache later on. Or if a client is ok with that, I just use aftermarket m.2 heatsink or chose a drive with proper heatsink builtin.

[@eaglegaming88]

I had similar critical process died and kernel error, which was problem with my almost dead storage device.

[@empowergamingcomputers]

Was the drive missing the standoff that supported the drive?

[@peterwstacey]

I'm always a bit suspicious of those M.2 covers on motherboards, as they apply extra stress on the M.2 boards. Personally I remove them and if the M.2 device needs a heatsink then use one that comes with it

[@brandon_gb]

Great watch btw. Love the orange

[@GregSalazar]

Much appreciated!

[@ytQrash]

Bent SSDs in early M.2 equipped motherboards. A friend's daughter bought a used computer and I examined it after it was purchased. I noticed the M.2 drive was slightly slanted; one end was higher than the other. Over time this could cause an SSD to become bent and possibly damaged. M.2 sockets (connectors) come in different heights and the fastening post must be the correct height to keep the drive parallel to the motherboard surface. The Asus ROG STRIX B450-F Gaming motherboard has two M.2 sockets, M.2_1 which is closest to the CPU and M.2_2. Asus provides two M.2 Screw Packages which consist of a fastening screw and the post for the screw. The post has to be screwed into the motherboard first. These days, the posts are almost always preinstalled. I examined the slanted M.2 SSD drive in the M.2_1 socket more closely and saw the M.2_1 socket was a different height than the M.2_2 socket. The fastening posts provided in the two M.2 screw packages were different heights and the wrong one was used for M.2_1. I removed the SSD drive and replaced the wrong post with the post from the other unopened screw package and then re-installed the drive into M.2_1. Now the SSD was parallel to the motherboard surface, i.e. no longer slanted. I attached the post that has been used for M.2_1 into the M.2_2 socket's 2280 hole (and the other fastening screw) so it would be ready for possible use in the future.

[@jaro6985]

This person didn't even install the m2 retention screw, so if it was slanted and bent when heatsink was installed, its on them for not following the instructions.

[@xxAmiir24xx]

why are this videos so addictive :)

[@asherdales]

Good thing Greg did the repair for the series because that data recovery is going to expensive.

[@awesomereview2358]

On the ball grid array, or BGA most people don’t know that was the cause of the red ring of death on the Xbox 360 because Microsoft was using cheap non-lead based solder, which had a problem with separation due to the solder expanding when it was heated and then cooling when it was not heated, so therefore it would cause heat related fractures

[@donnyboi1990]

I like to spend a bit more on my motherboards to make sure they have an LED display on them to show codes for what is the issue is if I end up with no display.

[@JustWitness]

Which Process Windows? Windows: Yes!

[@BrisyTechBytes]

Must admit, the evil side of me enjoys these fix or flop videos when you literally try everything possible to fix it and it's something odd that's the issue 😂, this one seemed one of the more simpler one although does highlight what coukd be the problem with that windows error. Keep them coming Greg, by far one of the most enjoyable series on YT 👍

[@dieseldoctor2221]

good repair Greg!!!

[@crook47]

As soon as you hit the bios and i saw 980 pro i knew it was probably a dead drive. A lot of people didn't know about the essential firmware update for those.

[@GamingWithDinos]

I updated my bios recently and lost my windows key. Sponsor came in clutch!

[@Laforge129]

Usually Windows Event Viewer is great at tell you which process is causing this issue whether it's a driver or hardware issue. I'm always checking that when I get a BSOD. It's probably a driver issue from what I am seeing.

[@antoniom.andersen6704]

Kinda liked the janky GPU support 🙂. Glad that he got his docs and pics back as he wrote in a comment.

[@firexallst4rz277]

Yep I had a Samsung SSD as well 2 in fact both had critical processes that died. Those were manufactured during the time when those drives had firmware issues. But Samsung addressed that problem already

[@bulldogboy100]

I noticed his ram was only running at 2133mhz, I'm assuming it was 3200 or 3600mhz, did you update the XMP setting?

[@petedunn2638]

Good job Greg😁

[@BabblingBike]

Used your code and got more money off the Windows 11 key than the Halloween Promo they were offering. Thanks Greg!

[@patrickcollins7030]

Is it possible the Nvme heat sink is whats bending the drive?

[@tjp4342]

I appreciate your artistic skills.

[@2050kristof]

As everybody says, the firmware was an issue, but I’ve accidentally done that to OneDrive and killed it. More than likely was separation of the chips. A bent NVME is not a happy NVME.

[@Tritone_b5]

I've had a similar BSOD issue "WHEA ERROR" related to PCIE and turns out my Samsung 980 boot drive (regular one) was kicking the bucket, fortunately I was able to replace it.

[@michaeldejode473]

The moment I saw Samsung 980 Pro SSD, I knew what the issue was. I updated several to avoid this issue.

[@DjVortex-w]

As always: If there's a file you do not want to lose, never, ever keep it only in one place. At an absolute minimum have a backup copy of it somewhere else (ie. not in your computer's storage device). Somewhere that you remember and are able to recover easily.

[@animalyze7120]

Why are NVME drives like Kryptonite to Superman for Gaming enthusiasts? These are so simple and yet I see folks doing the stupidest stuff in regards to plugging them in. USE THE STANDOFF AND USE IT CORRECTLY! There is literally no excuse for this level of user incompetence. Thankfully we get to keep the diagnostic fee and then the repair fee but it's an added expense for the customer that wouldn't be needed if they would just engage the brain. Great video!

[@Razor-gx2dq]

Ifixit tool kit is the goat. Its useful far beyond electronics

[@Sholities]

my 5900x rig actually drags once in a while (like a when someone slows down a video and it sounds robotic and the video starts going 1/4 or half-speed) for about 3 seconds, but it happens rarely. Don't know what's up with that.

[@PileOfEmptyTapes]

Try backing up on your memory clock or timings, especially if you're running at 3600 right now (which seemingly may be asking a bit much). Also, I hope your BIOS isn't so old that it predates the fTPM fix... that issue could cause this as well. (I'm actually not sure whether this has been fixed 100%. An actual hardware TPM may still be the safer bet.)

[@AdmrlSpeedy]

Honestly, that bend is actually not that abnormal. They probably didn't update the firmware and it probably killed itself.

[@TheMichael2019]

Hope the owner has his stuff backed up. I have 3 backups of my system. If you have an external nvme adapter then you could have attached it after and checked if it’s functioning

[@joeyyung911]

I've bent a m.2 SSD when trying to remove it from the thermal pad/heatsink that was stuck on it.

[@CameronPCs]

being a computer specialist myself, i get a lot of corsiar cases around and installed many gpus for friends who have left there pci slot covers, wish you woulda filled that empty space where the gpu is as he thought it was a 3 slot card instead of 2. now hes missing a cover

[@SiAnon]

M.2 drives are really odd. If only they put a stand off somewhere so you could put a small screw in to stop it bending. Seen too many like that. Especially the ones with the M.2 under the standoff.

[@johnt.848]

Thanks for learning Greg 😂

[@CMZiMusic]

Hold up, my pc has done that a few times, but after a reboot, it seans fine, should i be worried?

[@thorcall]

I think its pretty likely the drive is good. I understand not wanting to take the responsability, howether, given its already been booted multiple time (and that its not an harddrive), I doubt there is much risks. Its not that bend, a corrupt windows install seems more likely to me. Also, some files are already readable, since windows can bsod and enter into recovery mode. Owner can probably put it in an usb enclosure or in a secondary nvme slot (with a correct boot order in the bios) and transfer the files just fine, tho I wouldn't trust the drive for important files anymore just in case.