What to Do When Your Computer is Broken

[@2ToneWalt]

When I think of how it was back in the early 90s going in totally blind with totally dumb hardware and software, it makes me realise it is a hell of a lot easier these days. 👍

[@Britec09]

Swapping out parts has always been the easy way, hence why break fix company's use it.

[@jasonhawkins4528]

Shame Microsoft and Apple trying to take it away

[@williamlinington9166]

I remember those days. Dealing with IDE drives and ribbon cables.

[@jasonhawkins4528]

@ oh yes I do. Just lucky we didn’t have to deal with irq

[@2ToneWalt]

@@jasonhawkins4528 I've done that too. 😭🤣

[@ionamygdalon2263]

Fantastic video Brian!! I am REALLY enjoying watching this!!

[@Britec09]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@lejapondesshogun]

Seeing that you identified the motherboard through process of elimination there's no harm in reflashing the BIOS, if possible.. A corrupted bios can also cause that problem.

[@Britec09]

I will look at the motherboard and see if I can do anything with it.

[@calholli]

I would just reset the CMOS first, before ever trying to reflash it.

[@MikeBob2023]

Thank you, Brian. 🙏🏼 And hey, the value of your shared insights about this stuff > video edit quality (always): I can close my eyes during most of your videos and still 'get it.' 😉 (I suspected that TUF motherboard as soon as it was clear that the RAM worked okay with the replacement 'board.) Thanks again. 👍🏼

[@Britec09]

My pleasure!

[@onlypvpcaterina-6669]

Best motherboards for reliablity are MSI, Asus ones seem to have a lot of issus with them over time, Least from my experience of them.

[@harveybc]

My father owned a TV repair shop back in the 50's & 60's. When he would work on our or friends TV's after he sold out he said the advantage of a big shop was they could swap out parts. Only thing I'd done different would be to try to boot off a live USB at the beginning to point toward software or hardware. One question is how does a system board, which is basically a fancy wiring harness go bad? Would have really thought it one of the plugged in components . Very interesting at any rate..

[@Britec09]

I used to repair TVs

[@sidgysoho1960]

I was going to save this for my main reply. I just recently got into multi-core processors and have since learned that the memory controller is usually embedded in the processor as is the thread scheduler. With all the fine fine voltage gradients that have to be interpreted, if there is the least bit of corrosion on a trace of the main board, then bingo bango bongo. Failure in imminent. Also humungous video card pcb's are beginning to bend as they age. Really, main boards are relatively inexpensive. Cheers.

[@Johnny16781]

Well-done Brain, Very interesting, 😁

[@Britec09]

Glad you think so!

[@jawnTem]

Very well done!

[@Britec09]

Thank you very much!

[@jonathanmaybury5698]

In the past, the DRAM light has often been misleading. I am unsure if this has improved recently, but I have encountered situations where the DRAM light was on, yet another issue was the actual cause, though I do not recall what it was. Therefore, when I saw the DRAM light come, I considered that it could indicate various problems. However, it appears that your DRAM bus has failed.

[@Britec09]

Diagnostic LED can be a bit misleading, I am going to test the board again, but I am sure its the RAM slots that have failed or the chip/controller that runs them slots has packed up.

[@harryaeron6644]

Many thanks Brian for this video..could it be a windows update that can cause this to the bios if the mb was ok

[@Britec09]

I will retest the motherboard when I get to my spare parts.

[@772pcs]

Great video. An awful lot of thermal paste?

[@Britec09]

bit much, but hey just testing

[@woodylinder338]

First, when you start to troubleshoot, always check that all of your cables are properly plugged in. Recently had this experience with a HDD power plug was not seated. It would have been a lot easier if I had checked the cables first. A lesson learned. I hope that helps someone.

[@Britec09]

That goes without saying, a good visual inspection is the first thing to do

[@johnpedersen8387]

some problems can relate to the front panel in desktops. I have seen a couple videoes about both the start and the reset button was defect. So I will recomend you strip components off to a bare minumum to find out what the problem is.

[@Britec09]

I will retest the motherboard off camera, pretty sure its RAM slots on board, I keep you posted.

[@johnpedersen8387]

@@Britec09 Thanks 🙂

[@calholli]

The one thing you missed was to reset CMOS.. I've had these kind of issues many times on older PC's.. Where it was having Ram issues, and I just pulled the little coin battery to reset CMOS and get back to default bios settings.. Some boards have a button for it-- others have the little jumper pins.. If someone was in the bios trying to "over clock" things-- you can go too far and make it crash like this. Resetting bios can fix a lot problems. This would have been the FIRST thing I would have done, personally.... Also checked the voltage on that coin battery and/or used a new one...... the second thing would be to pull Ram and test one stick (like you did). next I would have tired to boot from a USB -- like to a Linux distro or something, just to see if it would work (which would imply that it's maybe a bad drive).. Next I would have likely pulled the CPU and put on new paste (like you did). So you did great on everything-- Except, you didn't' reset CMOS. Absolutely crucial first step

[@geowilson1587]

in my experience have found no boot caused by dirty ram stick..just clean with eraser..easy fix..next was bios batt ..no power of course is psu…but yours is great advice if bsod…thanks again

[@Britec09]

Already cleaned slots and connectors

[@whmxtra]

If I had to take an educated guess I'd say the owner either used a vacuum to try and clean it or was digging around in there on a carpeted floor and the static charge from one or the other probably caused an issue with the chipset or the power to the memory and basically just bricked the board. But if you want to be thorough then use 1 stick of known working ram and try it in each of the 4 slots and see what happens. Might be just a bad stick of ram. Can also do the opposite and put each stick 1 at a time into a known working machine and see if anything interesting happens. In all my years I've never actually seen a bad stick of ram when working on a desktop computer but it does happen (I have had to change the ram in plenty of laptops though). I've also never had a bad stick of ram personally, but I still keep an extra kit around "just in case" I ever need it.

[@Britec09]

Thanks for sharing

[@myITguyShawnRatcliffe]

power supply Tester is good to use here check all voltages are correct

[@Britec09]

You can do if you want to, i used new PSU

[@karlkimpton9455]

I THOUGHT IT WAS A PROBLEM WITH SYSTEM 32 SOFTWHERE I WAS WRONG LOL HAVE A NICE DAY

[@sidgysoho1960]

No need to always produce a polished video. A reality TV one will do from time to time. I deal with this stuff on a regular basis. I will offer this tip up. Do not underestimate the importance of the PSU to deliver stable clean power. On critical builds I always spring for the quality option when it comes to power supplies. Just finished a build with a 12 year old PSU that was still in the shrink wrap. It is doing commendably good service for my 12th Gen Intel build. ( 12700KF ) Name on that PSU - " PC Power & Cooling ". Long live the computer enthusiast ! ( 750 watt mu'tha in RED )

[@Britec09]

I seen PSU do some weird stuff to computers, hence why I used a new one to test

[@davidlees7867]

Hi Brian happy new year mate. Have had to drop a few subscriptions to help a family member out with some cash hope you are doing ok man its cold out !

[@Britec09]

Happy New Year David, don't worry mate.

[@NAMNGUYEN-dh4eq]

i use power switch to turn on and off my pc... But sometime I turn on power switch it is on and off for a few second then on again to boot up ... What is problem ??? 100% is hardware problem we might single out which component causes it by swapping components ???? Thanks

[@Britec09]

You're welcome

[@Sussy-Baka776]

I do the same remove components

[@Britec09]

Best way

[@Sussy-Baka776]

@Britec09 yeah

[@AK-z2b]

bros gonna be cooked if that was his main pc. OHHHHHH MY PCCCCCC guys!

[@Britec09]

DUSTY

[@onlypvpcaterina-6669]

Brian, You really need to clean that pc out, Man the dust in there 😓 From my experience, It's always hardware related.

[@Britec09]

Yeah, pretty dusty. Its just a work horse

[@onlypvpcaterina-6669]

@@Britec09 Just aswell, Pc's with all these fans are like vacuume cleaners 😅

[@williamlinington9166]

As soon as I heard IRQ, I thought hardware related. Previous to that, I thought Windows as well.

[@Britec09]

I did think it was Windows at the beginning until I noticed DRAM staying on or switching back to DRAM after getting boot LED

[@birgerolovsson5203]

My computer is totally black. I have an AMD 5700G CPU and I use the graphics in that one but I've also tried with a Geforce 560TI but the monitor is just totally black with that card also. It hapened when I restarted my computer from Windows.

[@birgerolovsson5203]

It happened 31 December.

[@GlimpseofLight24]

Mobo gone??? 😳😳 What do you do next? As it's the most important part...

[@myITguyShawnRatcliffe]

1st off I labelled ps and ram slots. but watching you follow now I think be slots

[@Britec09]

I think its to do with the RAM slots on the motherboard

[@Rydon378]

What to Do When Your Computer is Dusty

[@Britec09]

Clean it

[@ElJohnerino]

Sheesh, I always assumed my PC came with the dust, like they put it in at the factory for you. Who knew! 😁

[@happyputt9709]

Good Will store

[@GlimpseofLight24]

​@@Britec09How to clean dust? I.e with brush/blower? Or something else you use?

[@John.Doe.X1]

@@GlimpseofLight24 I made the investment to buy a good quality blower called "IT Dusters Compucleaner Xpert" (the black one). It costed me 50€ but hopefully it will last many many years and it has many accessories (like brushes) and a lot of power. Much better than compressed air cans.

[@_____COSTY_____]

Where do you keep your PC to get this dirty 💀

[@Britec09]

PC is a work machine, not a showpiece. But I do agree, was dusty

[@mikebaker2927]

My initial thought was it was the memory controller.

[@Britec09]

BAD Memory (RAM) can do some weird stuff to a pc

[@mikebaker2927]

@ thankfully I’ve never experienced bad ram.

[@jasonhawkins4528]

What to Do When Your Computer is Broken. Cry😆 I had an awkward one and found it to be a memory chip and the symptom was power on and off all the time but everytime I opened it to check it worked. Typical intermitten fault

[@vasilispapas482]

The first think you must do is to replace the bios battery, or at least check if it has the corect voltage. Then reset bios and if that simple prosedure not work proceed as this video say.

[@Britec09]

Pretty new motherboard

[@vasilispapas482]

@@Britec09 Does not matter as batteries can fail in unexpected ways.

[@calholli]

I absolutely agree.. This is what I said, and what would have been my first move. Especially if it's not your PC, and you don't know who was in the bios messing with things before you. On my old 970 board, I could adjust CPU and memory clock speeds way past the point that it could handle-- and this is exactly what it would do.. either a blue screen, or just crash and reset, etc.. Resetting CMOS would fix it every time, and I could go back in and readjust my overclock again.. getting back to the factory default settings in the bios is always the first step.

[@timlangley8926]

I thought psu

[@Britec09]

Them PSU can do some weird stuff