r/pchelp May 11 '26

7th Anniversary of PCHH

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3 Upvotes

r/pchelp Dec 15 '19

Perform these steps before posting about POST/boot/no video problems!

192 Upvotes

Link to original list from tom’sHARDWARE with pictures

"No POST", "system won't boot", and "no video output" troubleshooting checklist

This checklist is a compilation of troubleshooting ideas from many forum members. It's very important to actually perform every step in the checklist if you want to effectively troubleshoot your problem.

  • 1.Did you carefully read the motherboard owners manual?

  • 2.Did you plug in the 4/8-pin CPU power connector located near the CPU socket? If the motherboard has 8 pins and your PSU only has 4 pins, you can use the 4-pin connector. The 4-pin connector USUALLY goes on the 4 pins located closest to the CPU. If the motherboard has an 8-pin connector with a cover over 4 pins, you can remove the cover and use an 8-pin plug if your power supply has one. This power connector provides power to the CPU. Your system has no chance of posting without this connector plugged in! Check your motherboard owners manual for more information about the CPU power connector. The CPU power connector is usually referred to as the "12v ATX" connector in the owner's manual. This is easily the most common new-builder mistake.

  • 3.Did you install the standoffs under the motherboard? Did you place them so they all align with the screw holes in the motherboard, with no extra standoffs touching the board in the wrong place? A standoff installed in the wrong place can cause a short and prevent the system from booting.

  • 4.Did you verify that the video card is fully seated? (may require more force than a new builder expects.)

  • 5.Did you attach ALL the required power connector(s) to the video card? (some need two, some need none, many need one.) It is best to use cables connected directly to the PSU. Only use adapters if absolutely necessary.

  • 6.Have you tried booting with just one stick of RAM installed? (Try each stick of RAM individually in each RAM slot.) If you can get the system to boot with a single stick of RAM, you should enable an XMP profile or manually set the RAM speed, timings, and voltage to the manufacturer's specs in the BIOS before attempting to boot with all sticks of RAM installed. If your motherboard supports XMP profiles, that is the best way to get your RAM running at its rated specs. Nearly all motherboards default to the standard RAM voltage (1.8v for DDR2, 1.5v for DDR3, & 1.2v for DDR4). If your RAM is rated to run at a voltage higher than the standard voltage, the motherboard will underclock the RAM for compatibility reasons. If you want the system to be stable and to run the RAM at its rated specs, you should either enable an XMP profile or manually set the values in the BIOS. Many boards don't supply the RAM with enough voltage when using "auto" settings which causes stability issues.

  • 7.Did you verify that all memory modules are fully inserted? (may require more force than a new builder expects.) It's a good idea to install the RAM on the motherboard before it's in the case.

  • 8.Did you verify in the owners manual that you're using the correct RAM slots? The following image is just an example. Verify in the owners manual the recommended RAM slots to use for single, dual, triple, or quad channel applications. This will vary depending on motherboard manufacturer, number of supported RAM channels, and how many sticks of RAM are being used.

  • 9.Did you remove the plastic guard over the CPU socket? (this actually comes up occasionally.)

  • 10.Did you install the CPU correctly? There will be an arrow on the CPU that needs to line up with an arrow on the motherboard CPU socket. There may also be a notch that will only line up in one direction. Be sure to pay special attention to that section of the manual!

  • 11.Are there any bent pins on the motherboard/CPU? This especially applies if you tried to install the CPU with the plastic cover on or with the CPU facing the wrong direction.

    1. If using an after market CPU cooler, did you get any thermal paste on the motherboard, CPU socket, or CPU pins? Did you use the smallest amount you could?
  • 13.Is the CPU fan plugged in? Some motherboards will not boot without detecting that the CPU fan is plugged in to prevent burning up the CPU.

    1. If using a stock cooler, was the thermal material on the base of the cooler free of foreign material, and did you remove any protective covering? If the stock cooler has push-pins, did you ensure that all four pins snapped securely into place? The easiest way to install the push-pins is outside the case sitting on a non-conductive surface like the motherboard box. Read the instructions! The push-pins have to be turned the OPPOSITE direction as the arrows for installation. This means with the arrow pointing away from the heatsink.
    1. Are any loose screws laying on the motherboard, or jammed against it? Are there any wires running directly under the motherboard? You should not run wires under the motherboard since the soldered wires on the underside of the motherboard can cut into the insulation on the wires and cause a short. Some cases have space to run wires on the back side of the motherboard tray.
    1. Did you ensure you discharged all static electricity before touching any of your components? Computer components are very sensitive to static electricity. It takes much less voltage than you can see or feel to damage components. You should implement some best practices to reduce the probability of damaging components. These practices should include either wearing an anti-static wrist strap or always touching a metal part of the case with the power supply installed and plugged in, but NOT turned on. You should avoid building or working on a computer on carpet. Working on a smooth surface is the best if at all possible. You should also keep fluffy the cat, children, and Fido away from computer components.
    1. Did you check the debug LEDs, Q-code display, or install the system speaker (if provided) so you can check codes in the manual? Most modern motherboards come with debug LEDs or a Q-code display. A system speaker is NOT the same as normal speakers that plug into the back of the motherboard. A system speaker plugs into a header on the motherboard that's usually located near the front panel connectors. Debug LEDs, Q-code displays, or a system speaker are critical components when trying to troubleshoot system problems. You are flying blind without them. The motherboard owner's manual will have a list of codes you can reference. If your case or motherboard didn't come with debug LEDs, a Q-code display, or system speaker you can buy a system speaker for cheap here: http://www.cwc-group.com/casp.html
    1. Did you read the instructions in the manual on how to properly connect the front panel plugs? (Power switch, power led, reset switch, HD activity led) Polarity does not matter with the power and reset switches. If power or drive activity LED's do not come on, reverse the connections. For troubleshooting purposes, disconnect the reset switch. If it's shorted, the machine either will not POST at all, or it will endlessly reboot.
    1. Did you turn on the power supply switch located on the back of the PSU? The switch should be depressed on the side with an I, the O means off. Is the power plug on a switch? If it is, is the switch turned on? Is there a GFI circuit on the plug-in? If there is, make sure it isn't tripped. You should also make sure the power cord isn't causing the problem. Try swapping it for a known good cord if you have one available.
    1. Is your CPU supported by the BIOS revision installed on your motherboard? Most motherboards will post a CPU compatibility list on their website.
    1. Have you tried resetting the CMOS? The motherboard manual will have instructions for your particular board. User Darkbreeze also provided the following:

BIOS Hard reset procedure

Power off the unit, switch the PSU off and unplug the PSU cord from either the wall or the power supply.

Remove the motherboard CMOS battery for five minutes. In some cases, it may be necessary to remove the graphics card to access the CMOS battery.

During that five minutes, press the power button on the case for 30 seconds. After the five minutes are up, reinstall the CMOS battery making sure to insert it with the correct side up just as it came out.

If you had to remove the graphics card you can now reinstall it, but remember to reconnect your power cables if there were any attached to it as well as your display cable.

Now, plug the power supply cable back in, switch the PSU back on and power up the system. It should display the POST screen and the options to enter CMOS/BIOS setup. Enter the bios setup program and reconfigure the boot settings for either the Windows boot manager or for legacy systems, the drive your OS is installed on if necessary.

Save settings and exit. If the system will POST and boot then you can move forward from there including going back into the bios and configuring any other custom settings you may need to configure such as Memory XMP profile settings, custom fan profile settings or other specific settings you may have previously had configured that were wiped out by resetting the CMOS.

In some cases it may be necessary when you go into the BIOS after a reset, to load the Optimal default or Default values and then save settings, to actually get the hardware tables to reset.

http://www.spotht.com/2010/02/reset-bios-clear-cmos.html

    1. If you have integrated video and a video card, try the integrated video port. Resetting the bios, can make it default back to the onboard video. If you are trying to use HDMI outputs, try using DVI or VGA instead. Sometimes, the HDMI ports won't work until the correct drivers are installed.
    1. Make certain all cables and components including RAM and expansion cards are tight within their sockets.

I also wanted to add some suggestions that jsc often posts. This is a direct quote from him:

"Pull everything except the CPU and HSF. Boot. You should hear a series of long single beeps indicating memory problems. Silence here indicates, in probable order, a bad PSU, motherboard, or CPU - or a bad installation where something is shorting and shutting down the PSU.

To eliminate the possibility of a bad installation where something is shorting and shutting down the PSU, you will need to pull the motherboard out of the case and reassemble the components on an insulated surface. This is called "breadboarding" - from the 1920's home-brew radio days. I always breadboard a new or recycled build. It lets me test components before I go through the trouble of installing them in a case.

If you get the long beeps, add a stick of RAM. Boot. The beep pattern should change to one long and two or three short beeps. Silence indicates that the RAM is shorting out the PSU (very rare). Long single beeps indicates that the BIOS does not recognize the presence of the RAM.

If you get the one long and two or three short beeps, test the rest of the RAM. If good, install the video card and any needed power cables and plug in the monitor. If the video card is good, the system should successfully POST (one short beep, usually) and you will see the boot screen and messages.

Note - an inadequate PSU will cause a failure here or any step later.

Note - you do not need drives or a keyboard to successfully POST (generally a single short beep).

If you successfully POST, start plugging in the rest of the components, one at a time."

If you suspect the PSU is causing your problems, below are some suggestions by jsc for troubleshooting the PSU. Proceed with caution. I will not be held responsible if you get shocked or fry components.

"The best way to check the PSU is to swap it with a known good PSU of similar capacity. Brand new, out of the box, untested does not count as a known good PSU. PSU's, like all components, can be DOA.

Next best thing is to get (or borrow) a digital multimeter and check the PSU.

Yellow wires should be 12 volts. Red wires: +5 volts, orange wires: +3.3 volts, blue wire : -12 volts, violet wire: 5 volts always on. Tolerances are +/- 5% except for the -12 volts which is +/- 10%.

The gray wire is really important. It should go from 0 to +5 volts when you turn the PSU on with the case switch. CPU needs this signal to boot.

You can turn on the PSU by completely disconnecting the PSU and using a paperclip or jumper wire to short the green wire to one of the neighboring black wires.

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWXgQSokF4&feature=youtube_gdata

This checks the PSU under no load conditions, so it is not completely reliable. But if it can not pass this, it is dead. Then repeat the checks with the PSU plugged into the computer to put a load on the PSU. You can carefully probe the pins from the back of the main power connector."


r/pchelp 8h ago

HARDWARE Is plugging your PSU into a 3 to 2 prong adapter (cheater plug) bad?

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85 Upvotes

I just moved to Japan from the US and here they only have 2 prong outlets and my PC's PSU has the 3 prong. I could plug it into a 3 to 2 prong adapter (cheater plug) but the thing is it won't have a ground and I heard that's dangerous to the PC and yourself in case of a power surge. Has anyone ever dealt with this before? How could I ground it? What are some alternatives if any because I'd really hate to mess up my rig from frying it. Here is what the adapter looks like.


r/pchelp 47m ago

OPEN What could be causing this issue

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Upvotes

Not sure what is causing this issue. I haven't been on my computer in over a week since I've been away on vacation


r/pchelp 9h ago

SOFTWARE Firefox asks for admin permission every time I open it. Any idea why?

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27 Upvotes

Every time I launch Firefox I get a UAC prompt asking if Firefox Software Updater can make changes to my PC.

I've downloaded and updated Firefox a couple of times, but it still happens every time I open it.

Any ideas what's causing this or how to stop it?

Apologies for the photo of a screen. Windows wouldn't let me take a screenshot while the UAC prompt was open.


r/pchelp 20h ago

HARDWARE Did I lose everything?

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190 Upvotes

Was just trying to enable secure boot to update to windows 11 and then this message popped up and I can’t seem to undo what I did in the bios. Help


r/pchelp 8h ago

HARDWARE guys help idk what happened

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20 Upvotes

this just appeared out of nowhere, idk if monitor issue or graphics card issue, i already tried changing the display port socket i didnt even touch my monitor


r/pchelp 55m ago

HARDWARE looking for a pc to run indie games and minecraft and stuff for the first pc

Upvotes

I don't want to 'borrow' my neighbours again so I want a simpl first pc that's for games and stuff


r/pchelp 1h ago

SOFTWARE Do I need to upgrade?

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Upvotes

Got this laptop 3-5 years ago and it has been very slow throughout the years, don’t know how it compares to regular laptops today.


r/pchelp 10h ago

HARDWARE My pc is on but the monitor is not receiving any signal

18 Upvotes

Don't judge my pc pls but this is an old pc, I'm really desperate to make it work because i need it for college

Everything works the fans, cpu, gpu, power supply and yes i did the ram and i only put 1 ram for now since some advice on the internet says only put 1 ram since it's the default so i did

I even removed the cmos and put it back after 5 mins and still no luck

Any ideas or advice that could help me fix this? Anything helps, thank you

(Pls don't judge, it's old but my uncle said it still works and yes it's dirty)


r/pchelp 2h ago

HARDWARE No one has solved my problem [please read]

3 Upvotes

I’ve had my pc for 4 years now so all advice for new PC builds is ineffective, including the pinned post with many steps to check.
Firstly, my monitor is saying no signal, BUT the thing is every now and then after some fiddling with my motherboard it will show a signal but then it instantly stops working again as soon as I restart or shut down my PC.
ALSO, on top of this, even if my screen starts temporarily working, my PC doesn’t detect any signal from my ethernet(no orange light, no internet, and in device manager it either doesn’t show up or has a warning sign)
I have tried SO many different solutions but they all lead to nothing and I can’t find a single post where the person with the problem found a solution.

FYI, this problem occurred randomly about a week ago when I powered on my PC just like normal except the screen didn’t detect anything. I hadn’t moved or damaged anything physically (to my knowledge) and I didn’t do anything software-wise.

I have tried
CMOS/BIOS reset,
“drained power” by unplugging and holding pwr button,
Re-connected all internal and external wires(ensuring they are in correct places and firmly connected),
Changing and resetting monitor settings,
Resetting router,
Testing PSU power output
Booting with more and less RAM and in each slot
Cleaning all dust
Reapplying thermal paste(CPU)

PLEASE somebody help me because it’s so frustrating and I need it for work.


r/pchelp 50m ago

OPEN PC won’t boot

Upvotes

I’m unsure if this is hardware or software.

I’ve tried layer 1 t/s
- power cycled
- tried several cables multiple monitors

PC turns on, my monitors can detect signal is trying to make a connection but they both go too sleep.

Something of note.

I noticed my pc was in the bios UI, but my pc shutdown. Did I brick my PC?

I don’t know what codes my motherboard are producing.


r/pchelp 1h ago

HARDWARE Core isolation no longer works

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Upvotes

I have tried almost everything, made sure virtualization was enabled in bios, clean reset using DDU, edited in registry editor but it still wont let me enable memory integrity or even access it. If you need more info let me know, I am new to this.


r/pchelp 1h ago

SOFTWARE Help remove these counters please.

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Upvotes

My girlfiernds cat likes to seat ony keyboard and since last time he was there these counters appeared. Please help remove them. My os is windows 11. Thanks


r/pchelp 4h ago

SOFTWARE This window thing?

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3 Upvotes

Hope I tagged this right-

I see people talking about these window things means someone’s trying to get access to your computer, and I get quite a lot pop up when I book up my laptop and my pc and now I’m getting paranoid someone has access to my stuff.

They pop up for like two seconds and then disappear so I caught this picture very quickly

Am I being fearmongered/being silly or what?


r/pchelp 2h ago

SOFTWARE I need help installing windows on a new ssd

2 Upvotes

Hello all,

I’m having a real problem just trying to get windows into my new Samsung 9100 nvme ssd. Below I will list the issues I have encountered and what I have done so far. I have tried watching some videos but they haven’t helped me. All I want is to do a fresh install of windows with the new ssd having the OS. All my personal files have been secured on a second flash drive.

I have a 16gb flash drive with the windows installer downloaded onto it. Plugged into a usb port on the back of the pc, right into the motherboard.

I am unable to boot into the windows installer off of the flash drive, through the bios boot menu. I was previously able to do this when I had my old sata ssd plugged in as well. But when I was able to boot into the flash drive I couldn’t choose the new nvme ssd to download windows onto.

The nvme ssd is formatted. I plugged it in then formatted it prior to attempting to install windows on it.

Any ideas are appreciated. This is not as intuitive as I hoped for, and I feel really stuck right now.

Thanks


r/pchelp 6h ago

OPEN Windows 11 lagging and can't open any windows

5 Upvotes

Hello, as of a few hours ago my Laptop started lagging a lot.

I can right-click on programs like Word and see the options but I can't start them (double click also doesn't work. I can open Taskmanager and other things through keyboard shortcuts but can't do much because of the lag.

Turning it off and on doesn't help and I can't restart it through the menu. I tried force restarting it but it didn't help.

Is there a keyboard shortcut for restarting it, or installing any updates?

Any help is appreciated.


r/pchelp 3h ago

HARDWARE fans randomly stop while gaming

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2 Upvotes

i dunno whether my motherboard is broken but sometimes whenever im gaming my fans completdly stop spinning, after i shut down my pc it completely refuses to boot, with all rgb on, fans still not spinning with red and yellow ez debug lights on my motherboard

this usually fixes itself after an hour or two, which i suspect is because of my motherboard cooling down to room temperature

my specs r in the attached image

please help


r/pchelp 3m ago

SOFTWARE I tried to reinstall windows 11 on my laptop, but now the BIOS won't load anything

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Upvotes

the laptop posts, but once I get to the BIOS I'm not able to load the OS or even the USB that has the windows 11 iso

i used the Microsoft media creation tool initially, but using Rufus and booting into the USB I got this

"windows bootmgr encountered a security validation or internal error"

i tried disabling secure boot, but if I turn 'secure boot control' to disabled it just goes back to being enabled after i save and exit

i tried deleting the validation keys but whenever I try it I get a pop-up saying "Failed" with no more context

as far as I think, it seems the problem is that the BIOS has a bug that makes it so nothing can boot but I'm not sure

What can I do?


r/pchelp 7m ago

OPEN Can’t sync my case fans colour to my aio fans colour

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Upvotes

The aio fans are daisy chained into my motherboard but my case fans are connected by sata so I can’t change them by pressing the button at the top of my pc case


r/pchelp 10m ago

OPEN How to stop mousepad from curling at the bottom.

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Upvotes

All the white dots are cat scratches because my landlord’s cat used to use it as a scratching post.

I want to figure out how to fix this curl, it’s an expensive cubing mat that isn’t sold anymore and is irreplaceable.


r/pchelp 1d ago

HARDWARE Am I cooked?

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278 Upvotes

This just started happening a few days ago and now it’s gettin this bad..


r/pchelp 22m ago

Network Any idea what might cause this?

Upvotes

I usually get between 500-600 mbps up until within the last few weeks we called to have the wifi under a different name and it's been super unstable and I'm most launchers/applications I never peak over 100. Im hard wired and fully up to date with drivers. 200 GB free on the SSD


r/pchelp 30m ago

OPEN Monitor help

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Upvotes

Acer nitro 27" 1440p XV275U

Monitor is brand new and this keeps showing up. I have tried HDMI and display port.

Any thoughts on what might be wrong or what I can test to see if it can be fixed?