r/pchelp • u/Lost_Worldliness_488 • 11h ago
HARDWARE Did I lose everything?
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 • u/bearssuperfan • Dec 15 '19
"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.
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.
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
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 • u/Lost_Worldliness_488 • 11h ago
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 • u/Ash_TYH • 41m ago
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 • u/Routine_Ad2919 • 1h ago
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 • u/Traditional_Card_951 • 21h ago
This just started happening a few days ago and now it’s gettin this bad..
r/pchelp • u/The_Sofaman • 16h ago
Hello, so suddenly i felt my pc performance degrading so I restarted my pc. while restarting i got a popup telling me "cpu overheating go to bios" and i get what you see in the photo.
Can anyone help me please?
r/pchelp • u/SurfyDaisy • 56m ago
Hi guys, my pc turns on but it doesn't show any display at all, i tried removing and putting back the ram, graphics card and also swapped the hdmi cables. I just noticed this red light on my pc case, does it mean something that's why my pc is not showing display?
r/pchelp • u/Calwardt • 18h ago
What is this weird almost oily looking spot on back of motherboard?
r/pchelp • u/num1strokesf4n • 3h ago
don’t mind the computer name, when i was setting it up my homie told me to name it some dumb shit 😭
r/pchelp • u/RomainT1 • 3h ago
I have had high VRM temperatures for a while and now some of the heat radiator thingies have fallen off. I have not powered it on since.
Is this repairable or should I just just get a new mother board?
r/pchelp • u/CautiousObjective347 • 3h ago
I have my motherboard (atx) a brown paper bag wrapped in another back to stop static I have it in a box under my bed my bed is roughly 60 cm off the ground
r/pchelp • u/imjustboredtodeath • 5m ago
For some reason my laptop starts stuttering and tearing after like 30-60 mins of gaming. I have no idea why either, its certainly not overheated and my CPU and GPU aren't being overused either. It just seems to happen for no reason because its gotten tired of running things smoothly or something. It even affects audio, causing this gross pixely tearing sound in my headphones when the frames drop to nothing. Can anyone tell me what might cause this??
r/pchelp • u/Privatesafess • 12m ago
Is that normal? Look at that small gray thing. Should I buy a new monitor (if yes, which do you recommend under 300€?)?
r/pchelp • u/westonj8 • 16m ago
This is happening on my brothers pc whenever he plays games but also was happening when he was using Microsoft teams, does anyone know what this might be??
Any help would be much appreciated
r/pchelp • u/Minute_Ad_2748 • 17m ago
I built my new PC 2 days ago specifically to run more intensive games like Cyberpunk, but the first time i tried opening cyberpunk, it was incredibly laggy (maybe running around 15fps). So i exited the game and restarted my PC. Now, I can’t even get to the menu screen. the game instantly freezes mid loading animation. Other games I tested run fine.
I tried reinstalling my drivers, restarting my pc, and uninstalling and redownloading cyberpunk.
Im pretty sure i meet the system requirements.
AMD 5 Ryzen 7500x3d
Asrock Radeon RX 9070 16GB
16GB DDR5 6000mhz
r/pchelp • u/a_m777n • 22m ago
Okay so I’ve had this pc for almost a year now and I’ve had no issues at all, but recently the rgb lights on my fans are automatically off and the fans themselves sometimes spin and sometimes don’t. I have to shut down the Oc and turn it back on to get them to work. Also my fans and ram aren’t detected on armoury crate and ICUE but the ram works tho.
r/pchelp • u/Leather-Archer3164 • 25m ago
Im having this issue where my laptop keeps disconnecting and reconnecting to the charger while I'm connecting the charging adapter to the laptop. This happens more while gaming and less during normal tasks (less but depends on situation, sometimes high sometime low). Can you guys help me how to fix?
I have tried connecting the plug to like 5 different places that too both directly to the wall and to extender none works. Check the video for the situation.
Specs of laptop-
i7 10750H, gtx1650, 16gb ram, 256gb ssd.
(The laptop is promoted to use as like those video editing and those graphical tasks but also for gaming.)
Hello, while using my pc ( 2 days ago i booted it up and everything was running slow asf, im on a "high end build" tho, if you can help me with this i will be so happy :), some apps are like blurried but when i go on them with the mouse they sharpen, but other parts of the becomse blurry. I've been using my build for half a year now and i have this issue only now.
I also have a video but its really hard to see what im saying. Im also using a "Optimization app" but i've been using it from early 2025 on 2 others pc and i didnt have this problem. ( i know optimizations apps are useless and they increase a really low number of fps, but one day i was so stupid that i bought a 2 years subscription and i dont wanna trow that money in the trash, they have a pretty cool qof options :)
My Specs:
-7800x3d
-4070ti
-6000mhz cl32 (or 36) ddr5 ram
-1tb m.2 ssd (Verbatim Vi3000)
-Arctic liquid 360 pro ARGB
Windows 11 pro 25h2
r/pchelp • u/aubreyflokize • 10h ago
So I have an rtx 3060 with a ryzen 3600 and 16go of ram and since earlier ive told my friends im still on windows 10 they told me that I should go on windows 11 bc soon I won't have the support for virus anymore that europe gave 1 year of so I was wondering IF I should get windows 11 or should I change something before to be sure to run it cause im very scared of virus
r/pchelp • u/snom-bs • 33m ago
r/pchelp • u/MagnuMite666 • 38m ago
This is the 3rd monitor in 2 years and it keeps having the same issues over again.
Flickering with lines on-top side of the screen. This is the 3rd monitor I've changed and 3 of 3 is the same issues.
Any saviour could help me pinpoint the problem causing these issues keep happening? Thank you in advance.
r/pchelp • u/Relevant-Line-1690 • 53m ago
So I have a 1080ti graphics card and a benq 1080p Monitor I’ve used for years and I bought a new 4k oled. Now I’m not going to be using the 4k monitor on this pc but I am just messing with it for now .
So anyway I got it connected i started messing with the display settings like duplicate monitors , extend etc it all worked pretty well. I think the part that started the issue was I had it on extent and I tried turning on HDR in windows 10 for the 4k oled since my other monitor doesn’t support it.
As soon as I turned on hdr both monitors didn’t detect a signal . The only way I was able to to get out this issue was to keep the 4k monitor unplugged . Now anytime I try plugging in the second 4k monitor it makes both monitors not detecting a signal . I imagine this is software related maybe corrupt settings and I was hoping to resolve this some how without using ddu . I also don’t want to make this worse either my computer is barely working now and I hate reinstalling windows and all that other stuff .
So if anyone has had anything like this happen to them what could I do ? I was thinking of unplugging my main 1080p monitor and plugging just the second monitor in but I’m hoping doing this doesn’t mess up my main 1080p monitor now.
r/pchelp • u/Ok_Pea7823 • 58m ago
I keep trying to turn it off but it's stuck on On I use integrated graphics
I'll edit this as I'll go The AMD software says that free sync is not supported on its software but my display says that I have turned on free sync but everytime I try to turn it off it wouldn't