Gadgetory

the age 500 I from NZXT carries a small footprint without compromising on features like flexible hardware configurations a removable radiator bracket for easy installation and stellar cable management for a tidier system Gaiman style with the tempered glass side panel integrated RGB lighting and a built-in cam powered smart device to manage your lighting and fans do more with less in the H 500 I click the link below to learn more alright y'all so this is the N Thule build that I put together a while back and it hasn't been able to post for the last few months I'm not exactly sure what's going on with it it's a super high-end system it's probably around $12,000 MSRP with a core I 979 ATX II that's been deleted and a pair of GTX 1080p is in sli not to mention the plus 4 terabytes of nvme storage so this thing's an absolute beast and it's kind of just been sitting here it's a very very heavy and expensive brick right now so I'm gonna try to get to the bottom of it today there is an error code on the motherboard that's saying a zero which I looked it up on the ROG form a zero means all as well there's there's tons of people reporting a zero on their boards and they're using their computers perfectly fine so not exactly sure what's going on there's a couple basic troubleshooting methods we can go through clearing the CMOS to be doing a BIOS flashback and a couple of things before we decide to actually drain the entire loop and start extracting hardware for further troubleshooting which is gonna be so much fun but hopefully we can figure out the problem before it comes to that I honestly have no idea how this video is gonna end I'm hoping that it ends with us being able to boot into Windows and figure out what's going on but we could very well just be as much of the dark as we are now so should be an adventure let's go ahead and start off with clear net CMOS which we should probably turn the computer off first fortunately the ram-paige 6 extreme that's in here has a clear CMOS button on the back so we don't even have to get our hands dirty on the inside just got to hold it down think that ought to do it and let's boot her up how uh um so do have a video cable plugged into the monitor up there one of the monitors up there I'm not expecting this to work because as you guys might have expected I've already tried clearing the CMOS I'm really just doing it for this video so you guys can see the whole process but yeah like I said this hasn't booted in months so obviously clearing the CMOS was one of the first things that I tried but just to see if it'll actually magically start working on camera it doesn't seem to be let's see what if the error code oh it's it's double boot and it's double boot ins give it a second give me a sign please alright code a zero host error clear CMOS fail so the next troubleshooting step I want to take is to update the BIOS via BIOS flashback now this is something that I actually haven't tried yet and was suggested to me on Twitter by coalition gaming and I believe J's two cents also back that up saying that it's worked for him in the past as well so I've got the BIOS right on here the latest BIOS I'm gonna stick it into the rear port woo and make it made sure that it's in the right ports and stuff and then I'm just gonna hold down the BIOS flash back button until it starts blinking blinking and then it's just gonna keep blinking until it's fully updated lights turned off BIOS has finished updating boot number I'm sorry this this this must have come from my soon-to-be ex-wife and boot nothing so far oh there it goes double booting again okay nothing's coming up on the screen so I'm gonna double-check the error code a - a - it went from easier so the post code changed it was a zero meaning all as well and now it's a - what is a - a - seems to be a storage error meaning that the system might not be able to identify the OS disk properly there's only three disks or drives in the system right now there's a 960 Evo that has the operating system on it and then there's - 2 terabyte 960 pros in the dim to external PCB it's mounted straight to the motherboard so I'm gonna remove that card just gonna remove both of those SSDs leaving only our OS disk and see if that changes anything all right I've got the den dot - right here - the SSDs booted up see what happens still says a - and unfortunately there's no way for me to access that SSD without draining and disassembling the entire loop because it's mounted to the motherboard underneath the motherboards sort of shield or whatever it's a giant plate that's being covered up by the graphics cards and obviously you'd need to tear down the loop in order to remove those so all right well I was hoping it wouldn't come to this but it looks like I'm gonna have to drain the loop after all if I want to take a closer look at the drive and perhaps troubleshoot the CPU but but that's ok I'm kind of glad to see that the Primo chill View fluid go after seeing what it's done to other builders clogging up and cooking up their loops and stuff so I'm fine with it you know get rid of that poop in my loop whatever so I think right now I have to actually lift this thing move it over to the kitchen area to begin the draining process which means I'll need to call upon the help of someone with rippling muscles and superhuman strength to help me lift it go out honey you got it down easy all right good job all right you can leave now all right so here's the drain system right off the bat you can see all this crud left over from the primo chill view it's just nasty it's even worse if you look at the water blocks like here's a GPU block and it's just solidified like liquid is not supposed to do that so you know maybe the the trick to water cooling is it is water which is why I'm gonna fill it up with distilled water next and I'm done done using that fancy fluid that just leaves a bunch of garbage in your loop so anyway anyway we're gonna do a little test boot I just have a little temporary air cooler on here and a 1070 TI just so we can get a video signal as you guys remember the 79 80 XE does not have integrated graphics which is why we need two discrete cards so let me quickly plug in the power scuse me I just had breakfast plug in the power supply and boot okay I remembered I remembered at the last minute to unplug the pumps otherwise they would have dry run and potentially broke I'm really glad I bared that in mind all right so things are spinning up that's good still nothing on screen Oh double boot damn double boot if this works if it just like boots instantly into Windows I'm just gonna leave the system like this I'm not gonna touch a thing oh my god oh my god what what hmm maybe it was the video card I'm wondering if this wasn't properly mounted or if it wasn't fully seated in its PCI Express slot I mean it looked like it was totally fine but you never know I think I'm gonna do something right now that I would not recommend anyone doing I'm actually going to fill the block with water and I'm just gonna like cap it off so that it's not actually attached to a loop but just just enough water to to handle whatever idle temperatures just to see if we can get it booted with just this card installed and making sure that it's firmly mounted in place so it should be okay but again not recommended all right let's fill er up all right so here comes our really sketchy test boot with the water-cooled graphics card that is not really being water-cooled um everyone cross your fingers oh oh it's working it's working okay okay all right it's it's not the graphics card but it kind of maybe is the graphics card oh my god we're booting into Windows Wow all right so I'm quickly gonna shut this off because I don't want the graphics card to overheat or anything okay so then what what's the deal why if I reassemble the loop technically everything should be fine right so the only thing that really makes sense in my mind is that the graphics card has just not been seated properly this whole time for like months and this could have all been avoided all this troubleshooting had I just move the graphics card in a millimeter or two I'm not sure if that's the situation I have really no way of ever knowing but that's the only thing that I can really think of right now as to why we've been getting a black screen for the last four months or whatever at any rate I'm really not too disappointed that I drained the loop because like I said I'm really glad to get that primo chill view fluid out of my system I'm gonna be refilling the loop with good old-fashioned distilled water this time around maybe that's the sign I'm getting old who knows and I also have to take apart some of the other elements like the radiators and reservoirs to actually clean them out so that we get all that gunk out before we refill hopefully the second time around we'll have better luck booting into Windows after all said and done so on that note let's get to it Oh would you look at that we're up and running but why is the water so cloudy you asked it looks like shoot yes yes it does that's because if you could probably tell from the montage I only actually cleaned the water blocks and the tubes I didn't bother removing the radiators or I guess the pumps I did I did clean the reservoir tubes however just because it would have taken me so long it's been 10 hours since I started this project not that I'm complaining or anything I just wanted to shave down time where I could so that's why there's there's still some poop in our loop but that's okay I've already flushed both of these loops twice just to get as much crud out as possible but I ran out of distilled water went through two gallons already today so wifey sauce is actually going to the store to buy some more but I'm not gonna fill in that part because it's kind of boring but when she comes back I'll be able to flush these loops a few more times and get most of the garbage out of the loop that should clear up any of this cloudy business and I'll be sure to reclaim these these reservoir tubes because that is nasty all that aside though the real point of this video is to see if we could get this system back up and running and sure enough it oh yeah all the hardware's detected looking good it's notice that I don't have anything plugged into my CPU fan header but I can fix that in the BIOS and everything should be fine so again I'm not exactly sure what went wrong here if it was as simple as a video card not being mounted or what if you guys have any theories of your own though please feel free to share them in the comments not that we can really validate it now it's a little bit late for that but it'd still be interesting to read so go ahead and blow that up and that's pretty much all I got for now guys I think I'm going to cut it off here again it's been a ten-hour process so I'm so ready to be done with this I'm just glad that it's ended with the system back up and running guys thank you so much for taking this ride along with me if you enjoyed the video toss a like on it you know what to do subscribe to the channel for more tech stuff oh my that's really soon you can also check me out on folks lane if you want to watch my videos week really without ads for 3 bucks a month i put a link for that in the video description till next time guys thanks for tuning in have yourselves a good one and I'll see y'all in the next day