Gadgetory

hey everyone I'm Steve from gamers Nexis net and I'm joined by Patrick stone agian and we have not shot three of these consecutively they were in fact filmed on separate days hahaha today we're talking about PC troubleshooting and specifically some of the most common practices to troubleshoot basic issues like no video output or fan spinning up and then spinning down again oh boy things like that things like we face all the time so you were just facing this recently with system bills what was the yeah so as a matter of fact it was just today helping a friend working on his first PC and he was pretty excited when he got his new parts in and then in the end it turned out that he had a bad graphics card it took us a few steps to get there though and using the common troubleshooting tips that's how we got to the end so like what's maybe one of the most common things that you would say hey check this well cables power cables and the amount of times that I have personally overlooked the CPU power header is nothing short of embarrassing and that is a I think a common issue or at least that's why Tom I saw CPU power had it needs to be checked 24 pin header needs to be checked and then the seating of the components Ram is help seated properly make sure the tabs are actually clicked in yeah they should snap when you push it down the video card often needs to be seated mm-hm and then there's the CMOS battery yeah the CMOS better just to kind of clear settings out like sometimes for whatever reason some of the settings get hosed and just pull the power from the computer so you got no power going to the computer pop the CMOS battery out and then the CMOS settings cannot remain if you make sure that board has no power right yeah and then some modern boards do have a clear CMOS button as well so that is another way to do that so those are the probably the basic intro things I would do before looking at things like if it's a modular PSU make sure your connection is one in the right spot yeah shouldn't be possible to plug it in elsewhere but usually keep you can you can't force it them mmm and then I'll stay there it's it's actually seated yeah yeah is it like all the way clicked in that I've seen that on the ATX 24-pin main power where it's kind of like crooked in the connector so there's kind of a gap on one side and that connection isn't solid but there is there's an easier first step before all that to do though yeah just just some some that'll give you some heads up as what's going on yes post beeps Smurfs yeah so a lot of times motherboards as far as I know every motherboard that I've seen has got this four pin connector on the front panel headers the front panel headers the place is whether the reset button is a place where the power LED is hard drive LED and the power button right there's there's a speaker connected there to Mnet's it's four pins wide but you really only make use of the outer two pins and you plug in just this little what we call PC speaker and it's like it's going to give you some beep codes if things are going well and a lot more beep codes if things are going poorly right single beep versus many beeps exactly exactly and quick clarification here because I've seen it on our forums before plugging in your actual speakers or headset to the three point object won't produce this the sound you need a specific PC speaker that plugs into the board yeah and it on some other boards they include it in the motherboard accessories package and in other cases they include it with the actual case a little plastic bag with other accessories and then there's the 7-segment display as well which is a hexadecimal output more powerful absolutely this is like the digital numbers you've seen before we call it seven segment because it's got yeah two two on the sides and then one two three and that way you can create whatever numbers and letters you want and the reason is that's more powerful with because as opposed to just giving you beep codes like as in like three consecutive beeps or three beeps a pause and a fourth B percent one deep short beep yeah instead of having just that kind of stuff now you've got literally a huge possible combination of letters and numbers that you can put together that have specific meanings but then how do we get those meanings manual right absolutely yeah so and the same with the beep codes if you're relying on those rather than the display either way you're cross-referencing a manual and for the Beeb codes there are bios or UEFI manufacturers or vendors within all them like Phoenix the ami so you'll check those vendors for the beep codes if it's not available in your manual and then for the 7-segment stuff you just go straight to the manual yeah and see what does it mean and a lot of times it's it's fun to have your paper manual out you can reference paper manual but maybe you can't find exactly what you need right away protip just search yeah use PDF use PDF and search it absolutely right other than that I would say if things are still going poorly you running through the list again want to check the connections just redo all of them despite thinking that you may have done it right yep just redo it all take take her advice on that check the CMOS powder and reset it just to be sure do Ram seeding reseeding of the RAM yeah absolutely that that's so common it's a matter of fact Steve mentioned earlier what we were talking that it's a lot of times people think that they're not getting video output because of a bad graphics card right and it turns out to be Ram right so just yummy it takes what at five seconds it just receipt it and give it a shot yeah and that's that's important to note just because it's a video output issue doesn't mean it's the video device there could be an error earlier in the pipeline yep that's preventing you from ever even getting there and if none of this stuff works you have to start going bare-bones which to pay on who you ask might mean different things but in my opinion there's only one proper meaning of bare bones and the essentials and that's to go down to the CPU yep one stick of RAM and if you don't have an eye GP or an APU then your video card is essential in that case otherwise eliminate it and use the onboard video and of course the motherboard is the platform and you got to have power going from the power spot those five things really right and then just start switching out the RAM sticks the troubleshoot those and if you take the GPU out use the IGP and see it works then you've found your problem normally and I think that about covers the very basics that's it yeah so check the link in the description below for more information we'll try and do a couple more of these if you have specific questions so if you have a troubleshooting question or maybe something that you've solved and that would be interesting sure share it and we'll do a video as always check the patreon link in the post role if you like this kind of content and we'll see you all next time