PC owner here! Its absolutely wild that the symptoms changed once in Greg's hands. The PC was crashing so constantly it was totally unusable when I submitted to FoF. When he told me it was running without crashing I was deeply worried. When I retrieved the system, we had a discussion about it because he had such difficulties with replicating. Once I got it home it crashed again within 5 minutes. Greg followed up with me and was able to work with me remotely and we finally determined it was in fact a dead CPU!
Hi Greg, I'm a PC builder from the UK, and I recently encountered a similar issue with a customer's system. The strange part was that it only happened during Windows software updates. Every time they tried to install an update, the system would crash with repeated blue screens. I tried swapping the memory, boot drive, updating the BIOS, and even reseating the processor, but nothing worked. Finally, I replaced the CPU, and the problem was resolved instantly. It felt like one of the memory caches in the original processor had failed. Love your videos - keep them coming! Cheers, Jake
I had a blue screen of death occur with a customer's computer that I have never seen that was caused by Windows update. The blue screen of death was bad system config info. I have never seen that one until then. I was able to get the computer fixed for them, but that was the first time I have ever seen that blue screen with that particular error.
Try this - before touching hardware, make a new user profile, and try recreate the issue there. From there move to SFC & DISM (3 parts) until no issues are found. Then try repeat the issue in the Test user profile and the existing user. If non of that resolves the issue, then by all means start with hardware, specifically RAM. :) This lowers your risk on many levels. :) Good luck!
I hope that's not what's wrong with mine. Everything was fine until I used some software recommended by Jay. It removes all traces of uninstalled programs down to the registry. After a few things removed Windows stopped working. Can't rem how it went down exactly but I ended up wiping the drive and reinstalling windows. Ever since, I get random blue screens. So random it's like every other week or so. For a while I also couldn't seem to install updates. It would make it almost through the process and right at the end restart and remove the changes. Pain in the ass. Seems to be installing updates everyday now according to the event viewer and most say successful. It's not restarting for these updates either for some reason. The biggest problem I have are a ton of distributedcom errors in my log. There are like 60 of them between 240-530am today. Multiple big blocks of them later too. Sometimes more than one in the same second. I can't figure out why I get those after hours and hours of scouring online. I realize this isn't a ton of info, but have you ever seen these distcom errors before? It's been a while since I've looked into it and the blocks of those errors are seemingly larger than they were before. I bet it's around 300 or better a day. There's usually a block of them before a crash but always tons of them and doesn't crash every time they show. If you need more info I can provide it. That is if you are even interested or are familiar with the issue. I wouldn't blame you if you keep scrolling. If you made it this far, I thank you for reading it. Your job isn't helping random people that pop in comments.
@@darrenclift6704 its not just that, the ryzen voltages run way too high at stock on some chips, the bios showed 1.475v which is way too high, undervolting has solved it sometimes
hi Greg, it's also my job in France and I wanted to thank you for showing the huge frustration that we feel when a problem disappears on its own and we see ourselves obliged to return the equipment to the customer without any response to give him (because deep down we know that the problem could come back at any time and that we will not have a solution), and also thank you for not having hidden this "fix or flop" because that’s also our job. Sometimes we get no satisfactory answer, or no answer at all, and the most frustrated is often the technician before the customer. Rest assured, even if a StressTest could have put you on the path to an answer, I would not have changed anything in your methodology (having already seen a Ryzen have this behavior I was certain that you had found the fault, and I felt the same frustration as you when I saw him go back!) Thank you for your work, I love Fix or Flop for all that, and for your intellectual honesty!
for the record the day before the system became completely unstable, I actually ran Prime95 for six hours straight without a crash or even a single fault. This issue was incredibly vexing and I'm glad this video conveyed that.
I love that this turned out to be undiagnosed and random and unfixable, gives us all the real experience when we have no idea wtf is going on. Glad you were able to get them a new CPU
Very nice of MicroCenter - commentary on possibilities would be a failed capacitor or gateway circuit, which while cold would work, but once 'heating' up from having current run through it would always fail. Sometimes CPU have failed trace lines (motherboards also) that once the heat expansion occurs the traces get 'close' enough to each other that you get magnetic interference or direct line shorting. You see this effect also in fractured boards and chips (and yes the heat sink anchors can apply enough pressure to actually cause a micro fracture).
This is also my best guess, excessive mounting pressure caused a micro fracture in the CPU (or even the socket) and it's possible that with different heat cycles and voltages, this would 'flex' the fracture and sometimes, a connection would form, other times it would not. On the other hand it could be something completely ridiculous that no one thought to check, but in any case, an interesting one.
Gotta say I always have been a fan. You go out of your way to make sure they have a working system, even if I means using equipment from your own inventory. Just a top class guy and keep up the great work!
@@GregSalazar Hey greg i had the same problem with a asus B550 motherboard and ryzen 5700G it would reset every time tried to install or load into windows but allowed me use the bios freely i fixed it when i changed the cpu thought i was the only one with the that problem. PS it does the same thing other motherboards.
As a viewer who has watched your fix or flop videos religiously, watching you troubleshoot gives me confidence to work with my own pc. I’ve built a few pcs myself and luckily haven’t run into any problems. Thank you for making these videos. It’s entertaining yet very informative! I love what you do!
@@thewickedtim it’s definitely possible. I once upgraded my cpu in my old pc that was on am4 and it wouldn’t post until I loosened the cpu cooler by a hair. Was really weird considering the cpu cooler I was using had a mechanism for the screws to keep it from over tightening. I was confused for about a day after tbh.
Yeah, mounting pressure was were I was going as well. There could be a component on the COU that under pressure would not be getting a good connection in the substrate or a cold solder joint on the CPU. Thus when to much pressure is applied it makes a gap or when it heats up it looses contact and starts freezing. Possibly the controller on the CPU that controls the M.2?
Greg probably should check mounting cooler mount when checking all cable connections as time permits. A fresh thermal paste application is always a good idea.
Hi Greg, Paul from South Africa here. I am a fan of your Fix or Flop videos so please keep making them. Some of us here over the pond enjoy watching them too. Anyways, I have been involved with computers for many many years. Without giving away my age, my experience with computers goes back far longer than the length of time you have spent here on planet earth. Now I feel old, lol. That being said, I have built many pc's in my time and I have experienced the exact same issue you have been having. In my instance, the problem turned out to be the motherboard cell. I found that the issue was it was not seated properly and basically messing with the CMOS and as soon as the PC operating system tries to communicate with the hardware, the poor cell connection caused a handshake issue between CMOS and operating system software. I am of the opinion that you may have a dodgy cell in that mobo or it is not seated properly. Check the retention mechanism and also check the voltage of the cell. It should be around 3V. Anways, this was my experience and I thought sharing this info "might " assist. It is a long shot in the dark but perhaps worth looking into if your customer still has the original mobo.
Spot on!! That is one of the main fixes for this issue. Something else I did not see you do in the video is remove the motherboard and check for any debris that might cause an issue like a short, once found a beetle that shorted a mobo to the case like that. Another thing I did not see you do is remove and reconnect the PSU connectors to the motherboard, as that can also cause the problem with one or more not making a proper connection.
Yup I had a lot of dust packed into a ram slot causing me all kinds of issues. It wasn't until I took out the ram sprayed it out with the duster and insert it again that it was fine. Granted I didn't come to that conclusion until going through a lot of other steps. Before the ram, I reinstalled OS, replaced the boot drive and also replaced the CPU. Was still having random lockups until I finally checked the ram.
Great video Greg. Not really a good guy with computer stuff here. Thank you so much for making these videos. While you were trying to find the issue, i thought it might be the BIOS just seconds before you mentioned it on the video. All i learned about computers are literally coming from your videos like fix or flop and PCDC. When something is wrong i can literally follow your steps and solve the problem. So far so good, no replecament needed. Please don't stop making these videos good sir, we are learning a lot with you here.
Watched until the end before commenting, this was one rollercoaster. My first reaction was “RAID vs AHCI mode” if it was bsod-ing during windows load, but then it loaded into windows fine. Then I thought “power issue with a capacitor or something” since it would load into windows fine during the first boot but never afterwards, so my bet was on a motherboard swap. Very good of you Greg to offer them a new motherboard and CPU in the end, Asus has 3 year warranties on their motherboards (and my RMA about 2 months ago went pretty smoothly), but my hats off to you for getting the viewer up and running with the parts from Microcenter instead
I loved the way you troubleshooted this and the transparency was amazing. I have repaired a ton of PCs and have never seen an issue quite like this before, so I am over here thinking you did all you could do! And thank you for taking care of your customer/audience member who submitted the PC to you! 10/10!!
Very interesting video! Highly appreciate that you still published this video despite of everything and you're always being honest! Glad that the viewer finally got a working machine in the end.
Another example of why you're my favorite RUclips channel. Great job Greg! Your transparency and genuine interest in making sure the client has a good experience is a great example to any of us that are going to do this as a side gig or a full-time job. And kudos to you and your wife for selecting interesting cases that entertain and educate.
Love the series! I had to do surgery on my computer I built in a 1970s stereo system, at a remote cabin. Turns out it was an unseated ram stick! Thanks for the content and tips!
The worse case scenario, an intermittent problem. Even given that, you handled it like a true PRO! I want to be able to do this type of work but alas, my back problem prevents me from moving desktops around enough for this to be a viable activity for me but at least I can live vicariously thru you, Greg, and I find so much value from this series. Your integrity is inspiring.
It worked after you layed the PC on it's side, and it failed after transport... I would have looked for if there was something wrong with the motherboard mounting. But my gues is a slightly broken trace or solder point on the motherboard.
Yes I agree I have been building and repairing PCs for over 20 yrs. Sometimes when a board is installed they crank it down to hard and can cause a solder point crack that’s still touching hell humidity can make it worse as it expands and closes back up.
I’m a master automotive technician and I deal with issues like this all the time! Often times it just comes down to unplugging and reseating an electrical connector or component due to slight resistance build up in said component over time. The fact that it was behaving when cold and reared its ugly head when components started to warm up points to this being the probable problem. Slight vibrations and thermal expansion/contraction can cause build up of carbon or other debris causing an increase in resistance, which causes further thermal increase and resistance, and so on. Sometimes reseating can help, but often the terminals in the connector or the component itself will require replacement due to damage build up over time.
You went above and beyond by paying for the replacement parts. Love it! I would ask for the “broken” parts to be sent to you. It would make a good video later on trying to find the culprit in a more extensive review of it. Or drive you nuts. Lol
Absolutely love this series. I hope you can continue this series and hopefully inspire other you-tubers to do the same. Would class human being for doing this out of his own pocket and help people get there systems running again.
This is a known issue with 2TB SN770 NVMe drives that is addressed with a firmware update. Even if its not the main drive, it just has to be in the slot at power on.
Ooh, thanks! I did notice that while the 2TB drive is working perfectly and doesn't have any data integrity issues, it DOES fail a NameSpace test - I read this has something to do with cache and doesn't necessarily mean anything is faulty with the drive. If a firmware update can resolve that then that's good knowledge!
Hey Carey. We tested the system multiple times without the SN770 connected at all. Still failed when it felt like failing. And when it started working again toward the end of the video, both the SN770 and other WD drive were reconnected and it booted/idled without issue.
Greg , this is why I love your Channell . You knew deep down , that something was still not right . I am glad the owner was able to get the replacement board and CPU and get his rig back up and going ,happy day !😎
Mounting pressure definitely seems reasonable. I've definitely experienced weird stuff with mounting pressure before. Though I'm my case my PC failed to POST altogether.
Greg, as someone who also works on computers, it would seem you have developed the "Aura". It's something many people in IT careers have, and car mechanics often have it too. You are tasked with working on a computer that isn't functioning properly, and as soon as you touch it, sometimes even just look at it, everything works fine. It can be both a blessing and a curse. I'm glad you got it fixed in the end, but it can be absolutely frustrating to be given something you are assured is broken, and it operate normally for you. Both you and the owner wind up with even more frustration.
Greg can't replicate the power the owner is feeding the PC. And faulty computer components will show errors sooner on dirty power. It can come down to the wiring in the home, or even just the power cable. The moment Greg gets the PC and plugs it into a UPS with a known good power cable, he is changing variables. This was one of those times it bit him in the ass.
Yep I’ve had this exact same issue and could never figure what happened, it turned out to just be weird mounting pressure on the cpu cooler. It drove me crazy for weeks
It's a possibility since it something similar happened to a friend, not long ago. The thing, it ddin't had anything being the mobo. After a several tests, i decides to put black electric tape in the casea nd where the IO shield goes.. The behavior stop. In his case, the soldering behind the mobo was touching/or arching with the case. First time I've ever seen this
That was my thought too. There was a previous F or F episode (two actually) where the platform being inside that case was causing a problem. I'm surprised Greg didnt remember that and try bench testing the platform separate from the case. Also, the socket might be *just* warped enough to make intermittent contact with the pins or some number of the pins could be *just* at the edge/out of spec. Sometimes it's just a combination of a bunch of things.
Well Greg, I had a lot of problems with SN770 2tb in windows 24h2. Problems very similar you’ve faced. For me the solution was to update SSD firmware. And it worked. Keep doing it because I never miss an episode.
I never thought of that. Looks like that wasn't the issue here, but that's useful info for me, because I buy a lot of used parts and never really consider SSD firmware
Download the western digital dashboard and update the latest firmware western digital was known to have issues with the newest update due to a cache issue for some reason, I’ve got a western digital blue that was bsod and more with the newest update but once I installed the latest firmware with the western digital dashboard every issue went away instantly mate
First time watching this channel and you’ve earned a new sub here. You have all my respect for going out of your way to purchase a motherboard and cpu which isn’t cheap to mention for a customer. It goes to show how genuine you are and also great content I don’t really stick around to watch whole videos, however your videos are interesting 👍 keep up the amazing work!
I had the exact same Rog Strix B550-F motherboard this guy had, along with a 5900X. That system had problems with stability where it would just randomly lock up and freeze. The problem got worse over time too, as it went from only occasionally happening to freezing every 5-20 minutes. Sometimes it would freeze on boot, but mostly it stayed running long enough to get into windows. I had narrowed the problem down to either the cpu or motherboard, but didn't want to buy a non-refundable cpu to test it, and if it was the motherboard I didn't want to buy a new one that was a dead platform, so I just ended up upgrading to zen 4 with a new B650 board and the pc has been working fine since. I personally think it was the cpu, but I also am suspicious that the motherboard was pumping too much voltage through it, as asus likes to do, which is why it got worse over time.
I actually will have this issue with my setup when I'm playing around with ram timing if I set my IOD voltage a little too high I start getting weird behavior similar to both of y'all.
I have a 5900x and a gigabyte x570 aorus master and i have similar problems just like you, my pc just randomly bsod, freezing or just crashing when gaming
Computer technician here. In my experience, it was probably the motherboard that went bad. Simply because there’s sooooo many components on them that could go bad. I mean, I can count on one hand, how many times I’ve seen an actually bad cpu……and I’ve been a technician for over 6 years and building since high school. Based on the symptoms, it looks like maybe some CPU-to-RAM traces have faults in them. It looked like whenever the system was trying to assign data to memory, it just locked up during that process. Just an educated guess. SUPER INTERESTING video though Greg! Keep up the great work sir!
My PC used to have symptoms like the one in the video. After some troubleshooting, I figured out it happened when I enabled EXPO in the BIOS. Would that be because of the Mobo aswell? I don't have the money to buy parts to swap.
Just last week my 12600kf would not post to bios after a restart when installing a new program. Had vga light on a B760m. Swapped gpus, reseated and tried both sticks of ram alone in slots 2 and 4, swapped power supplies, removed all storage devices, removed cmos battery, and finally got a new Z790 board. Vga light still on except when I swapped to the new board the DRAM light was on and still no post. Finally swapped in my 12100f and it's boots to windows. Swapped the 12600kf back in and DRAM light on again. Intel is approving my rma.
Hi Greg, thank you for all the content you have made so far I appreciate it! I was having kinda exact same issue with my Ryzen 7600x a year ago when I built my first gaming PC. It was fine with the first POST and until it boots into windows the first time and decided to watch some youtube videos with it to stress test until it crashes and restart right about 1 hour later. The crashes became quicker with every restarts until it even freezes on BIOS mode. Considered everything like RAM (remounted, changed slots and even RMA the sticks), PSU (which feels unlikely but I re-plug them just in case), CPU (remounting it multiple times with slightly different pressure each mount), updated the BIOS and reset the CMOS to absolutely no changes to the issue whatsoever (CPU temps are below 60c all along, so not an overheat issue). I don't consider GPU is the culprit since I have not installed it yet and I was using the igpu for the display. Then I decided to sent both the CPU and the motherboard to the shop (it's a 1 day express trip, thank god I purchased them on the same shop) and let them test it and swap with their own spare CPU of the same model. Turns out theirs was working fine even after couple of restarts and even played some games with it, it just works really well without any crashes at all! Decided to only RMA the CPU and the shop sent them back after a week. Reassembled them and it has been working fine since then. Today I still have no pinpoint reason other than "maybe it's just a faulty CPU" to what caused the utterly puzzling and scary series of crashes that happened a while after you boot the system. But yeah it's been a ride for me since it was my first time getting my hands on the PC parts and build them on my own and then to deal this kind of issues straight away. Cheers!
oh greg assumes the same something else i noticed ....seems that when it boots the majority of the time the computer is stood up and not on the side ....maybe something when it is standing shorts something juuuuuuuuust barely ?
@@keenobservations3050 nah overtighen screws would do the "damage" on that aspect ....when it comes to non conductive paste you can pretty much unload the whole tube and most of the times it will still be fine :P
thanks greg for exposure of these anomalies with PC repair. every little bit of info goes to solving the problem. i like the thought of running a cpu stress test when issues are intermittent. Also good on you for going the extra mile with the replacement. wish i had a microcenter in Louisiana, closest is Houston TX 4hr. any fav test programs for stress testing? prime95, furmark, cpu-z? would love to hear what additions you make to your troubleshooting methodology.
Great video and great effort! I think the comments about it being heat related are probably on point as with all the power cycles, the system may not have "saturated" enough heat to cause the issue to occur (except for when it did). In any case, thanks for your work!
I've said it on many of your fix or flop vids before, and I will continue to say it till you read it. (I was a PC repairer and builder) Many... many... MANY!!!! Times people with crashing / instability problems would bring their system in saying, "It crashes 3 times a day or more!" I'd plug it in, power it up, and poof... works flawlessly. Turns out that the shaking, jostling and vibrations from bringing it over just fixes problems sometimes. My educated guess is related to your fix here. Re-seating. Before I ever swap a part to "see if said part is the problem"... I reseat it. Reseating is simply pulling said part out of its slot and putting it back in. If its RAM or a GPU, I usually take a microfiber cloth soaked with isopropyl alcohol and wipe it across the pins, then take an air duster and blow into the slots.
Watching this video was like deja-vu, i went through EXACTLY this same issue earlier this year with my wife's PC. Interestingly the same MB & CPU combo (5800X in a strix b550-F). machine ran fine for 2.5 years and then suddenly started failing in the exact same way, same lockups on windows boot that would be 100% reproducable and then suddenly just start working for a while before going back to 100% boot lockups again. I spent so much time trying to diagnose it and ruling out everything 1 by 1 before having to take a leap of faith and buy a replacement 5800X and the machine has been perfect ever since. the 'faulty' 5800X worked perfectly fine in that machine for years, and works fine in another system, but it somehow was the issue. There's something about that CPU & MB combo where some marginal issue with the CPU causes this weirdly intermittent yet reliable fault but only in that MB. Edited to add: I ruled out a cooler mounting issue early in my testing. I can see why you might have come to that conclusion, I did too which was why I tested it, but I'm confident that wasn't the case.
Sometimes you just need to reseat the cpu. Did you remove the cpu at any point before the issue went away, or was it the first time you removed it when you replaced it?
So good to see the series back again. I love your posts, and have watched all of them multiple times. Glad to have new content. This was a weird one. Could the capture card have been in issue? In your test bed the capture card was not inserted. Just a thought. Don't fault yourself you tried everything that should have worked.
I let it run for hours at times and it never froze or reset. But once it began freezing/resetting, it never stopped until I reseated the CPU, as discussed. So I'm not sure heat alone was the issue.
@@GregSalazar My guess is that this is a bad/failed internal connection somewhere either on the CPU or on the motherboard socket solder joints (sounds like CPU based on reading many of the follow up comments from the client here). Probably happened to have been "jostled" during transport into a working state, then when it got warm after your first few initial attempts at replicating the issue, expansion from heat might have caused the bad connection to end up broken again and then stay that way until the CPU was removed. Once you put everything back together, that internal bad connection may have been making good enough contact to work for a while, until it was transported again. I know this might be a bit of a stretch, but it's about the only thing that makes sense to me after watching this, since it clearly was working for a while🙂
This is what my clients call "The presence of IT, magic", the amount of times I have handed a system back to someone and not been able to inform them of how I fixed it is staggering. I was given the nickname Wizard for this fact alone, I'm starting to think modern machines run on "ones" aura just as much as it's installed power supply.
I understand your frustration as the troubleshooter. But if it's any consolation, your findings in the various systems you handle in this playlist helps me diagnose the computers I fix here in my part of the world. Cheers.
This was a nice one to watch. You being a bit lost. Always learning from your video's. BTW, nice desk backgroud screen from a city in the Netherlands Was this yours or just a screen from Microsoft?
I have had similar problem with Asus RoG with Rysen 5600 computer with Win 10 and upgrading to Win 11 going into the repair cycle and it was`nt like this one. It had to due with making sure the TPM was 2.0 and secure boot was enable and updating Bios . also making sure when you do this that a 3rd partition is added to the drive. since that was done no other issues . Keep up the great content and really enjoy watching them Greg .
I had a HP Omen with a Ryzen 5 5500G... (the reason I will never buy another prebuild). One day I came home from work, and it froze when I booted it up. I reset it and it was still freezing at the same spot as the one you were working on. I swapped the GPU, reseated the RAM and tried each slot individually, reseated storage, reseated the CPU... still freezing. thought it might be the MOBO or a bad storage drive, so I went and bought both. Got all the way to the installing windows part and it freezes again. The only thing I didn't replace was the 5500G. So, I had to go back to the store. I bought the same CPU that was in the build you were working on, a Ryzen 7 5800X, and I haven't had a problem since... but now, I am worried... thanks! Love this series though! I would love to be able to do what you do in my area.
I'm a compiler dev at MS and all I can say is welcome to cpu cache failures! Likely a manufacturing defect small enough they missed it. Almost no way to spot it reliably in windows since you don't make it far enough to get a crash dump. If you want a couple suggestions how we handle this in testing, feel free to reach out.
Had a similar issue a while back, it ended up being a bad USB port on the motherboard. Whenever anything was plugged into that port it would BSOD. I did notice in the beginning of the video you didn't have a keyboard plugged in, and didn't have any issue. Then you had the keyboard plugged into the rear of the motherboard, and eventually got the BSOD. And finally at the end you had it plugged into the front case ports and no BSOD. Maybe the CPU had a bad USB controller, and since front panel is handled by the motherboard chipset that's why there wasn't an issue when plugged in the front. EDIT: Hmm, maybe it was a motherboard USB port, because I saw you had the keyboard plugged in the back of the test system and didn't have any issues.
Wonderful video. It was a good video on steps to take when fixing pc's without knowing the cause of the problem. This video won't make me to not watch anymore - actually it will be the exact oppisite and make it so I will watch as much as I can.i was a little surprised you didn't do a temperature test.
Have you tried a different USB port on that motherboard? I have encountered many times when I was unable to post because it was plugged into a faulty USB port. I saw in the video that you had the keyboard plugged into the front USB port, not the back one, as you had in the clip where the error occurred.
Ok I have had the exact same problem a few years ago. I build alot of PC for friends and one I built had the exact same issue. After I finally resorted to pulling it completely apart I reassembled it peice by piece (well within limits) and low and behold she fired up perfectly. The only thing I could think of is that the MB had a bad socket (maybe a bit of contact area damaged) If you think about it, reseating the CPU and retightening the AIO actually shifts the CPU (almost imperceptly) and thereby in the second instance it avoids the bad spot in the socket. Hope that gives you some piece of mind :)
Hi Greg! I had the same issue a couple of years ago with an older platform. Same randomness with the symptom. My "healthy" trigger was RAM. Same thing as your CPU. Once I pulled them out and back in. The system worked. Maybe for a couple of days, month or hours. Swapping the motherboard finally fixed it. Maybe you ran into the same problem. We can say a two out of a million situation? Haha. Glad you were able to fix it
One other variable i noticed was in each shot you showed the pc working after the swap. The pc was on its side. The unworking footage shows the pc standing up both at the start of your video and when it failed later for your client later on. Posable idea a ZIF socket issue with thermal expansion causing a disconnecting CPU pin. Its a stretch but an idea. { and yes i too would expect the pressure of the cooler mount to hold it all together but maybe something shifting inside the socket} Great vid ty for making it !!
I had the exact same problems with a similar 5800x rig and just ruled out everything but the CPU. Random crashes, random freezes. After hours of testing, definitely was a bad CPU. It was so similar to my rig, as soon as you said the symptoms and specs, I knew it was the CPU.
Check your mounting pressures. My buddy would constantly get blue screens and we are normally pretty proficient at fixing PC issues but couldn't figure it out. Turned out the cooler was not mounted properly. Remounted with the correct pressure and it works great now!
I work in PC troubleshooting. After about an hour of the normal stuff I move straight onto Windows To Go install, you can put one on any USB stick, but i highly recommend an external USB SSD. That way you're now testing the hardware and not the windows install. Ofc you can boot Linux or whatever, but I feel like a lot of windows issues can be pretty strange so booting another copy of Windows keeps things a bit more apples to apples.
Greg being like, "I'm thinking it's a problem with the storage drive." And I'm going, "Well there's still another 25 minutes left in the video so I'm guessing you thought wrong."
fellow pc tinker here had similar issue with mine and what fixed it was disabling fast boot because fast boot is designed for HDD since you have fast SSD m.2 it’s not necessary and causes BSOD issues and freezing. if problem persists or comes up again and that feature hasn’t been disabled i recommend giving that a try.
This. Fast boot (officially called Fast Startup) uses a form of hibernation when the PC is shut down. It's not quite as elaborate as full hybernation, but it still saves your state to storage so that when booting back up Windows loads lightning fast. It definitely appears that something got corrupted during the hybernation process. I think that if you had disabled Fast Startup after swapping the CPUs, this would've given the PC a chance to purge any lingering hybernation issues and boot up completely fresh.
@@RedVisor1 no fast boot does not save to storage. fast boot is not the same as windows semihibernation, in fact it has nothing to do with windows at all. that being said fast boot can cause issues both on linux and windows since its a BIOS issue.
I had the same issue on my ASUS ROG Z690 MB where I thought it was the NVME drive and replaced it with a spare. It would boot into windows but I get the BSOD after a min or so. It would also fail at loading Windows in the BIOS. It would also fail during windows install. It ended up being the RAM. I did the RAM Slot swap same issue. I then ran the BIOS memory test and had 10000 of miscalculations (where it stopped recording). I replaced the RAM and no more issues.
Ive seen a remount fix issues. Maybe some dust or hair in the socket, causing a weird I/O issue. I've had a similar issue back in the socket a days. Could also be some issue with the motherboard, maybe a lose solder joint somewhere?
At first i thought the same as a few others about the reseating CPU or it was the cooler pressure, but once you said it was doing it again at the end of the video i started looking at the comments! Someone was saying about how it was working fine on its side, so here are my 2 guesses as to what could be wrong. 1 - Could be a loose chip in the CPU or MB, with the pc on its side it could have made good contact but once moved around it shorted out. 2 - Could have been a wire on the back of the MB or something conductive that was making contact with some pins, once on the side it was not making contact, once the viewer got it back home it could have made contact again making a short. I have had something make contact on the back of the MB once and was lucky enough to still have everything working after finding and removing what was causing the problem.
I've had something similar happen in the past and it drove me nuts for the same reasons. it turned out to be the mobo having a random I/O error...that's the thing with electronics, it doesn't always make sense and you've just got to call it because it only takes one bad trace/line on the mobo to start to fail and you're going to waste a lot of time driving yourself insane. It could've been a manufacturing fault or the board got stressed somewhere in the build...EG: one of the NVMe sockets had a bad connection. In your shoes, I would've replaced the mobo and probably given the customer the other CPU you had to hand but I doubt it would've been the latter. Anyway, it was good to see you go through this pain as so far I think you've been lucky to not have one of these before. They are rare but I've had a couple now and it helps with your experience facing a similar problem in the future.
I have similar issues with ARGB devices causing systems to freeze. Especially ones connected to MB USB 2.0 headers. Just reconnect the RGB setup exactly, if you can remember or see in recording. Also, budget PC cases, especially with ARGB hubs, usually with FAN headers too. All of the way up to the front panel selector for RGB lighting.
Sometimes, a simple CPU reseat is all it needs, I ran into that kind of problem once, but this case is something I haven't seen. I'm glad I watched this video.
PC owner here!
Its absolutely wild that the symptoms changed once in Greg's hands. The PC was crashing so constantly it was totally unusable when I submitted to FoF. When he told me it was running without crashing I was deeply worried.
When I retrieved the system, we had a discussion about it because he had such difficulties with replicating. Once I got it home it crashed again within 5 minutes.
Greg followed up with me and was able to work with me remotely and we finally determined it was in fact a dead CPU!
My suspicion based on the progression of symptoms and small variations is something wrong with my old CPU's PCIE lanes
Lanes as it relates to the nvme slot. Good call. Great video.
Trying to diagnose BSODs is so frustrating; glad you were able to get it sorted!
@@hardwaredynasty Not this 100% because other slots use different lanes
Did Greg send you a replacement cpu?
Hi Greg, I'm a PC builder from the UK, and I recently encountered a similar issue with a customer's system. The strange part was that it only happened during Windows software updates. Every time they tried to install an update, the system would crash with repeated blue screens. I tried swapping the memory, boot drive, updating the BIOS, and even reseating the processor, but nothing worked. Finally, I replaced the CPU, and the problem was resolved instantly. It felt like one of the memory caches in the original processor had failed. Love your videos - keep them coming!
Cheers, Jake
I had a blue screen of death occur with a customer's computer that I have never seen that was caused by Windows update. The blue screen of death was bad system config info. I have never seen that one until then. I was able to get the computer fixed for them, but that was the first time I have ever seen that blue screen with that particular error.
@@awesomereview2358 Just broken drive controler in procesor or some shieet
Try this - before touching hardware, make a new user profile, and try recreate the issue there. From there move to SFC & DISM (3 parts) until no issues are found. Then try repeat the issue in the Test user profile and the existing user.
If non of that resolves the issue, then by all means start with hardware, specifically RAM. :) This lowers your risk on many levels. :)
Good luck!
that sounds like WIndows software updates stress the system in a unique way that the system just couldn't take.
I hope that's not what's wrong with mine. Everything was fine until I used some software recommended by Jay. It removes all traces of uninstalled programs down to the registry. After a few things removed Windows stopped working. Can't rem how it went down exactly but I ended up wiping the drive and reinstalling windows. Ever since, I get random blue screens. So random it's like every other week or so. For a while I also couldn't seem to install updates. It would make it almost through the process and right at the end restart and remove the changes. Pain in the ass. Seems to be installing updates everyday now according to the event viewer and most say successful. It's not restarting for these updates either for some reason. The biggest problem I have are a ton of distributedcom errors in my log. There are like 60 of them between 240-530am today. Multiple big blocks of them later too. Sometimes more than one in the same second. I can't figure out why I get those after hours and hours of scouring online. I realize this isn't a ton of info, but have you ever seen these distcom errors before? It's been a while since I've looked into it and the blocks of those errors are seemingly larger than they were before. I bet it's around 300 or better a day. There's usually a block of them before a crash but always tons of them and doesn't crash every time they show. If you need more info I can provide it. That is if you are even interested or are familiar with the issue. I wouldn't blame you if you keep scrolling. If you made it this far, I thank you for reading it. Your job isn't helping random people that pop in comments.
The technical term for this issue is PFM. Pure F***ing Magic.
We don't like magic.
i have seen this a few times. its 99 percent of the time pressure cooler not being mounted correctly.
@@zZ1n0 Especially when its smoke ends up leaving the components.
no... it's Magic hands.... 🤣 and Greg can throw the parts canon on it... but these are usually the worst to fix.
@@darrenclift6704 its not just that, the ryzen voltages run way too high at stock on some chips, the bios showed 1.475v which is way too high, undervolting has solved it sometimes
hi Greg, it's also my job in France and I wanted to thank you for showing the huge frustration that we feel when a problem disappears on its own and we see ourselves obliged to return the equipment to the customer without any response to give him (because deep down we know that the problem could come back at any time and that we will not have a solution), and also thank you for not having hidden this "fix or flop" because that’s also our job. Sometimes we get no satisfactory answer, or no answer at all, and the most frustrated is often the technician before the customer. Rest assured, even if a StressTest could have put you on the path to an answer, I would not have changed anything in your methodology (having already seen a Ryzen have this behavior I was certain that you had found the fault, and I felt the same frustration as you when I saw him go back!) Thank you for your work, I love Fix or Flop for all that, and for your intellectual honesty!
for the record the day before the system became completely unstable, I actually ran Prime95 for six hours straight without a crash or even a single fault. This issue was incredibly vexing and I'm glad this video conveyed that.
Please never stop fix or flop series :)
Doubt he'll ever run out of systems to fix 😂
I love that this turned out to be undiagnosed and random and unfixable, gives us all the real experience when we have no idea wtf is going on. Glad you were able to get them a new CPU
the dirt is making to bsod
Just buy a new pc and sell that as is that’s what I would do
@@RobHuebel-i8z so you would sell it at a loss?🤔
@ Not really you can part it out also I don’t have patience just buy a new chump change
When it's 30 mins long you know it's gonna be an interesting one
That's what she said 😉
@@Mayfired sadly not yet
@@Mayfired
Sooooo....you've...met my wife.🤨
It was waste of time, diagnose failed, and FIX was, wElL LEt Us REplAcE Hw tHAt GoNNa FIX iT 🤦♂
Very nice of MicroCenter - commentary on possibilities would be a failed capacitor or gateway circuit, which while cold would work, but once 'heating' up from having current run through it would always fail. Sometimes CPU have failed trace lines (motherboards also) that once the heat expansion occurs the traces get 'close' enough to each other that you get magnetic interference or direct line shorting. You see this effect also in fractured boards and chips (and yes the heat sink anchors can apply enough pressure to actually cause a micro fracture).
This is also my best guess, excessive mounting pressure caused a micro fracture in the CPU (or even the socket) and it's possible that with different heat cycles and voltages, this would 'flex' the fracture and sometimes, a connection would form, other times it would not. On the other hand it could be something completely ridiculous that no one thought to check, but in any case, an interesting one.
My favorite is when ram in a server gets too hot and pushes itself out. Not something I've experienced but I've heard of it.
Gotta say I always have been a fan. You go out of your way to make sure they have a working system, even if I means using equipment from your own inventory. Just a top class guy and keep up the great work!
It's thanks to all of you! I appreciate your support.
Gotta say I recently became a GPU.
@@GregSalazarGreat Video Greg
@@GregSalazar Hey greg i had the same problem with a asus B550 motherboard and ryzen 5700G it would reset every time tried to install or load into windows but allowed me use the bios freely i fixed it when i changed the cpu thought i was the only one with the that problem. PS it does the same thing other motherboards.
As a viewer who has watched your fix or flop videos religiously, watching you troubleshoot gives me confidence to work with my own pc. I’ve built a few pcs myself and luckily haven’t run into any problems. Thank you for making these videos. It’s entertaining yet very informative! I love what you do!
I have seen this before. It was caused by a cooler pressure. Remounting the cooler fixed the issue. So you got that right.
Mounting pressure was my first guess too but since they're not using an LGA CPU socket I don't see how it could be.
Same thoughts when i saw the cooler. They are fine but you can get a uneven mount with the ones that use the clips causing some very weird cpu issues.
@@thewickedtim it’s definitely possible. I once upgraded my cpu in my old pc that was on am4 and it wouldn’t post until I loosened the cpu cooler by a hair. Was really weird considering the cpu cooler I was using had a mechanism for the screws to keep it from over tightening. I was confused for about a day after tbh.
Yeah, mounting pressure was were I was going as well. There could be a component on the COU that under pressure would not be getting a good connection in the substrate or a cold solder joint on the CPU. Thus when to much pressure is applied it makes a gap or when it heats up it looses contact and starts freezing. Possibly the controller on the CPU that controls the M.2?
Greg probably should check mounting cooler mount when checking all cable connections as time permits. A fresh thermal paste application is always a good idea.
Hi Greg, Paul from South Africa here. I am a fan of your Fix or Flop videos so please keep making them. Some of us here over the pond enjoy watching them too. Anyways, I have been involved with computers for many many years. Without giving away my age, my experience with computers goes back far longer than the length of time you have spent here on planet earth. Now I feel old, lol. That being said, I have built many pc's in my time and I have experienced the exact same issue you have been having. In my instance, the problem turned out to be the motherboard cell. I found that the issue was it was not seated properly and basically messing with the CMOS and as soon as the PC operating system tries to communicate with the hardware, the poor cell connection caused a handshake issue between CMOS and operating system software. I am of the opinion that you may have a dodgy cell in that mobo or it is not seated properly. Check the retention mechanism and also check the voltage of the cell. It should be around 3V. Anways, this was my experience and I thought sharing this info "might " assist. It is a long shot in the dark but perhaps worth looking into if your customer still has the original mobo.
Spot on!! That is one of the main fixes for this issue. Something else I did not see you do in the video is remove the motherboard and check for any debris that might cause an issue like a short, once found a beetle that shorted a mobo to the case like that. Another thing I did not see you do is remove and reconnect the PSU connectors to the motherboard, as that can also cause the problem with one or more not making a proper connection.
Sometimes reseating CPU, RAM or whatever makes a world of difference in my experience
yup, reseating my ram fixed a bsod
Was just about to say this. Seen this on a lot of other channels as well, especially Ryzen😉
Yup I had a lot of dust packed into a ram slot causing me all kinds of issues. It wasn't until I took out the ram sprayed it out with the duster and insert it again that it was fine. Granted I didn't come to that conclusion until going through a lot of other steps. Before the ram, I reinstalled OS, replaced the boot drive and also replaced the CPU. Was still having random lockups until I finally checked the ram.
Yep! Reseating helps a surprising amount of times.
100%.
Almost always my first step when trying to find a "ghost in the machine".
Great video Greg. Not really a good guy with computer stuff here. Thank you so much for making these videos. While you were trying to find the issue, i thought it might be the BIOS just seconds before you mentioned it on the video. All i learned about computers are literally coming from your videos like fix or flop and PCDC.
When something is wrong i can literally follow your steps and solve the problem. So far so good, no replecament needed.
Please don't stop making these videos good sir, we are learning a lot with you here.
I very much appreciate this! Glad they can be as much a help to you as they have been for me!
Watched until the end before commenting, this was one rollercoaster. My first reaction was “RAID vs AHCI mode” if it was bsod-ing during windows load, but then it loaded into windows fine. Then I thought “power issue with a capacitor or something” since it would load into windows fine during the first boot but never afterwards, so my bet was on a motherboard swap. Very good of you Greg to offer them a new motherboard and CPU in the end, Asus has 3 year warranties on their motherboards (and my RMA about 2 months ago went pretty smoothly), but my hats off to you for getting the viewer up and running with the parts from Microcenter instead
a few moments later and he figures out it was broken and he was being premature that system was fine🤣🤣
"Watched until the end before commenting" That's what you're supposed to do.
Greg you are a stand up dude. This is why I watch your channel.
can a cpu do chip crawl? that could be why taking the cpu out and putting it back in again could have fixed it
I loved the way you troubleshooted this and the transparency was amazing. I have repaired a ton of PCs and have never seen an issue quite like this before, so I am over here thinking you did all you could do! And thank you for taking care of your customer/audience member who submitted the PC to you! 10/10!!
Very interesting video! Highly appreciate that you still published this video despite of everything and you're always being honest! Glad that the viewer finally got a working machine in the end.
Always an instant watch
man this series is just keeps on giving, thanks greg.
Another example of why you're my favorite RUclips channel. Great job Greg! Your transparency and genuine interest in making sure the client has a good experience is a great example to any of us that are going to do this as a side gig or a full-time job.
And kudos to you and your wife for selecting interesting cases that entertain and educate.
I believe that was your best fix or flop yet. Absolutely loved watching this video. Great job! And I support the cpu mounting block also.
Love the series! I had to do surgery on my computer I built in a 1970s stereo system, at a remote cabin. Turns out it was an unseated ram stick! Thanks for the content and tips!
The worse case scenario, an intermittent problem. Even given that, you handled it like a true PRO! I want to be able to do this type of work but alas, my back problem prevents me from moving desktops around enough for this to be a viable activity for me but at least I can live vicariously thru you, Greg, and I find so much value from this series. Your integrity is inspiring.
Honestly I agree with the mounting pressure issue, I've seen some really weird stuff happen because of improperly mounted aio's.
I love videos like this. For anyone who struggled with strange pc issues it's great to see others get lost trying to fix problems
It worked after you layed the PC on it's side, and it failed after transport... I would have looked for if there was something wrong with the motherboard mounting. But my gues is a slightly broken trace or solder point on the motherboard.
Yes I agree I have been building and repairing PCs for over 20 yrs. Sometimes when a board is installed they crank it down to hard and can cause a solder point crack that’s still touching hell humidity can make it worse as it expands and closes back up.
I’m a master automotive technician and I deal with issues like this all the time! Often times it just comes down to unplugging and reseating an electrical connector or component due to slight resistance build up in said component over time. The fact that it was behaving when cold and reared its ugly head when components started to warm up points to this being the probable problem. Slight vibrations and thermal expansion/contraction can cause build up of carbon or other debris causing an increase in resistance, which causes further thermal increase and resistance, and so on. Sometimes reseating can help, but often the terminals in the connector or the component itself will require replacement due to damage build up over time.
You went above and beyond by paying for the replacement parts. Love it! I would ask for the “broken” parts to be sent to you. It would make a good video later on trying to find the culprit in a more extensive review of it. Or drive you nuts. Lol
Absolutely love this series. I hope you can continue this series and hopefully inspire other you-tubers to do the same. Would class human being for doing this out of his own pocket and help people get there systems running again.
This is a known issue with 2TB SN770 NVMe drives that is addressed with a firmware update. Even if its not the main drive, it just has to be in the slot at power on.
Ooh, thanks! I did notice that while the 2TB drive is working perfectly and doesn't have any data integrity issues, it DOES fail a NameSpace test - I read this has something to do with cache and doesn't necessarily mean anything is faulty with the drive. If a firmware update can resolve that then that's good knowledge!
Hey Carey. We tested the system multiple times without the SN770 connected at all. Still failed when it felt like failing. And when it started working again toward the end of the video, both the SN770 and other WD drive were reconnected and it booted/idled without issue.
Hi Greg
That was a hard fix
@@GregSalazar Thank you for the reply!
Greg , this is why I love your Channell . You knew deep down , that something was still not right . I am glad the owner was able to get the replacement board and CPU and get his rig back up and going ,happy day !😎
Mounting pressure definitely seems reasonable. I've definitely experienced weird stuff with mounting pressure before. Though I'm my case my PC failed to POST altogether.
It happens to me to old cooler not apling pressure correctly and I incorrectly applied presure to a nother cooler coursed weed Simtomd
happened to me too, had to unscrew it a bit to work out.
You are one of my favorite youtubers. You make great content, but also you are a kind and awesome as a person.
CPU pressure by the AIO? maybe?
also a crazy/faulty VRM might just do that also, harder to notice/diagnose
Greg, as someone who also works on computers, it would seem you have developed the "Aura". It's something many people in IT careers have, and car mechanics often have it too. You are tasked with working on a computer that isn't functioning properly, and as soon as you touch it, sometimes even just look at it, everything works fine. It can be both a blessing and a curse. I'm glad you got it fixed in the end, but it can be absolutely frustrating to be given something you are assured is broken, and it operate normally for you. Both you and the owner wind up with even more frustration.
Greg can't replicate the power the owner is feeding the PC. And faulty computer components will show errors sooner on dirty power. It can come down to the wiring in the home, or even just the power cable. The moment Greg gets the PC and plugs it into a UPS with a known good power cable, he is changing variables. This was one of those times it bit him in the ass.
Yep I’ve had this exact same issue and could never figure what happened, it turned out to just be weird mounting pressure on the cpu cooler. It drove me crazy for weeks
"Mission failed successfully!" - gotta love this as an IT problem solver myself. :)
Only thing I could think of is a random intermittent short. Something got behind the MOBO and occasionally causes the short
It's a possibility since it something similar happened to a friend, not long ago. The thing, it ddin't had anything being the mobo. After a several tests, i decides to put black electric tape in the casea nd where the IO shield goes.. The behavior stop. In his case, the soldering behind the mobo was touching/or arching with the case. First time I've ever seen this
THis is the reason 100%
That was my thought too. There was a previous F or F episode (two actually) where the platform being inside that case was causing a problem. I'm surprised Greg didnt remember that and try bench testing the platform separate from the case. Also, the socket might be *just* warped enough to make intermittent contact with the pins or some number of the pins could be *just* at the edge/out of spec. Sometimes it's just a combination of a bunch of things.
This has been a positive learning experience for me. I'm a tech just outside of Tifton Georgia. I enjoyed this experience. Thanks!
Well Greg, I had a lot of problems with SN770 2tb in windows 24h2. Problems very similar you’ve faced. For me the solution was to update SSD firmware. And it worked. Keep doing it because I never miss an episode.
I never thought of that. Looks like that wasn't the issue here, but that's useful info for me, because I buy a lot of used parts and never really consider SSD firmware
Download the western digital dashboard and update the latest firmware western digital was known to have issues with the newest update due to a cache issue for some reason, I’ve got a western digital blue that was bsod and more with the newest update but once I installed the latest firmware with the western digital dashboard every issue went away instantly mate
I love this playlist. It's like Gray's Anatomy for PC nerds. Keep saving and doing surgery on those Gaming PCs
After watching the video, it looks like the issue could be with the motherboard. There could also be an intermittent problem with the PCI Express bus.
I too agree it is the motherboard.
First time watching this channel and you’ve earned a new sub here. You have all my respect for going out of your way to purchase a motherboard and cpu which isn’t cheap to mention for a customer. It goes to show how genuine you are and also great content I don’t really stick around to watch whole videos, however your videos are interesting 👍 keep up the amazing work!
I noticed a change in voltage in the BIOS 1.472v and the second time you showed it, it was 1.376v. in the BIOS screen (another boot up)
Its an automatic insta play when its a fix or flop. Cant put my thumb on it but this series is just so enjoyable and relaxing to watch!
I had the exact same Rog Strix B550-F motherboard this guy had, along with a 5900X. That system had problems with stability where it would just randomly lock up and freeze. The problem got worse over time too, as it went from only occasionally happening to freezing every 5-20 minutes. Sometimes it would freeze on boot, but mostly it stayed running long enough to get into windows. I had narrowed the problem down to either the cpu or motherboard, but didn't want to buy a non-refundable cpu to test it, and if it was the motherboard I didn't want to buy a new one that was a dead platform, so I just ended up upgrading to zen 4 with a new B650 board and the pc has been working fine since. I personally think it was the cpu, but I also am suspicious that the motherboard was pumping too much voltage through it, as asus likes to do, which is why it got worse over time.
Set a locked clock and voltage in the lower part of the frequency range see if it exhibits any of the same behavior.
I actually will have this issue with my setup when I'm playing around with ram timing if I set my IOD voltage a little too high I start getting weird behavior similar to both of y'all.
I have a 5900x and a gigabyte x570 aorus master and i have similar problems just like you, my pc just randomly bsod, freezing or just crashing when gaming
With years working at a help desk I'm still amazed when hard to explain things like this happen. But it keeps you on your toes.
Computer technician here. In my experience, it was probably the motherboard that went bad. Simply because there’s sooooo many components on them that could go bad. I mean, I can count on one hand, how many times I’ve seen an actually bad cpu……and I’ve been a technician for over 6 years and building since high school.
Based on the symptoms, it looks like maybe some CPU-to-RAM traces have faults in them. It looked like whenever the system was trying to assign data to memory, it just locked up during that process.
Just an educated guess. SUPER INTERESTING video though Greg! Keep up the great work sir!
Definitely this. It's the most complex component in a PC and tasked with handling, no less, than 4 million things.
yea reseating a component will often resolve the issue.. points toward a MB issue.. alot of traces and contacts that can bend or shake loose
My PC used to have symptoms like the one in the video. After some troubleshooting, I figured out it happened when I enabled EXPO in the BIOS. Would that be because of the Mobo aswell? I don't have the money to buy parts to swap.
Just last week my 12600kf would not post to bios after a restart when installing a new program. Had vga light on a B760m. Swapped gpus, reseated and tried both sticks of ram alone in slots 2 and 4, swapped power supplies, removed all storage devices, removed cmos battery, and finally got a new Z790 board. Vga light still on except when I swapped to the new board the DRAM light was on and still no post. Finally swapped in my 12100f and it's boots to windows. Swapped the 12600kf back in and DRAM light on again. Intel is approving my rma.
That is what I was sure of as well but we finally determined it was actually the CPU after all!
Hi Greg, thank you for all the content you have made so far I appreciate it!
I was having kinda exact same issue with my Ryzen 7600x a year ago when I built my first gaming PC. It was fine with the first POST and until it boots into windows the first time and decided to watch some youtube videos with it to stress test until it crashes and restart right about 1 hour later. The crashes became quicker with every restarts until it even freezes on BIOS mode. Considered everything like RAM (remounted, changed slots and even RMA the sticks), PSU (which feels unlikely but I re-plug them just in case), CPU (remounting it multiple times with slightly different pressure each mount), updated the BIOS and reset the CMOS to absolutely no changes to the issue whatsoever (CPU temps are below 60c all along, so not an overheat issue). I don't consider GPU is the culprit since I have not installed it yet and I was using the igpu for the display. Then I decided to sent both the CPU and the motherboard to the shop (it's a 1 day express trip, thank god I purchased them on the same shop) and let them test it and swap with their own spare CPU of the same model. Turns out theirs was working fine even after couple of restarts and even played some games with it, it just works really well without any crashes at all! Decided to only RMA the CPU and the shop sent them back after a week. Reassembled them and it has been working fine since then. Today I still have no pinpoint reason other than "maybe it's just a faulty CPU" to what caused the utterly puzzling and scary series of crashes that happened a while after you boot the system. But yeah it's been a ride for me since it was my first time getting my hands on the PC parts and build them on my own and then to deal this kind of issues straight away.
Cheers!
@22:00 i guess the most major change was the mounting pressure
oh greg assumes the same something else i noticed ....seems that when it boots the majority of the time the computer is stood up and not on the side ....maybe something when it is standing shorts something juuuuuuuuust barely ?
Maybe the owner didn’t have the perfect amount of thermal paste?
@@keenobservations3050 nah overtighen screws would do the "damage" on that aspect ....when it comes to non conductive paste you can pretty much unload the whole tube and most of the times it will still be fine :P
@ that was in reference to another RUclipsr that says that when he’s applying paste.
@@keenobservations3050 oh ok i either did not see that ever or i do not remember it !
thanks greg for exposure of these anomalies with PC repair. every little bit of info goes to solving the problem. i like the thought of running a cpu stress test when issues are intermittent. Also good on you for going the extra mile with the replacement. wish i had a microcenter in Louisiana, closest is Houston TX 4hr. any fav test programs for stress testing? prime95, furmark, cpu-z? would love to hear what additions you make to your troubleshooting methodology.
dont worry ... problems that go away on their own, come back on their own ... could be rust/oxidation .. dirty system? ... maybe
Great video and great effort! I think the comments about it being heat related are probably on point as with all the power cycles, the system may not have "saturated" enough heat to cause the issue to occur (except for when it did). In any case, thanks for your work!
I've said it on many of your fix or flop vids before, and I will continue to say it till you read it. (I was a PC repairer and builder)
Many... many... MANY!!!! Times people with crashing / instability problems would bring their system in saying, "It crashes 3 times a day or more!" I'd plug it in, power it up, and poof... works flawlessly.
Turns out that the shaking, jostling and vibrations from bringing it over just fixes problems sometimes.
My educated guess is related to your fix here. Re-seating. Before I ever swap a part to "see if said part is the problem"... I reseat it.
Reseating is simply pulling said part out of its slot and putting it back in. If its RAM or a GPU, I usually take a microfiber cloth soaked with isopropyl alcohol and wipe it across the pins, then take an air duster and blow into the slots.
Watching this video was like deja-vu, i went through EXACTLY this same issue earlier this year with my wife's PC. Interestingly the same MB & CPU combo (5800X in a strix b550-F). machine ran fine for 2.5 years and then suddenly started failing in the exact same way, same lockups on windows boot that would be 100% reproducable and then suddenly just start working for a while before going back to 100% boot lockups again. I spent so much time trying to diagnose it and ruling out everything 1 by 1 before having to take a leap of faith and buy a replacement 5800X and the machine has been perfect ever since. the 'faulty' 5800X worked perfectly fine in that machine for years, and works fine in another system, but it somehow was the issue. There's something about that CPU & MB combo where some marginal issue with the CPU causes this weirdly intermittent yet reliable fault but only in that MB.
Edited to add: I ruled out a cooler mounting issue early in my testing. I can see why you might have come to that conclusion, I did too which was why I tested it, but I'm confident that wasn't the case.
dont stress it you did the best you could and even replaced the mobo and cpu IMO you are a lagend keep being amazing greg
Sometimes you just need to reseat the cpu. Did you remove the cpu at any point before the issue went away, or was it the first time you removed it when you replaced it?
Bro looks like he's cosplaying James Potter. Great video Greg
Gonna say Young Egon Spengler myself but yeah! haha
So good to see the series back again. I love your posts, and have watched all of them multiple times. Glad to have new content. This was a weird one. Could the capture card have been in issue? In your test bed the capture card was not inserted. Just a thought. Don't fault yourself you tried everything that should have worked.
ah ... heat ...let it run ... hit it with cold air in various spots.. probably the opposite effect... something warmed up and moved/separated ...
I let it run for hours at times and it never froze or reset. But once it began freezing/resetting, it never stopped until I reseated the CPU, as discussed. So I'm not sure heat alone was the issue.
@@GregSalazar My guess is that this is a bad/failed internal connection somewhere either on the CPU or on the motherboard socket solder joints (sounds like CPU based on reading many of the follow up comments from the client here). Probably happened to have been "jostled" during transport into a working state, then when it got warm after your first few initial attempts at replicating the issue, expansion from heat might have caused the bad connection to end up broken again and then stay that way until the CPU was removed. Once you put everything back together, that internal bad connection may have been making good enough contact to work for a while, until it was transported again. I know this might be a bit of a stretch, but it's about the only thing that makes sense to me after watching this, since it clearly was working for a while🙂
This is what my clients call "The presence of IT, magic", the amount of times I have handed a system back to someone and not been able to inform them of how I fixed it is staggering. I was given the nickname Wizard for this fact alone, I'm starting to think modern machines run on "ones" aura just as much as it's installed power supply.
I understand your frustration as the troubleshooter. But if it's any consolation, your findings in the various systems you handle in this playlist helps me diagnose the computers I fix here in my part of the world. Cheers.
11:00 A bad core can cause this. Boot is single core, Windows loads multi-core.
Think you handled this amazing Greg, love watching the videos for this reason!
Everyone wishes for their relationship to be as stable and long lasting as Greg's relationship with VIP SCD Key
Please keep thus going, I really enjoy this series and also find it informative
you're an admirable guy Greg. Thanks for keeping us entertained.
Another great hands on course. Appreciate it!
love your fix or flop videos! these have helped me when my gaming pc goes bonkers! :) I've learned so much from you!
Much appreciated!
This was a nice one to watch. You being a bit lost. Always learning from your video's. BTW, nice desk backgroud screen from a city in the Netherlands Was this yours or just a screen from Microsoft?
I have had similar problem with Asus RoG with Rysen 5600 computer with Win 10 and upgrading to Win 11 going into the repair cycle and it was`nt like this one. It had to due with making sure the TPM was 2.0 and secure boot was enable and updating Bios . also making sure when you do this that a 3rd partition is added to the drive. since that was done no other issues . Keep up the great content and really enjoy watching them Greg .
Love this type of videos, keep em coming
I had a HP Omen with a Ryzen 5 5500G... (the reason I will never buy another prebuild). One day I came home from work, and it froze when I booted it up. I reset it and it was still freezing at the same spot as the one you were working on. I swapped the GPU, reseated the RAM and tried each slot individually, reseated storage, reseated the CPU... still freezing. thought it might be the MOBO or a bad storage drive, so I went and bought both. Got all the way to the installing windows part and it freezes again. The only thing I didn't replace was the 5500G. So, I had to go back to the store. I bought the same CPU that was in the build you were working on, a Ryzen 7 5800X, and I haven't had a problem since... but now, I am worried... thanks! Love this series though! I would love to be able to do what you do in my area.
I'm a compiler dev at MS and all I can say is welcome to cpu cache failures! Likely a manufacturing defect small enough they missed it. Almost no way to spot it reliably in windows since you don't make it far enough to get a crash dump.
If you want a couple suggestions how we handle this in testing, feel free to reach out.
Well done Greg, going the extra mile, you are amazing
I have two of those 2TB WD Blacks in my system and absolutely love them. Great episode Greg.
Had a similar issue a while back, it ended up being a bad USB port on the motherboard. Whenever anything was plugged into that port it would BSOD.
I did notice in the beginning of the video you didn't have a keyboard plugged in, and didn't have any issue.
Then you had the keyboard plugged into the rear of the motherboard, and eventually got the BSOD.
And finally at the end you had it plugged into the front case ports and no BSOD.
Maybe the CPU had a bad USB controller, and since front panel is handled by the motherboard chipset that's why there wasn't an issue when plugged in the front.
EDIT: Hmm, maybe it was a motherboard USB port, because I saw you had the keyboard plugged in the back of the test system and didn't have any issues.
Just taking the time to fix a followers cpu.... Admirable sir big thumbs up!!! Well done sir.....
Wonderful video. It was a good video on steps to take when fixing pc's without knowing the cause of the problem. This video won't make me to not watch anymore - actually it will be the exact oppisite and make it so I will watch as much as I can.i was a little surprised you didn't do a temperature test.
Have you tried a different USB port on that motherboard? I have encountered many times when I was unable to post because it was plugged into a faulty USB port. I saw in the video that you had the keyboard plugged into the front USB port, not the back one, as you had in the clip where the error occurred.
Love ya Greg! Much love from Canada
Wow that was a crazy one for sure....But in the end glad you got it fixed!
Ok I have had the exact same problem a few years ago. I build alot of PC for friends and one I built had the exact same issue. After I finally resorted to pulling it completely apart I reassembled it peice by piece (well within limits) and low and behold she fired up perfectly. The only thing I could think of is that the MB had a bad socket (maybe a bit of contact area damaged) If you think about it, reseating the CPU and retightening the AIO actually shifts the CPU (almost imperceptly) and thereby in the second instance it avoids the bad spot in the socket. Hope that gives you some piece of mind :)
Hi Greg! I had the same issue a couple of years ago with an older platform. Same randomness with the symptom. My "healthy" trigger was RAM. Same thing as your CPU. Once I pulled them out and back in. The system worked. Maybe for a couple of days, month or hours. Swapping the motherboard finally fixed it. Maybe you ran into the same problem. We can say a two out of a million situation? Haha. Glad you were able to fix it
The epitome of,"it just started working so I didn't question it"
One other variable i noticed was in each shot you showed the pc working after the swap. The pc was on its side. The unworking footage shows the pc standing up both at the start of your video and when it failed later for your client later on. Posable idea a ZIF socket issue with thermal expansion causing a disconnecting CPU pin. Its a stretch but an idea. { and yes i too would expect the pressure of the cooler mount to hold it all together but maybe something shifting inside the socket} Great vid ty for making it !!
I had the exact same problems with a similar 5800x rig and just ruled out everything but the CPU. Random crashes, random freezes. After hours of testing, definitely was a bad CPU. It was so similar to my rig, as soon as you said the symptoms and specs, I knew it was the CPU.
Check your mounting pressures. My buddy would constantly get blue screens and we are normally pretty proficient at fixing PC issues but couldn't figure it out. Turned out the cooler was not mounted properly. Remounted with the correct pressure and it works great now!
I work in PC troubleshooting. After about an hour of the normal stuff I move straight onto Windows To Go install, you can put one on any USB stick, but i highly recommend an external USB SSD. That way you're now testing the hardware and not the windows install. Ofc you can boot Linux or whatever, but I feel like a lot of windows issues can be pretty strange so booting another copy of Windows keeps things a bit more apples to apples.
Greg being like, "I'm thinking it's a problem with the storage drive." And I'm going, "Well there's still another 25 minutes left in the video so I'm guessing you thought wrong."
fellow pc tinker here had similar issue with mine and what fixed it was disabling fast boot because fast boot is designed for HDD since you have fast SSD m.2 it’s not necessary and causes BSOD issues and freezing. if problem persists or comes up again and that feature hasn’t been disabled i recommend giving that a try.
This. Fast boot (officially called Fast Startup) uses a form of hibernation when the PC is shut down. It's not quite as elaborate as full hybernation, but it still saves your state to storage so that when booting back up Windows loads lightning fast.
It definitely appears that something got corrupted during the hybernation process. I think that if you had disabled Fast Startup after swapping the CPUs, this would've given the PC a chance to purge any lingering hybernation issues and boot up completely fresh.
@@RedVisor1 no fast boot does not save to storage. fast boot is not the same as windows semihibernation, in fact it has nothing to do with windows at all. that being said fast boot can cause issues both on linux and windows since its a BIOS issue.
I had the same issue on my ASUS ROG Z690 MB where I thought it was the NVME drive and replaced it with a spare. It would boot into windows but I get the BSOD after a min or so. It would also fail at loading Windows in the BIOS. It would also fail during windows install. It ended up being the RAM. I did the RAM Slot swap same issue. I then ran the BIOS memory test and had 10000 of miscalculations (where it stopped recording). I replaced the RAM and no more issues.
Ive seen a remount fix issues. Maybe some dust or hair in the socket, causing a weird I/O issue. I've had a similar issue back in the socket a days. Could also be some issue with the motherboard, maybe a lose solder joint somewhere?
Wow, what a trip Greg! U are the best to replace his mb n cpu. All the best to u!!!🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
At first i thought the same as a few others about the reseating CPU or it was the cooler pressure, but once you said it was doing it again at the end of the video i started looking at the comments! Someone was saying about how it was working fine on its side, so here are my 2 guesses as to what could be wrong.
1 - Could be a loose chip in the CPU or MB, with the pc on its side it could have made good contact but once moved around it shorted out.
2 - Could have been a wire on the back of the MB or something conductive that was making contact with some pins, once on the side it was not making contact, once the viewer got it back home it could have made contact again making a short.
I have had something make contact on the back of the MB once and was lucky enough to still have everything working after finding and removing what was causing the problem.
Episodes like this are why I watch this series.
I've had something similar happen in the past and it drove me nuts for the same reasons. it turned out to be the mobo having a random I/O error...that's the thing with electronics, it doesn't always make sense and you've just got to call it because it only takes one bad trace/line on the mobo to start to fail and you're going to waste a lot of time driving yourself insane. It could've been a manufacturing fault or the board got stressed somewhere in the build...EG: one of the NVMe sockets had a bad connection. In your shoes, I would've replaced the mobo and probably given the customer the other CPU you had to hand but I doubt it would've been the latter. Anyway, it was good to see you go through this pain as so far I think you've been lucky to not have one of these before. They are rare but I've had a couple now and it helps with your experience facing a similar problem in the future.
I have similar issues with ARGB devices causing systems to freeze. Especially ones connected to MB USB 2.0 headers.
Just reconnect the RGB setup exactly, if you can remember or see in recording.
Also, budget PC cases, especially with ARGB hubs, usually with FAN headers too. All of the way up to the front panel selector for RGB lighting.
Sometimes, a simple CPU reseat is all it needs, I ran into that kind of problem once, but this case is something I haven't seen. I'm glad I watched this video.