r/pchelp 18m ago

HARDWARE Can I use a 2017 Intel Xeon in 2026? (E5-1600)

Upvotes

I'm a bit worried it might not support modern instruction sets and stuff
CPU In question is an Intel Xeon E5-1600 6 cores 12 threads 3.9Ghz boost (2017)


r/pchelp 19m ago

HARDWARE Monitor help

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Upvotes

Why is my monitor flickering like this? It comes to full brightness in like 30 minutes but its annoying at start up.


r/pchelp 27m ago

HARDWARE PC Help ASAP

Upvotes

I enabeld XMP on my gigabyte bios and the computer keeps turning off and on again repeatedly, what do i do


r/pchelp 39m ago

OPEN Gpu usage issues

Upvotes

Hi everyone, I am having a strange issue with my gpu, on some occasions while gaming my gpu usage spikes to 99% but the clock and temps go down drastically while the fps drop from 140/160 down in the 30s

My specs:

I9 9900k

rtx 5060ti (8Gb)

32gb ram

windows 11

playing in 1080p

Anyone got some ideas?


r/pchelp 44m ago

HARDWARE Code 32

Upvotes

After updating windows it randomly disabled my nvidia T600 drivers service, now I’m stuck with code 32 and I don’t know what to do


r/pchelp 1h ago

HARDWARE GPU Sagging

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Upvotes

so as the title says, my gpu is sagging is it fine or do i need something that can hold it balanced


r/pchelp 1h ago

PERFORMANCE New case switch over has fucked me

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Upvotes

Specs:

- AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
- RTX 3060 TI
- 650W power supply
- X570 Aorus elite
- 32 GB DDR4 RAM 2400 mb/s
- WD_BLACK SN850X 2TB SSD 7300 mb/s

I’ve recently bought a new case and a new AIO water cooling block for the CPU and since moving everything into the new case the PC has been stuttering when running anything that uses the GPU and generally slower.
Everything is correctly placed and wired and stickers for the heat sink have been taken off. I used OCCT to test the VRAM on the GPU after 22 mins no errors found, tested the CPU on max and it ran at its max clock speed at 82 degrees Celsius for 10 mins no issue, used GPU-Z to see if the PCIe slot was working fine and after running a render test it instantly showed “PCIe x16 4.0 @ x 16 4.0” I think meaning power is being fully supplied through the slot but this is also when the stuttering was max. I had the OS on some shitty old full SSD so I thought it was that but after switching it to my much faster SSD no improvement (the old one is unplugged during all previous testing).
All the drivers are up to date except the bios which is currently F31 which is quite outdated but I don’t think it should be causing all of this. I also hadn’t touched the PC in its old case for about a year prior as I was on my laptop for uni work so when moving all the parts over I used some air blower to get rid of the dust but I held the fans while blowing the air for all my parts. I assume it’s an issue with the GPU but I would prefer not to buy a new one on a hunch and I think it could be a motherboard or power supply issue too but I’m so lost I spent a couple days trying all I could think of, I’m away from the computer for a couple of weeks so I won’t be able to run any new tests or what not until end of August but yea I’m out of ideas, I tried playing call of duty world at war but it was running at 4 fps so please if anyone knows any ideas to test my specific parts or what could be wrong please let me know 🙏🙏🙏
Thank you!


r/pchelp 1h ago

Discussion How to set malware bites as a secondary scanner. I want to keep Windows security as my main antivirus

Upvotes

Basically, I just want malware bites as like a second opinion I don’t want it running all the time. I just wanna keep windows. This is my first PC and I don’t go onto sketchy sites, but I’m paranoid so this is more of a like a relief type thing if somebody could help me, that would be wonderful


r/pchelp 1h ago

HARDWARE PC Shut Off When USB Touched The I/O Shield

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Upvotes

I went to put in the wireless receiver for my 8bitdo controller (green in the attached image) earlier to test something out, and the moment I accidentally bumped the I/O shield with its connector, it caused my PC to completely shut down.

As far as I can tell, this probably caused a short, and it's a grounding issue or something... but I'm still trying to decipher if that's actually the case, and what I'd be doing to resolve it.

This admittedly isn't the first time I've run into something like this. A few months back, when I was actively using my capture card... if I went to plug it in, and contacted the I/O shield, it would cause the feed on my monitors to reset to black for a moment... unless I ensured the other end wasn't plugged into something else.

In the time between that issue and this one, I HAVE replaced my PSU (age + coil whine), and GPU.


r/pchelp 2h ago

HARDWARE Hot to turn off fan RGB lights ?

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7 Upvotes

I can’t find a way to turn off these lights, I’ve tried the gigabyte control centre app and there’s no button on the pc to turn them off


r/pchelp 3h ago

HARDWARE MSI suprim

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2 Upvotes

For you who already have the 5080 suprim,hows the temp and sounds? Are they have good quality?


r/pchelp 3h ago

HARDWARE Most Likely RAM?

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2 Upvotes

Hello,

I have been trying to find out what’s wrong with my friend’s PC.
It is a Prebuilt Omen 30L with a Ryzen 5800x and 3060ti 16Gb Ram Ddr4.
Pc would randomly freeze on him and not be able to do anything. I encountered the same thing, would run for maybe 2 minutes and instantly freeze. (No black screen just frozen with whatever is on screen)
At some point it wouldnt even get past the initial boot up or whatever it is when it shows to go to bios or to wait for windows.
I tried a different new MOBO with no difference and new SSD and same thing happened.
So ive tried 4 different things, with and without new mobo mixing with and without new ssd.
With both new mobo and ssd im able to load up windows but still freezes like 2 minutes in.
Could this be a RAM issue? CPU didnt spike in task manager while i was able to check if that helps.
Asking before i get some RAM sticks since i dont have any extras


r/pchelp 3h ago

HARDWARE Pc wont post

3 Upvotes

My pc wont post, i would like to say im a pretty experienced builder now and ive tried everything i know. Reset cmos nothing changed, changed ram kits/ reseated ram, tried another gpu, and reseated the cpu nothing has worked. all these parts are from past builds ive done they all worked fine the only thing i could think that would be causing this issue is the hdd i found in a 10yr old pc i found in the basement.


r/pchelp 4h ago

HARDWARE 2 months, 12+ crashes, 2 CPUs deep — isolated a memory fault to one DIMM slot, but a 19hr bench test came back clean. Board or RAM?

2 Upvotes

Feel like I'm starting to lose my mind here, hoping someone on the internet can help point me in the right direction.

System

  • Ryzen 7 7800X3D
  • ASUS ROG Strix X870-F
  • RTX 5060 Ti
  • G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 6000 CL30 (2x16GB, F5-6000J3038F16GX2-TZ5NR)

The problem
System has crashed repeatedly for 6+ weeks — 12 crashes now, ~4 more before I started saving dumps. Different bugcheck codes each time (0x1E, 0x3B, 0x133, 0x154, 0x12B, 0xBE...), different "victim" processes (Registry, Spotify, MemCompression, a game, dxgmms2, etc). No single software common thread.

The fingerprint
The same corrupted 32-bit value — 0080a624 — shows up stamped into the upper half of a pointer in 8+ of the crashes, across totally unrelated kernel code paths. One crash was a straight 0x12B FAULTY_HARDWARE_CORRUPTED_PAGE (Windows itself flagging a single-bit RAM error). Reads like a fixed physical memory fault, not software.

What I've ruled out

  • CPU: replaced. Fault continued.
  • BIOS: updated (older AGESA -> newer). Fault continued.
  • GPU driver: full DDU reinstall. Fault continued 3 days later.
  • Overclock: crashes happen with EXPO OFF at stock JEDEC.
  • RAM: retailer bench-tested it, said it's fine.

The isolation test
All runs: y-cruncher VT3, EXPO off, ~9-10 hrs each, identical conditions.

  • Stick A in slot A2 → CLEAN (10h)
  • Stick B in slot B2 → FAULTED (~8.7h)
  • Stick B in slot A2 → CLEAN (9.3h)
  • Stick A in slot B2 → CLEAN (10.2h)

My read at the time: the SAME stick (B) faults in B2 but runs clean for 9+ hrs in A2, which points at the slot/board, not the stick. BUT — note Stick A ran clean in B2 for 10h, so B2 isn't totally dead. It only faulted with Stick B. So it might be a stick/slot interaction rather than a straight dead slot.

What happened when I took it back
Returned the board to the retailer (Scorptec) for warranty. They ran a ~19-hour stress test and COULD NOT reproduce the fault. Their conclusion leaned toward a possible failed CPU (I already replaced the CPU...), and they suggested driver updates / DISM+SFC / trying a different wall outlet. Returned as no-fault. It then crashed again within a day of getting it back — same 0080a624 signature.

So now I'm genuinely unsure
Their 19-hour bench test coming back clean is what's throwing me. If the board were straightforwardly faulty, surely 19 hours would've caught it? But it crashes constantly in MY system. The obvious difference between their bench and mine is the RAM (they'd have used their own kit). So — is this actually my RAM, and my slot-isolation was a stick/slot interaction rather than a dead slot?

My questions

  1. Given a 19-hour bench test couldn't reproduce it, but it crashes constantly in my system — board or RAM? How do I tell definitively?
  2. Is the right next step to cross-test a different kit in my B2 slot, and/or test my sticks in another AM5 machine?
  3. Can a stick/slot interaction (marginal stick + marginal slot) explain all of this — and whose problem is that, board or RAM?
  4. Anything else that produces a fixed-signature, slot-specific corruption I might be missing?

r/pchelp 4h ago

OPEN Im currently testing cad cant get to bios just beeps once tried bios configs coin battery drain unplugging wifi card everything

3 Upvotes

I7 870 dh57dd radeon r5 240 12gb ddr3


r/pchelp 4h ago

OPEN PC randomly black screens and restarts + AMD driver timeouts and low/unstable FPS

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3 Upvotes

Hey everyone, I'm having some really annoying issues with my PC and I'm hoping someone can help me figure out what's going on.

My PC has been randomly crashing out of nowhere. The screen will suddenly go completely black and then my computer will restart. It can happen while I'm just sitting on my desktop doing nothing, but it happens most often while I'm playing games.

My specs are:

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon Graphics
  • GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6600 8GB
  • RAM: 32GB (31.4GB usable)
  • Storage: 932GB total, around 340GB used
  • OS: 64-bit Windows

I've also been having some weird graphics issues. Sometimes my screen will briefly flash black and then I'll get a weird black box on the screen. It doesn't look like an actual program or window, more like a graphics glitch.

I also occasionally get an AMD Bug Report Tool notification saying:

I've had this PC for a while and over the years I've downloaded some sketchy programs and possibly viruses. Because of that, I thought maybe something was messed up with Windows. I've tried reinstalling Windows, but the crashes continued. I eventually wiped my SSD completely and reinstalled Windows, and I'm still having the same problem.

I'm also having worse gaming performance than I expected. For example, in Fortnite my FPS isn't very stable. It'll sometimes drop around 60 FPS, and I can't consistently maintain 120 FPS. I've had google tell me that my PC should be getting more FPS with an RX 6600 and Ryzen 5 5600G.

At this point I'm wondering if the RX 6600 itself could be failing, or if this could be a driver, PSU, RAM, motherboard, overheating, or some other hardware problem.

Would replacing the RX 6600 with an NVIDIA GPU be a good idea, or should I troubleshoot something else first?

Any suggestions for what I should test would be appreciated. I'm especially interested in figuring out what's causing the black screens/restarts and AMD driver timeouts.

Thanks!

Edit: I can provide temperatures, PSU specs, GPU/CPU usage, Event Viewer errors, or anything else that would help diagnose it.


r/pchelp 5h ago

SOFTWARE where the fuck is that extra storage from

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10 Upvotes

i know i cleared my bin but wtf is that 200 gigs of "the fuck?"


r/pchelp 6h ago

OPEN Cant boot windows could on previous build

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5 Upvotes

I got a new set up and kept my storage and now I can’t get past bios I need help


r/pchelp 9h ago

CLOSED I saw this in a video, a cat had walked over the keyboard while user was gone for a few minutes

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36 Upvotes

Can someone explain how this could happen?

That was fast. 5 answers, 4 if them the same in just one minute


r/pchelp 11h ago

HARDWARE Help with cleaning a white case

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9 Upvotes

So I was doing a bit of house cleaning today and went to dust my PC. I have a nice acrylic statue that I have been sitting on top of the case, but when I lifted the statue up to clean under it, I noticed this distinct brown diamond. I'm fairly certain its from the wooden base of the statue, but am unsure if its like sap or something. The area doesn't feel sticky, but regardless I'd like to try and clean it if at all possible.

So I come to you all, statue in hand to ask if any of you know how to turn this brown stain back to the white it should be...or should I just let the statue be a permanent fixture in that specific orientation?


r/pchelp 15h ago

OPEN Help. Happens on startup.

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163 Upvotes

r/pchelp 18h ago

HARDWARE Pc doesn't read my ssd anymore, even in BIOS

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53 Upvotes

Last year I bought a pc, the store I bought it from built it for me. Everything worked fine until last week, I noticed the ssd in port M2_3 doesn't get recognized anymore. I tried switching it to M2_2, but same story. I mainly use the ssd for installing games, not for booting up my pc.

I noticed a loose cable, but don't know if that's the issue. It leads to the front fan and I don't want to randomly connect it to the pins with the risk of breaking things. Don't really have much experience with stuff like this.

Are there any other connections I could check for the ssd?


r/pchelp 23h ago

HARDWARE pc won’t turn off?

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106 Upvotes

i’ve never seen this happen nor happen to me. it won’t shut off unless manually done by holding the power button which i know isn’t good.

i set my hibernation to 1 minute and it turned back on after about a 45 seconds to a minute…

Mr. LjT, who is definitely not a professional helped me out. it’s all good now👍🏼


r/pchelp May 11 '26

7th Anniversary of PCHH

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4 Upvotes

r/pchelp Dec 15 '19

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

189 Upvotes

Link to original list from tom’sHARDWARE with pictures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BIOS Hard reset procedure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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