PC in for 1 month for repairs, did they even do anything?

[egorgeg]

Just got my PC back after sending it into PCS for repairs/replacements for a problem I've had for nearly 3 months. First two months I was phoning PCS about it, trying to sort it out with no luck. Third month they asked for it in to inspect it.

Just got it back, and after 3 hours, 3 monitors lost signal for no reason, main screen completely blank white screen. Then the PC reset itself. Apparently they had it on for 16 hours overnight, and passed it on stress tests, yet it crashed on me while I was browsing on Google. I have no faith at all that PCS actually did anything, something really, really fishy.

I just tried phoning them twice, and both times, I waited at least 20 mins, then the music goes off, then the phone just beeps at me as if someone just hung up. So I'd thought I'd create this thread, I'll also contact Live Support as well.

Also, I'm not sending it in again, 1 month is a stupidly long amount of time, and it didn't even get fixed.

Very unhappy.

 

[nathanjrb]

Sorry to hear that man. Are you getting any odd beeps when you turn it on? When the PC resets itself, do the screens come back on? Have you tried a fresh install of everything?

 

[Rainy]

What was the original problem? Was is that it was crashing?

First, I'd recommend reseating the RAM and GPU, my old PC kept restarting itself, reseating the RAM/GPU fixed it. It could however also be the PSU, there's an article here that may be helpful: http://www.registryrecycler.com/blog/2013/04/6-common-problems-of-pc-random-restarts/

 

[egorgeg]

Yes tried a fresh install, twice. I also gave PCS permission to do it when they had it, and they said they didn't need to. Beeps normal, PC seems normal until it does this. Just played like 1 hour and half of Company of Heroes 2, maxed settings 60fps good temps, with no problems whatsoever. no idea what it is, and seems PCS doesn't either.

They just keep saying "It's ur GPU lolz". No, it isn't. This is the third brand new card I've had, and I'm playing games fine on it so far. It just seems random.

 

[knigh7]

This is really worrying yet again people are compiling that they are getting their PCs/Laptops either faulty or damaged. Hopefully somebody at PCS can explain. I am really worried personally now, my build is on its 9th pre production day and I am getting worried that it might not be as good quality as I would expect it.

 

[vanthus]

This is really worrying yet again people are compiling that they are getting their PCs/Laptops either faulty or damaged. Hopefully somebody at PCS can explain. I am really worried personally now, my build is on its 9th pre production day and I am getting worried that it might not be as good quality as I would expect it.

You're worrying unduly,only a very small percentage of computers will have issues and most of them are caused by something coming loose in transit which is normally easily fixed.

 

[4ner]

You see complaints all the time because people can't e bothered to post when there computer is good. Only when they have a fault.

 

[mantadog]

These kinds of faults are a nightmare to diagnose and fix, because they are intermittent. What was the original issue?

The worrying thing about a fault like this is it could be anything. Could even be a PSU or motherboard issue. Try calling again tomorrow and see if they can shed any light on the issue. They WILL have tested it but been unable to replicate the fault, not much they can do. They certainly have no interest in sending you back a broken PC.

This is really worrying yet again people are compiling that they are getting their PCs/Laptops either faulty or damaged. Hopefully somebody at PCS can explain. I am really worried personally now, my build is on its 9th pre production day and I am getting worried that it might not be as good quality as I would expect it.

Don't worry about it, the number of PC's that PCS sell relative to the number of complaints is very good.

 

[tom_gr7]

This is what i would do

- Ditch display fusion, I found it extremely buggy! Whilst it was useful and I did find it handy having an extra task bar. I noticed it was running my 680's at 1058mhz constantly, meant the cards were always running, even when they should be chilling out at 324mhz. You described the screens going blank? This points to a GPU drivers or a software issue. If it was GPU hardware, PC probably wouldn't boot up.
- BIOS update
- uninstall AMD Drivers, restart, load up, restart again.
- Install fresh download of AMD drivers.

You said, PCS ran it for 16 hours, they probably did mate. I'm pretty sure they have a hot room where pc's get tested. - Although, I think they may use their own software and its possible that display fusion isnt running at this point.

 

[ubuysa]

Problems like this are a nightmare to solve and I have a huge amount of sympathy both for the OP and for PCS. The comment that "it just seems random" is frustrating not just for the OP but for PCS as well because the techs at PCS have no real idea what to look for.

When these sorts of problems happen it's important for the user to do as much problem determination as possible, one of the first things to attempt to identify is whether the problem is caused by software or hardware. It seems that in this case it's not yet known whether it's a software or a hardware issue? When it went back to PCS, in the absence of any hard information on what to look for, they just put in on stress overnight to prove the hardware was ok. That does tend to suggest the problem may be software related. I think you'll find that PCS do not offer software support (in common with all other PC manufacturers).

So I would suggest that the OP does a completely clean reinstall of Windows (delete the existing C: and System Reserved partitions and recreate a single partition the size of the disk and then install Windows into that partition). Then install the PCS supplied drivers, but install no other software nor make any other configuration changes at this time. You will then have the most stable and reliable software environment possible so you should do as much testing as possible with this environment. Stress the CPU, GPU and RAM with appropriate tools and see whether you can get it to fail.

If it won't fail with this stable and reliable software environment then your problem is almost certainly software related. So you then need to install your third party software in a careful step-by-step manner, testing the computer thoroughly after each install. It's a long and tedious process and the temptation to take short-cuts will be huge, but do stick to the slow and steady approach otherwise you'll likely as not reinstall the problem without realising it.

Be careful what configuration changes you make to Windows and what software tools you use. If you're using any PC "tune-up" tools then don't reinstall them, above all do not run any registry cleaners and be very careful what junk you clean with junk cleaners. Most PC tune-up tools are little more than snake-oil and registry cleaners regularly do far more harm than good. The Windows registry simply does not need cleaning, if it did then Windows would do it by itself. I'd even go as far as to suggest that, until you have localised the problem, you do not run any "maintenance" type software tools at all.

I'm sorry if I sound like I'm preaching, I don't mean to. I hope it helps some.

 

[egorgeg]

@tom_gr7, I haven't had any bugs with Display Fusion yet, but I can delete it it's not essential. I did do a BIOS update last night, my BIOS was version 1801 and the new one is 2140 or something. So my BIOS version was like 2 years old. However I've not been able to even have the computer on for more than 3 seconds without it throwing a Power Surge at me. I've just got off the phone to PCS, and they said the cause wasn't a Turbo mode clock on my CPU because it was at a safe value, so we tried setting my RAM to 1333 not 2133 to see if it was that but I still got surges.

So, PSU fault.... I'm just this second packaging it up to send off for replacement. BUT THIS IS MY THIRD FAULTY PSU. What the hell is happening to me. I know it's not PCS's fault, but I'm getting depressed with all the problems I've got with my computer, even after sending it in through an RMA. Instead of sitting at the expensive powerful computer, playing games etc, I'm sitting on my dads crappy computer limited to really old games, while mine is constantly broke gathering dust.

Just have to wait, yet again, and see when I get my new PSU (MY THIRD ONE(and if that one isn't broke as well hehahhhehahafunny)) to see if I've actually fixed my initial problem, which I probably haven't.

@ubuysa, when I get my THIRD replacement PSU back, and if the problem still persists (which it will obviously because I'm the unluckiest person alive) I will do just that.

To any people worried about PCS and broken computers/faulty parts, don't be. A PC fault can happen anytime to anyone (and in my case all the time), it's not PCS's fault. Sorry if in my initial post I said I don't think PCS did anything. Of course they did. But I'm getting really stressed out by all of these issues. I would be the first person to recommend PCS to anyone (in fact I have, my dad's computer is from PCS and my friend has one from them as well at my recommendation), their customer service has always been excellent and knowledgable.

 

[Boozad]

This is really worrying yet again people are compiling that they are getting their PCs/Laptops either faulty or damaged. Hopefully somebody at PCS can explain. I am really worried personally now, my build is on its 9th pre production day and I am getting worried that it might not be as good quality as I would expect it.

I'm on my third PCS rig (have two recent purchases in the house at the moment) and have never had a single problem with any of them, I'm also more than happy with the quality of the build and components. There are far more PCs sold by PCS that work perfectly than problem ones, you just very rarely hear about them. The problem ones are just unfortunate. Hopefully the OP gets his rig sorted as soon as possible.

 

[mantadog]

To any people worried about PCS and broken computers/faulty parts, don't be. A PC fault can happen anytime to anyone (and in my case all the time), it's not PCS's fault. Sorry if in my initial post I said I don't think PCS did anything. Of course they did. But I'm getting really stressed out by all of these issues. I would be the first person to recommend PCS to anyone (in fact I have, my dad's computer is from PCS and my friend has one from them as well at my recommendation), their customer service has always been excellent and knowledgable.

Nice to hear that as a number of people have been having a go recently at the RMA state of PCS.

I'm sorry your having such a rough time, but hopefully it will get sorted sooner rather than later.

 

[egorgeg]

I just thought of something this morning. When updating my BIOS, in order to get my RAM to work with full frequency I had to reset my BIOS to default settings. This turned on ASUS power surge protection. I remember a while back PCS recommended me turning it off, as the surge protection might see my HD7990 drawing power as a power surge. I have now turned it off, and as from posting this my PC has been on for 17 minutes. How long should I leave it to be sure that the PSU is broken or not?

Edit: 40 minutes and counting, and no surge.

 

[ubuysa]

I just thought of something this morning. When updating my BIOS, in order to get my RAM to work with full frequency I had to reset my BIOS to default settings. This turned on ASUS power surge protection. I remember a while back PCS recommended me turning it off, as the surge protection might see my HD7990 drawing power as a power surge. I have now turned it off, and as from posting this my PC has been on for 17 minutes. How long should I leave it to be sure that the PSU is broken or not?

Edit: 40 minutes and counting, and no surge.

Nice catch. I'd leave it on overnight.

 

[egorgeg]

So use it as normal today, then leave it on over night? Not sure I could sleep with the noise really, but I can see how it goes.

Edit: Now I need to wait and see if my initial problem crops up again. if not then the BIOS update fixed it.

 

[ubuysa]

So use it as normal today, then leave it on over night? Not sure I could sleep with the noise really, but I can see how it goes.

Edit: Now I need to wait and see if my initial problem crops up again. if not then the BIOS update fixed it.

The longer the better really. Fingers crossed.

 

[egorgeg]

The longer the better really. Fingers crossed.

Okay, sure. Cheers.

 

[egorgeg]

PC working fine until now. I didn't get a surge but my monitors went weird agin and PC crashed. So I'm going to do what ubuysa said and see if that fixes it.

 

[tom_gr7]

asus anti surge is terrible. I had that problem for a while, it was either pointing towards a faulty corsair PSU or a faulty motherboard. I disconnected the whole psu and tested each rail. They were all fine, no issues and nothing was faulty. When I reconnected it back up again, it never happened again. So personally, I'd do that instead of turning off the anti surge.

on the other hand, as warranty had ran out with PCS i contacted corsair for advice, who immediately offered to replace the psu. - lol if i sent it to holland.... haha

it must have been a dodgy connection somewhere, or more likely the ASUS software is naf.... which is probably the case.