egorgeg
Enthusiast
You sound like the man who jumped off a ten-story building. Every floor he passed on the way down the people inside heard him saying "so far, so good!"...
Not sure what to make of that lol
PC in for 1 month for repairs, did they even do anything?
- Thread starter egorgeg
- Start date
Not sure what to make of that lol
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
It's just my way of highlighting the fact that it's going to take you a while to trust your PC again. For a short while you'll be waiting for it to fail. But that will pass.
egorgeg
Enthusiast
It's just my way of highlighting the fact that it's going to take you a while to trust your PC again. For a short while you'll be waiting for it to fail. But that will pass.
Ah yes, that's exactly what I'm like right now
egorgeg
Enthusiast
Well. Already I'm posting about another issue. It may be that the game crashed and caused something to happen, but, I was just playing The Lord Of Rings: War In The North for around 30-40 mins and the PC completely crashed, with glitchy sound coming from my headset. I gave it 5 mins to see if it would do anything but I had to manually shut down. The PC seemed to be still running the game, as my GPU was still spinning up and I could hear my CPU doing it's stuff, but as evident on my Second and Third Screens my Temperature monitors had frozen.
Checked Event files to see if anything showed up but nothing is there about the game, or the crash. Temperature's were all good: CPU cores were around 50-52 under about 60-70% load. GPU 1 was at 75-78 and GPU 2 was at 68-72 degrees, so nothing wrong there.
I just had a look on-line to see if anyone else had the same issue, and some people who had AMD cards like me said they got issues with the game, stuttering and crashing to desktop, and even BSOD from the game being apparently incompatible with AMD cards. So that could have been the problem, and I'll just have to deal with it and not play the game if that's the case.
Other than this the PC is working fine, played 2 hours of Euro Truck Sim 2 this morning and 1 hour of Fallout: New Vegas without anything happening, so it could have just been this game, just thought I would ask here and report it as it's got me worrying.
Checked Event files to see if anything showed up but nothing is there about the game, or the crash. Temperature's were all good: CPU cores were around 50-52 under about 60-70% load. GPU 1 was at 75-78 and GPU 2 was at 68-72 degrees, so nothing wrong there.
I just had a look on-line to see if anyone else had the same issue, and some people who had AMD cards like me said they got issues with the game, stuttering and crashing to desktop, and even BSOD from the game being apparently incompatible with AMD cards. So that could have been the problem, and I'll just have to deal with it and not play the game if that's the case.
Other than this the PC is working fine, played 2 hours of Euro Truck Sim 2 this morning and 1 hour of Fallout: New Vegas without anything happening, so it could have just been this game, just thought I would ask here and report it as it's got me worrying.
Oliver
Silver Level Poster
Hi Egorgeg, I just wanted to say your not alone with the strange repair/technical support. I recently returned my computer back to PCS and after 3 weeks of work it was returned in the same state as before. To be even more confusing the tech had said they had enabled functionality when they had just brushed over the problem. I can completely understand your frustration and just wanted to let you know your not alone in this.
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
In support of PCS, problem solving somebody else's PC/laptop is incredibly difficult, I know because I've been doing that for other people for years. I don't know whether you've done any problem resolution on other people's PCs and laptops yourself, but try and put yourself in PCS's position. When a PC/laptop comes back all they know is what the owner tells them. If the problem description is vague or light on detail then all PCS can reasonably do is put the PC/laptop on stress for 24 hours and see what develops. If that identifies a problem then they will fix it, but if it runs for 24 hours under stress and they have no other good information about how to reproduce the owner's problem then what can they do? I suspect that they spend as much time as they reasonably can trying to make it fail, but if it works on their test bench then (in the absence of other information) it's fine.
In my experience people are afraid to tell you if they think they did something stupid. Nobody wants to look silly but if you did something you think might be real dumb then tell PCS when you send it back. It's better to feel stupid for a day or two and get your PC/laptop fixed than it is to keep what you did hidden and still have problems.
Problems rarely "just happen" they almost always have a cause and it helps PCS enormously if you can be as explicit as possible when reporting problems. They need to know what applications you have active and how you're using them when the problem occurs. They need to know what hardware changes you have made, including what external devices you have connected. The more information you can provide and the more detailed you can be about what the problem is, how it manifests itself, and when it happens, the more likely that PCS will be able to reproduce it.
You also need to be aware that PCS only support the hardware and the originally installed OS (if any). So it's absolutely vital before you send a PC/laptop back that you prove that the problem is not software. The only way to be sure of that is to do a clean reinstall of your OS and the supplied drivers, by all means install OS updates but do not install any other software or make any configuration changes. That will give you the cleanest and most stable software platform, so see whether the problem still exists. If it doesn't it was a software problem and you just saved yourself a lot of wasted time sending it back. If the problem still exists then tell PCS what you've done because they will then know it's unlikely to be a software issue.
In my experience the people working for PCS are excellent and they do what they can to help. But they are not mind-readers nor magicians, so we have to provide as much information as possible to help PCS locate the problem.
If PCS cannot reproduce your problem then they cannot be expected to fix it.
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egorgeg
Enthusiast
@Oliver, ubuysa explained it well, the fix to my problem was really simple but I ignorantly thought it was a much bigger issue. When I told PCS about it, all I could really say to them before I sent it in to them was "PC crashes randomly, weird lines on screen" and that's it, which isn't really helpful. When they tested mine all they could do in relation to the issue was run benchmarks and then do a 18 hour stress test, which it passed. So of course all they could do was send it back to me.
Just try to tell them everything you know about the problem, and they will try their best to help you out. Evident by me having a faulty PSU a week back, I sent it in to them and 3 days later I had a brand new PSU. Another thing is to be patient, which I failed to do myself unfortunately. Just give PCS time to find your problem, and test the PC.
Have you contacted PCS about the issue since? Or made a forum post? I'd recommend posting on these tech support forums about it first to see if any of the people here have any pointers for you, if not just phone PCS.
Just try to tell them everything you know about the problem, and they will try their best to help you out. Evident by me having a faulty PSU a week back, I sent it in to them and 3 days later I had a brand new PSU. Another thing is to be patient, which I failed to do myself unfortunately. Just give PCS time to find your problem, and test the PC.
Have you contacted PCS about the issue since? Or made a forum post? I'd recommend posting on these tech support forums about it first to see if any of the people here have any pointers for you, if not just phone PCS.
mantadog
Superhero Level Poster
Ubuysa talks a lot of sense. I have had laptops literally handed to me "it's broken, fix it" I suspect PCS get that a lot too. I know from these forums it can take me a long time to tease out of someone the information needed to even begin troubleshooting.
PCS can't really afford to be calling up every customer who has a RMA and go through a long question and answer session about what exactly cause the problem. Anyway not to derail this thread any further, i think ubuysa said what a lot of us feel sometimes - we are not mind readers.
PCS can't really afford to be calling up every customer who has a RMA and go through a long question and answer session about what exactly cause the problem. Anyway not to derail this thread any further, i think ubuysa said what a lot of us feel sometimes - we are not mind readers.
Oliver
Silver Level Poster
Hi Mantadog, egorego and Ubuysa.
I have been reading all your notes and feedback. I was able to contact PCS again and got hold of Wayne, He knew about the computer and was willing to contact the tech involved in the RMA to ask him about the machine. after having a chat with the tech he called me back and told me that the X.M.P settings should of been set to profile 2 and not profile 1. (i then checked the machine later and found no second profile so im calling back tomorrow) it seems that the information about X.M.P on the machine/old notes have been kept on a separate system according to jack which is only accessible via their computers and not via the web system which other employees have access to. it seems these separate systems and policies have confused some of the employees so hopefully this is now being cleared up. We are glad we called back and took the time to discuss our options with PCS before having to write a formal letter (this would have been the last option and knowing Wayne I explained we really didn't want to do this, we just wanted a working, stable, spec'd machine.) anyway if anyone else has problems like this I suggest being persistent and call back if you feel your being mistreated, it might just solve your problem!
I have been reading all your notes and feedback. I was able to contact PCS again and got hold of Wayne, He knew about the computer and was willing to contact the tech involved in the RMA to ask him about the machine. after having a chat with the tech he called me back and told me that the X.M.P settings should of been set to profile 2 and not profile 1. (i then checked the machine later and found no second profile so im calling back tomorrow) it seems that the information about X.M.P on the machine/old notes have been kept on a separate system according to jack which is only accessible via their computers and not via the web system which other employees have access to. it seems these separate systems and policies have confused some of the employees so hopefully this is now being cleared up. We are glad we called back and took the time to discuss our options with PCS before having to write a formal letter (this would have been the last option and knowing Wayne I explained we really didn't want to do this, we just wanted a working, stable, spec'd machine.) anyway if anyone else has problems like this I suggest being persistent and call back if you feel your being mistreated, it might just solve your problem!
egorgeg
Enthusiast
Glad you are getting your issue sorted Oliver
Every time a small issue comes up I get scared, but I've had no major issues yet. However just about 10 mins ago my GPU usage jumped to 70% for no reason at all, temperature rose to around 75-78 Degrees and I heard an annoying squealing noise coming from it (I checked in the case and was clearly coming from GPU). I thought it was Coil Whine but I have no idea what it sounds like. Windows automatically switched off aero, and my CPU also started playing up. Usage ramped up to 60-70% on all cores, temperatures rose to 45-50 Degrees. RAM usage was at 19% which is normal.
At the time I was playing Binding of Isaac, I had Two Google Chrome tabs open (Twitch Livestream and Tweetdeck), Steam, temperature monitors and some Windows Gadgets.
I only really get these temps when gaming, and I've never had Windows turn Aero off on me. It was like that for around 1 min and just stopped doing it, and the PC seems completely fine now. Any idea what it could have been?
Every time a small issue comes up I get scared, but I've had no major issues yet. However just about 10 mins ago my GPU usage jumped to 70% for no reason at all, temperature rose to around 75-78 Degrees and I heard an annoying squealing noise coming from it (I checked in the case and was clearly coming from GPU). I thought it was Coil Whine but I have no idea what it sounds like. Windows automatically switched off aero, and my CPU also started playing up. Usage ramped up to 60-70% on all cores, temperatures rose to 45-50 Degrees. RAM usage was at 19% which is normal.
At the time I was playing Binding of Isaac, I had Two Google Chrome tabs open (Twitch Livestream and Tweetdeck), Steam, temperature monitors and some Windows Gadgets.
I only really get these temps when gaming, and I've never had Windows turn Aero off on me. It was like that for around 1 min and just stopped doing it, and the PC seems completely fine now. Any idea what it could have been?
Boozad
Prolific Poster
1) Search for Task Scheduler via Quick Search, or Start / All Programs / Administrative Tools / Task Scheduler
2) Navigate down into Task Scheduler Library / Microsoft / Windows / Maintenance
3) Right-click on "WinSAT" and choose disable/delete.
That's all that was, nothing to worry about.
egorgeg
Enthusiast
Right I'll check that out, thanks. As it's nothing to worry about, I thought it might just be windows doing something I didn't ask it to do. What is this WinSAT anyway?
Boozad
Prolific Poster
It's the Windows System Assessment Tool, it's the same thing that runs when you update your Windows Experience Index. If you take a look at yours (Right click Computer > Properties > Windows Experience Index) it will say it was last run last night. I was having the exact same thing happen every Saturday night.
egorgeg
Enthusiast
Oh I see I do know what that is. Why on earth does it just run by itself? Windows Please.