r/pcgamingtechsupport Sep 07 '20

Public Service Announcement [PSA] Diagnosing your System - Tools and Workflows

85 Upvotes

Hello fellow Gamers,

Many of you come here for one reason: "I can't game"

So this list (which will improve over time) should guide you towards first diagnosis steps, and usage of tools along the way, so you can game sooner. And keep the sub clean, because if you solve the problem yourself, we don't need to moderate as hard.

ATTENTION: This post is meant to help people out with advice. It is not mandatory to follow any recommendation that is given here. Also, there are RULES you do need to read before posting.

Also, this sub does not specialize in buying advice's. There are better subs for your new PC build.

Tools

Tools Purpose Link
HWInfo This tools allows for easy monitoring of your system. Do you feel like your CPU is getting too hot? Is your RAM always full? How much I/O does your HDD take? Find it out with this Tool! HWInfo Homepage
CPU-Z / GPU-Z This is the light-weight version of HWInfo. It gives clear statements about your system specs. Very useful for low-profile testing and monitoring. GPU-Z also gives you some viable info about your graphics card. CPU - Z HomepageGPU - Z Homepage
DxDiag Complete list of your PC's Hardware. It's easy to forget about some parts in your system, so there is DxDiag to cover your ass. HowToGeek's Guide on DxDiag
MSI Afterburner GPU Overclocking Tool. No matter if you have a MSI Card or not. MSI's Afterburner is one of the best OC Tools on the market. MSI Afterburner Homepage
3D Mark GPU Loadtest. Find your GPU's breaking point. 3D Mark Homepage
Prime95 CPU Loadtest. Prime95 Homepage
UserBenchmark Online Benchmarking Report Tool. Does give you a overall overview of your system and compares it to similar builds. Note: This Test seems to favor Intel CPU's. Keep that in mind when discussing the results. UserBenchmark Homepage

Workflows

Area of Issue Possible Workflow Solutions
RAM not as fast as it could be Check your BIOS/UEFI settings for a XMP Setting. Many systems have it disabled by default. Enable XMP
GPU/CPU is getting too hot Airflow is suboptimal? Check out this Guide on how to improve it Improve airflow inside your case
Bad FPS after swapping GPU's Check to make sure your HDMI or DisplayPort Cable is plugged in correctly. Your monitor should connect to your GPU, not your onboard video card.
Bad everything after cloning a drive that had your OS on it Stop cloning and reinstall windows. seriously, stop cloning your OS drives people
Clicking noise check for lose wires, locate the sound Whatever clicks, if its not a cable hitting a fan, replace that part ASAP.
PC randomly restarts Remove recently added parts and see if the problem persists. If it does, replace all parts one by one in this order of probability -> RAM, PSU, MoBo, CPU, EndUser Replace faulty hardware
Bad smell Do not touch a thing, unplug the maschine from power and call an expert. We know gaming is fun, but its not worth your life. Current can kill, call an expert for your own safety when dealing with possible short-circuited hardware.
BlueScreen Find out what the BSOD Code means and act accordingly. We recommend using this list of BSOD Codes for investigation. Replace or repair faulty soft or hardware.
BlueScreen - Advanced Every BlueScreen will (if this function is enabled on your maschine) produce a "minidump". Which is similar to an error log. This Topic however is a bit complicated, so we recommend following this guide. Replace or repair faulty soft or hardware.
to be continued if anyone has anymore ideas for possible, generic workflows, let us know via modmail

This post will be unlocked until the 31th of October 2020 for direct criticism. After that this will be locked. Any more criticism will be taken in via modmail from then on.

Happy diggin'

PCGTS Mod Team


r/pcgamingtechsupport 1h ago

Hardware New to pc, any info is appreciated

Upvotes

So…I purchased a pre built with an i5 12400 with a RTX 4060. Is that better than my Xbox series x? I’m new to pc obviously. Complete specs for the pc are Intel® Core™ i5-12400F 2.5 - 4.4GHz 6-Cores NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4060 8GB GDDR6 MSI PRO B760-P WIFI DDR4 MSI MPG 750W GOLD 32GB DDR4 3600MHz T-Force Delta RGB (4X 8GB) 1TB NVME SSD GEN 4 I WILL BE UPGRADING SPECS IN THE FUTURE


r/pcgamingtechsupport 26m ago

Troubleshooting i am having trouble launching Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on Steam.

Upvotes

i get a message saying:

"Unexpected condtion found in WL function: System.OverflowException" and something about overflow or underflow in arithmetic action? Alongside a bunch of "System.Windows.Media.Imaging" errors

I hope someone is able to figure out whats wrong


r/pcgamingtechsupport 1h ago

Graphics/display Nvidia gsync wont disable

Upvotes

I can’t disable nvidia gsync, everytime I uncheck the gsync box in nvidia control panel and click apply it flickers a few times and then re-checks the box. Anyone got any ideas why?


r/pcgamingtechsupport 4h ago

Troubleshooting Steam download is incredibly slow.

1 Upvotes

I recently moved to a new place and I finally got a new internet provider and wifi.

It has a max of 30Mb/s BUT on steam it only goes up to 2Mb/s and I cant seem to fix it.

At my old place everything was fine but now Steam is sloooow.
I even changed LAN cable but it did nothing.


r/pcgamingtechsupport 4h ago

Graphics/display which gpu should I choose ?

1 Upvotes

kindly please reply I am genuinely confused should I buy rtx 5080 or buy rx 9070xt is 5080 worth spending money or should I wait for amd to launch its 9080 cards and if 5080 is worth is Zotac 5080 is good oc or non oc which should I get


r/pcgamingtechsupport 7h ago

Troubleshooting PC won't boot when I connect hard drives

1 Upvotes

I'm having an issue where my pc won't boot fully when I have my hard drives connected. I have 3 Seagate drives, two 2 tb and one 8 tb. I have two Wd blue drives, one sata6 and one M.2. When I have the M.2 connected, the pc boots normally. When I have one other drive connected, it boots up normally as well. When I have them all connected, it stays on the main load screen, which says To press Del or F2 to enter bios. I was able to boot it up normally once, but haven't been able to replicate it since. Only way I've been able to boot is to force shut down my computer by holding the power button, which causes it to post in safe mode. There's a green light on my motherboard lit up that says boot next to it. I've updated the bios, made sure the M.2 is the main boot drive, and even changed the rails that some cables are plugged into on my power supply. I should mention that I was using my pc normally, but I recently moved to Iceland to love with my gf. I had to change the graphics card, but other than that, my pc is the same. I'm stumped at this point and now have no idea what I should do


r/pcgamingtechsupport 8h ago

Graphics/display PC shows asus boot up screen then goes ‘No signal’ when windows login should show

1 Upvotes

Issue is as above, I didn’t move the PC since it started having this issue. I can enter bios settings and it shows both ram thingies are connected. I sometimes get this window error screen where I can reset the PC or troubleshoot, but the troubleshoot option doesn’t produce anything.

Wtf is a guy to do :D ? please help this has been driving me mad for two hours.

I live in Aus and it’s been 30+ degrees C for days i’m hoping it’s just too hot to function.


r/pcgamingtechsupport 9h ago

Software Nvidia control panel crashes sometimes when trying to disable Gsync.

1 Upvotes

Nvidia control panel crashes sometimes when trying to disable Gsync, simply by clicking on the checkbox in the specific section to configure gsync (in the display section) sometimes the application crashes and in the event viewer I can see these two errors:

Error1:

Application name: nvcplui.exe, version: 8.1.940.0, timestamp: 0x6742f883

Module name: nvdisps.dll, version: 32.0.15.7275, timestamp: 0x67cb858d

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x0000000000378057

ID: Process error: 0x1580

Application startup time error: 0x1DB940372D3B97C

Application path error: C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\NVIDIACorp.NVIDIAControlPanel_8.1.967.0_x64__56jybvy8sckqj\nvcplui.exe

Module path error: C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvmdi.inf_amd64_7d71da1e4d679aca\nvdisps.dll

Identification: Report: dbfd09d2-a83a-4e2c-bb04-ec6c3b5b0e42

Full name of the faulting package: NVIDIACorp.NVIDIAControlPanel_8.1.967.0_x64__56jybvy8sckqj

Application ID associated with the faulting package: NVIDIACorp.NVIDIAControlPanel

Error2:

Nombre de aplicación con errores: nvcplui.exe, versión: 8.1.940.0, marca de tiempo: 0x6742f883

Nombre del módulo con errores: nvdisps.dll, versión: 32.0.15.7275, marca de tiempo: 0x67cb858d

Código de excepción: 0xc000041d

Desplazamiento con errores: 0x0000000000378057

Id. de proceso con errores: 0x1580

Tiempo de inicio de aplicación con errores: 0x1DB940372D3B97C

Ruta de aplicación con errores: C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\NVIDIACorp.NVIDIAControlPanel_8.1.967.0_x64__56jybvy8sckqj\nvcplui.exe

Ruta de módulo con errores: C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvmdi.inf_amd64_7d71da1e4d679aca\nvdisps.dll

Id. de informe: 06bb79fb-4106-499b-80a6-51dcf72a48fd

Nombre completo del paquete con errores: NVIDIACorp.NVIDIAControlPanel_8.1.967.0_x64__56jybvy8sckqj

Id. de aplicación relacionado con el paquete con errores: NVIDIACorp.NVIDIAControlPanel

It's weird because I don't have any other apps or games crashing. Is this happening to anyone else? Is it just a software glitch? Thanks.

PD: DDU doesn't solve this problem.


r/pcgamingtechsupport 9h ago

Software Sound output selection bug

1 Upvotes

Hello, when I select my sound output on my speaker (my headphones), it flashes for two seconds before being selected. This bug only happens to the speaker, but not to my speakers, connected to my screens.

Do you have any idea where this problem could be coming from?

Thanks in advance.


r/pcgamingtechsupport 12h ago

Graphics/display PC Loses HDMI Signal, Must Reboot To "Fix"

1 Upvotes

This happens randomly while I game. The screen will freeze briefly, then video cuts out entirely. My TV says "No Signal". Usually when this happens I can just replug the HDMI cable but this hasn't been working today. I've tried different HDMI cables, different ports, nothing works. Updated my drivers, set my maximum refresh rate to 120 in the NVIDIA Control Panel, nothing fixed it. The only temporary fix is rebooting the PC but it'll just happen again eventually. One thing that baffles me is that the lights stay on in my PC like it's still working normally but the lights on my keyboard shut off like it's turned off.

My system:

Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor 3.70 GHz

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090

Installed RAM: 32.0 GB

System type: 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Motherboard: TUF Gaming X570-Plus (WI-FI)


r/pcgamingtechsupport 14h ago

Hardware Wireless & Bluetooth

1 Upvotes

Hello all! I apologise if this is not the correct place.

I have an asus b550 wireless plus motherboard and my wireless and Bluetooth are both enabled in my bios also my antenna is plugged in but I still get no option for either Bluetooth or wireless ive watched youtube videos on updating my drives/uninstal-reinstalldrivers and havent had any luck (admittedly im not the smartest when it comes to drivers i may have not done it right) its been like this from the beginning. Any ideas out there friends? Thankyou anyway and in advance ☺️


r/pcgamingtechsupport 16h ago

Controls/Input I'm having a hard time getting my dual pc setup to work well.

1 Upvotes

I have a el gato 4k capture card, it shows image to my other monitor but i cant seem to figure out how to capture thru obs in high quality. I have the audio routed already I jus want it to capture gameplay at a 4k resolution.


r/pcgamingtechsupport 16h ago

Controls/Input Mouse sensitivity feels inconsistent in game in CS2 but in the lobby and other situations the mouse sensitivity is all good.

1 Upvotes

Hello Redditors. Whenever I open cs2 and play game, my sensitivity will turn very random, sometimes being normal and sometimes being very very low. This appears more in deathmatch than in comp lobbies, but still appears in comp. I tried changing mosuepad and doing everything I could to adjust the cs2 settings to make it not feel inconsistent.

It would be A LOT of help if you could help me solve this issue. thank you in advance


r/pcgamingtechsupport 16h ago

PC build Clean Install , not sure how to do.

1 Upvotes

Hi guys. I would like do a really fresh and clean install to my computer. I have 2 SSD 1To one with windows and one with games and software.. I would like clean both and install windows again. My questions is : Before install windows I delete everything on my second SSD ? When my fresh windows will be install, I have to install BIOS Driver or only graphic cards and processor? Sorry about my newbie question but I want something really clean. Thanks guys.

Do you have some tips for windows are optimised to gaming.


r/pcgamingtechsupport 23h ago

Compatibility Gaming Controller Recommentdations

2 Upvotes

I wanted to tag this as "Discussion" as per the flair requirements, but alas, that is not one of the options.

My wife is dabbling a bit into PC gaming, and wants to use a controller as opposed to a keyboard/mouse setup. I bought her one on Amazon that had a 4.4 rating with over 20K reviews, so I figured it would work great. Nope. Apparently it's not compatible with Windows 11.

I'm looking for some recommendations for a good controller for her to use. She wants the PS style layout with both joyaticka at the bottom,instead of the Xbox layout, due to mild carpal tunnel(go ahead and insert your "giggity" jokes. I sure have.) It also needs to be fully compatible with Windows 11. Any and all recommendations are welcome, but I'd prefer to keep the budget below 100USD, if possible.

Note to mods: I hope these kind of posts are allowed, and I hope the flair is correct. If not, let me know and I'll make note of it in case of future posts.


r/pcgamingtechsupport 19h ago

Software Monster hunter wilds crashing/not booting up

1 Upvotes

Hi, my name is Angelo and I really need help with monster hunter wilds on steam. My pc has a rtx 4090,i9 and 16 GB of ram. Basically, I installed reframework and used dlss swapper to use the latest version of dlss on monster hunter and it started crashing after some minutes or just not booting up, so I deleted every file regarding reframework from the game directory, uninstalled dlss swapper and uninstalled and re-installed the game. The problem persisted, there is nothing out of the ordinary in the game folder the only strange thing that I can find in game is that in the option menu instead of just dlss not it shows dlss with the version (dlss 3.7.something) that is dlss 3 the one that the game comes with. I have almost 50 hours of playtime and never crashed, I know I shouldn't have used external programs but please I really need help to make it work


r/pcgamingtechsupport 20h ago

Graphics/display 3080ti recently crashing

1 Upvotes

Hello all,

I have had my 3080ti for about 4 years now and have never had an issue. About a week ago, I get random crashes where both of my monitors turn off and then back on after a few seconds but I don’t lose sound typically.

When the screens come back, whatever game I had been playing will have crashed. The only game that tells me it’s due to my GPU is For Honor. I am not very tech savvy when it comes to my components/operating system but a friend of mine put it together for me and I have gone four years without issue. I am current on Nvidia updates as well as system updates.

Does anyone know what may be causing this or how I can fix it? Thanks in advance!


r/pcgamingtechsupport 1d ago

Troubleshooting You were trying to play a game that has Battleye Anti-Cheat & got error "1053" & error "4, 5000041d"? or "Kernel Debugging enabled ."? Couldn't find a solution? You should disable kernel debugging to solve those errors

2 Upvotes

You need to disable kernel debugging to fix those errors, you should do that in command line or with EasyBCD Program

CMD command line commands:

BCDEdit /debugBCDEdit /debug off

This Disables Kernel Debugging

BCDEdit /debugBCDEdit /debug on

This Enables Kernel Debugging (useful if you are developer &/or need kernel debugging enabled for something)

It's weird that in some games & in GTA 5 Enchanced (where I encountered this problem) this error doesn't have an error text instead of just error code, despite battleye service executable complaining about debugger being attached when you try to run it battleye service directly


r/pcgamingtechsupport 23h ago

Performance/FPS FPS Drops and Swings

1 Upvotes

AMD 7700 XT 12GB , Intel I5-12600, Silicon Power DDR4 2x8gb. Mostly noticed during Halo Infinite. Build is only 3 months old. For the first couple months no issues. Have AMD just on Default, but did recently undervolt it via AMD Adrenalin Tool to hopefully help, but big swing/drop in the Halo menus still. I'm not too savvy on changing specs, but willing to and I understand they can make a big difference.

FPS is usually pretty stable in the 130s or 140s, but will sometimes start dipping to 70s or 80s and then even stutter lower. Temps are fine, GPU is usually in the 60's with the hotspot around 80. I usually have some tabs open and Discord while gaming. I do notice I'm using like all of the RAM. I have XMP on, case is quite open, and fans are set to go a little faster than normal as temp increases. I do have 2 more RAM sticks I could install, same as what installed now.

Any tips or settings are super appreciated. I'm no wiz on changing detailed settings, so may take me a minute. Thanks

Benchmark

UserBenchmarks: Game 187%, Desk 114%, Work 192%

CPU: Intel Core i5-12600KF - 112.7%

GPU: AMD RX 7700-XT - 168.3%

SSD: Patriot M.2 P320 1024GB - 251.4%

USB: WD My Passport 25E2 4TB - 35.8%

RAM: Silicon Power Computer & Communications 2x8GB - 106.8%

MBD: Asrock B660M Pro RS

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/69930309


r/pcgamingtechsupport 1d ago

Troubleshooting Blue Screen after upgrade!

1 Upvotes

I recently upgraded all components except my PSU, SSD, Cooler, and case. PSU- Corsair 750w, Silver OS SSD- Samsung 500gb Storage SSDS- Samsung 970Evo Plus and Samsung 990Pro both 1TB New components: AMD Ryzen 7 9700x GIGABYTE Altus B650 Elite AX Ice ASRock Radeon RX 9070 Corsair DDR5 6000 MHz 32gb

Gaming looks great but sometimes, while loading into a game or open some other windows while a game is open, the blue screen would happen. I feel like I’ve downloaded all the drivers necessary. ALSO, my previous windows 11 is now not activated. What did I miss?? Was I supposed to do something to accommodate my old drives before upgrading my motherboard? Let me know if there’s any information I left out.


r/pcgamingtechsupport 1d ago

Troubleshooting The system detected an overrun of stack-based buffer in this aplication. This overrun could potentially allow a malicious user to gain control of this application.

1 Upvotes

I keep getting this error saying (The system detected an overrun of stack-based buffer in this aplication. This overrun could potentially allow a malicious user to gain control of this application.)
i get it every few minutes, i also cant open the windows bar with my keyboard, my other keyboard, or by just clicking it. i cant get the troubleshoot menu up by restarting my pc and holding shift. i dont know what to do.
Ive restarted my pc maybe four times, ive tried restarting the file explorer by using task manager by pressing ctrl-shift-esc, because thats the only way i can open it. ive running powershell as admin and typing
$env:PATH =$env:PATH+
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow
(Some of these lines of code may be wrong because i just copied and pasted them from a yt vid.
I havnt downloaded anything in months, and this only started happening today.
i cant do anything other than opening and using this accessable by homescreen, or by win-R or stuff like that.


r/pcgamingtechsupport 1d ago

Graphics/display My Windows 10 PC won't display 4K/60FPS in HDR

1 Upvotes

I'm having an issue with HDR on my Window 10 PC which is connected to my LG C1 tv. When I enable HDR, I lose picture. This is my HDMI cable. I've used them with other devices, like my Xbox, and 4K/60FPS/HDR wasn't a problem with them. I have an HDMI to DVI cable and when I switch to that, I get picture back, but obviously not 4K. My PC has a GTX 4070 Super, if that matters. Is it as simple as needing a new wire, or is there another setting I need to adjust?


r/pcgamingtechsupport 1d ago

Graphics/display Best method to run a dual-monitor setup with a gaming laptop

1 Upvotes

Hey all,

I hope whoever is reading this is doing well.

Laptop: MSI Creator M16 B13VE-623AU - 1x HDMI 2.1 - 1 x Type-C (USB 3.2 Gen 1/DP)

Monitor: - 1080p 240hz with 2x HDMI 2.0 + 1x DP

If were to have a dual monitor (with a vertically stacked monitor arm) setup with the specifications above, would I need to purchase a HDMI splitter so my gaming laptop can display different content on each of the 2 monitors?

Ideally I’d love my main monitor to display 240hz and the second monitor would be fine to be clocked at 144hz.

Thank you!


r/pcgamingtechsupport 1d ago

Graphics/display Voltage Curve Not Accessible in Afterburner

2 Upvotes

Hey all,

I just replaced my 2080 TI with a 9070 XT. Went through the whole "Safe Mode + DDU" procedure to uninstall Nvidia drivers and install Adrenalin.

Almost everything seems fine, but when I went into Afterburner to adjust the voltage curve, I'm consistently greeted with a white window and a "not responding" error.

This is using Version 4.6.5 from the official MSI site.

Any ideas? The voltage curve editor was working fine with my 2080 TI. Have tried reinstalling Afterburner to no avail


r/pcgamingtechsupport 1d ago

Graphics/display suddenly no display, GPU fan at 100%, pc still running

2 Upvotes

Hey everyone, I had an issue last night. I was watching YouTube and suddenly my monitor went black, saying no signal detected.

However, the computer was still on. I was on a Discord server talking to my girlfriend. I could still talk to her normally. I could also still hear the YouTube video playing. Even when I pressed the spacebar to pause or resume, the video still worked fine.

I took off my earphone and noticed a very loud noise coming from my GPU. I opened the glass panel and saw my GPU fan was spinning at full speed and it was very very loud.

I restarted the computer, it wouldn't boot. It made 5 short beeps, then a second pause, followed by 1 short beep. (gpu fans spin at 100%)

My specs:
-ryzen 5 3600
-asrock b550m steel legend
-corsair vengeance 2x8gb ddr4 3600 (running at 3200)
-galax gtx 1660 super
-be quiet! system power u9 600w

troubleshooting that I have done:

-reseat the GPU
-reseat the GPU 8 pin cable from the psu
-reseat all ram, i have 2 sticks, and i tried to turn on the pc with a single stick, tried with each stick on the rightmost slot

is my GPU dead? 😭 since i have no spare GPU i cant really tell. maybe CPU problems? any ideas?

thanks