Frequently Asked Questions
Find answers to common questions about PC building, troubleshooting, and more.
Why is my computer not turning on after pressing the power button?
A computer can have many ways to not turn on. The first thing you should do is make sure that the power supply is turned on (0 is off and 1 is on). After that, try turning on the computer again and it should turn on.
A second problem can be that the front panel connector for turning on the system was not plugged in properly. You will have to read the manual of your motherboard and find the section for "front panel IO". This should show the order of how the connectors should be placed. If you look behind the connectors with 2 wires together, the arrow side indicates a positive charge and the arrow without indicates negative. Once cables are in the right places, the system power button should work.
The final issue that could be the worst case is that a hardware failure has happened. If that is the case, you will have to test the following hardware: motherboard and power supply. First, the power supply: if you try flipping the turn-on switch and the motherboard has no RGB lights on, then the power supply may be faulty. Try testing it on a friend's desktop PC or another motherboard before considering it dead. The second is the motherboard. A good way to test it is by turning on the power supply as in the first scenario, and if the motherboard has lights, they should power on. If they are on, then the motherboard should be fine. To turn on the motherboard without the front panel, use the head of the screwdriver and touch between the power sw "+" and the "-" pins. This will simulate the system turning on and giving power to the board. If this fails after a few attempts, the motherboard connectors have failed and will require a new one.
I got my computer to turn on, but it says no boot device found?
This is normal for a newly built PC. This means that you have not downloaded an operating system on the computer for a specific drive. You can download the latest version of the operating system of your choice by googling, for example, "Windows 11 ISO file" or "bootable Windows 11 drive download." That will take you to the Windows site to get a free version of Windows. You will need a bootable flash drive to install it. Once installed, you will have to follow the guidelines and choose the drive you want to install Windows on. When it is complete and the computer restarts, the PC should boot from the OS drive you have installed.
My graphics card is randomly flickering my screen. How do I fix this?
This Can happen when a graphics card is updating it's drivers. If this is the issue it will only happen once or twice and a quick restart should fix the issue. Another potental problem can be the port on the graphics card can be faulty and changing the port plugged into the graphics card can solve this. The worst outcome is that the graphics card has poor connectors and the port can't take the signal in. The only way to fix it yourself is to solder a new power which is a bit too technical and not recommended. Lastly it can sometimes be the connection between the monitor and the graphics card cable. Graphics cards and monitors have ports of different specs. for example, a monitor can have an hdmi cable and displayport that are different versions of what the cable plugged in can support. Most cheaper cables may support lower specifications than what the monitor can do causing instabiliy in the connection. I myself recently discovered this when plugging in an hdmi 1.4 into an hdmi 2.1 monitor at 4K. Hdmi 1.4 cannot see anything past 4K 60fps. Anything higher will cause the port to receive a confuing signal and throwing errors. Moral of the story, make sure to check the cable spcifications before questioning it is a faulty graphics card or port.
Why does my WiFi drop in and out under normal use?
This Can happen if the WiFi module on your motherboard has out of date drivers. a simple way to fix this is get the latest drivers. before you search make sure your drivers are the correct version. To see this on windows right click the windows start logo the choose Device Manager option. Next, go to the network adapters tab. You will see a few things in that tab to identify which one open task manager on windows by seaching it and go to performance tab then see the network adapters section. On the top right you will see a name of the device. search for that name in the device manager section. Right click the adapter and choose properties. you should see a list of tabs while it is opened go to the "Driver" tab and look at the driver date on the top along with date of the driver. If the driver date is recently then the driver may have still been install incorrectly. Now that you have the device name search online for the drivers with the "name of the part drivers". once you go on the website download the drivers and follow the installation process. Once installed check the driver date like from before and see if it has changed to a recent date or remained the same. If the problem still percists it maybe a hardware wise issue. If this is the case, make sure to check the antennas and see if they are connected properly or search online for more solutions if these do not work for you.