NeoFrux

Quick and easy solution to undo the Q-Fan tuning: Clear your CMOS by pulling the battery while the system is unplugged from power. That said, are you sure you've followed the instructions correctly? The H115i Quick Start guide says to connect the pump directly to the CPU_FAN header: If you specifically want to use the pump header on the ROG Hero, you'll want to plug the fans' Y-cable into the CPU_FAN header instead, and move the case's fan hub connector to a different PWM header. If you want to use Corsair Link to control the fans, you'll want to use the CPU_FAN header for your pump. If you want to use ASUS' software, you'll want to set it up with the pump on the pump header and the fans on the CPU_FAN header.

Well, again, you'll want to use the motherboard's box, or some other non-conductive surface to place the board onto. Keep the RAM on the board, and go ahead and install the GPU for now, too (this is what the motherboard box is useful for, since you can have the card's panel hang over the edge or into the box itself). You'll ideally want power, keyboard, and display, but since the problem is pretty obvious when it occurs, that's optional. In order to turn the PC on from this point, you'll need to take something conductive, like a screwdriver tip, and press it against the two pins that you connect the power switch to. No need to keep it there, a single touch should power it up.

Not necessarily, though I'm not surprised you're confused. Samsung Magician won't let you Secure Erase the current OS drive, but it will let you create bootable media to do your erasing with if there are other drives present. You should be able to Secure Erase as many drives as you need with that. Alternative: Install Windows on an HDD, boot from that, then Secure Erase the drives that way.

Are you reading this, LMG staff? Time to do a "Secure Erase As Fast As Possible" TechQuickie episode. So many solutions to the same problem...

There's no need to microwave it when zeroing the drive literally irrevocably erases all the data on the SSD.

Wrong thread, but I did translate that already, yeah.

Weird as it may seem, one workaround for this appears to be to uninstall the driver completely (again), then restart. Then, run the installer in Windows 8 compatibility mode (right-click the installer, click Properties, go to the Compatibility tab, select "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and make sure Windows 8 is selected). It's dumb, but a similar issue was resolved this way by suggestion from a Microsoft engineer that seems to have actually worked for a number of cases.

If you can get it to boot, then yes, that would work.

Alright, first thing I'd do is clear the CMOS on the board and see if you get anything with your GPU installed; Otherwise, you'll have to use another GPU to get things back in order. You'll want to make sure your BIOS is up to date, as well, once you have some kind of display.

You've tried pressing the key to see if that "un-sticks" it, right? Can you hit it with some canned air to see if there's anything stuck underneath it?

My mistake, I was looking at the Z170A SLI Plus, not the Z170A SLI, which... Yeah. Doesn't have any way to connect onboard graphics. The USB Type-C port won't output a display, either, though. Do you have another GPU you could test with?

So what does your Device Manager look like right now? Can you post a screenshot?

For traditional magnetic storage media, yes. For solid state, no. On solid state, when a zero is written, it's a zero.

Again, Samsung Magician has your back. Even though normally it won't let you do it for an OS drive, since you have a second SSD, you can have it create bootable media to let you secure erase your drives outside of Windows.

Yeah, no need to go overboard with multiple overwrites; Unlike traditional hard drives where it's theoretically possible to recover data due to the way magnetic media works, files on SSD's are completely erased when the data is zeroed. So you only need one pass, no need for random data writes or anything, all that'll do is wear the drive down faster. Again, the Secure Erase tool from the manufacturer should be your best bet. Easy, zeroes the whole drive including the OP area.

So just to confirm, Windows 10 doesn't seem to have the driver for the network adapter? I'm assuming it's the Realtek wireless adapter driver you're talking about in this case. Try right-clicking on it in Device Manager and clicking Uninstall, checking the box to delete the driver software. Restart, then do a fresh install of the newest driver available from Intel (you probably already have this downloaded, but just in case)

This is true; However, due to overprovisioning, if you want to be absolutely certain you zero the whole thing (because reasons?), Secure Erase is both easier and more... Well, secure.

I'm everywhere.

If the board isn't aligned correctly, you'll want to remove it and realign it. At least one of the standoffs is probably in contact with the rear of the board. What you can do to completely rule this out would be to remove the motherboard and place it on its box or another non-conductive surface and test again.

If his PC is self-built, you'll need to burn / create installation media for the version of Windows in question. The Windows Media Creation Tool can do that for you for Windows 10. If his PC is an OEM PC like Acer, ASUS, etc, then depending on which it is, there should be a recovery partition that will allow him to fully restore to factory.

A full format in Windows doesn't zero the drive, the only difference between it and a quick format is a test for bad sectors. The data remains intact; All that's deleted is the MFT. Samsung's Magician software comes with a Secure Erase tool that should work fine for what you want to do.

My guess is old age. We're talking Sandy Bridge here. I should hope not, but if I'm right about what's gone wrong, the CPU might be a casualty as well.

Messed up voltage regulator most likely.

That's not good... Sounds like the motherboard actually managed to fry the RAM. I think we've found the problem.

Well, just because the RAM shows up doesn't mean it's good. Try pulling one stick and see if it works, and try running Memtest on it to be sure.