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Hi everyone ! For my first post here, I offer you some haunted Thinkpad stuff. While visiting a friend recently, I came by a very strange issue affecting the backlight of his T440s' screen : When the computer is shutting down, as soon as the display turns off, the backlight will flicker with almost the same behavior as a good old disk activity LED. When the computer is OFF, some off the LEDs from the backlight strip will stay ON (and by off I mean whatever state UEFI computers enter nowadays when clicking shut down in the Windows start menu) and those LEDs are always the same. This happens when the computer is plugged to the wall adapter as well as just sitting on battery (if I remember correctly, the internal battery is not present in this one). When the external battery is removed, the LEDs turn off. When the computer is ON, everything looks fine, there's no flickering of any sort, the screen brightness doesn't seem to have changed since the problem appeared and brightness control still functions as it should. My concern is that it could damage the battery by keeping it fully discharged too long if stored for some time (he uses this computer occasionnally for performing live music events, and there haven't been many since Covid hit). So what is actually happening here ? I've heard of completely dead blacklights on various TXXXs models, but I haven't found any report of indvidual LEDs staying on while the computer is turned off. The pattern on the display reminds me of the stagelight issue affecting the 13" 2016 MacBook Pros, but that was a worn flat flex and happened only when the computer was actually on. If that helps, this particular T440s is running Windows 10 pro off a 500GB SSHD, using only the 4GB of onboard RAM and powered by an i5 4300u. I think the screen is the base HD+ panel and not the higher end FHD option. Of course you could suggest replacing the LCD panel (if it's indeed a LED strip issue) or the logic board (if it's an inverter issue for example), but where's the fun in that ? So if anyone has any experience with a similar issue or has any idea of what's going on here, I'm prepared to go down the rabbit hole !

So... scratching my head on this one. I have a small network in my house, organized as follows: ISP wifi-capable modem-router ----> my own wifi-capabe router ---> a bunch of stuff downstream via Ethernet (including a wifi AP) So, with all wifi devices on, I can get up to 3 wifi signals in the house. Moreover, the ISP router and the AP have dual 2.4GHz + 5GHz AC radios, while my router has only 2.4GHz N. Every computer/phone/thing but one can connect to every wireless network, with the expected variation in strength depending on location. Then there is this laptop. It connects to the ISP router and the AP normally (also with the expected distance-based decay), whether it's the 2.4G or the 5G version. However, it can't properly connect to the 2.4G network of my own router. It doesn't matter if I put it next to it, it sees it as a very week network, and using it feels like we're back in dial up days. Remember: every other device connects fine to that network, and the connection is naturally stronger the closer you get, so it's not a general router problem. The problematic laptop also connects fine to every other wifi, so it's not a general laptop problem. However, the combination of that router and this laptop is doomed. My question: what on Earth could cause such a specific problem? Is there any hope of a solution? EDIT: further information, I experience the same behavior under Windows 10 and Linux Mint 20

Y510P lenovo laptop keyboard. It all started when I 1st I noticed the keyboard left and right shift keys worked weird, did'nt respond half the time. Then they simply stop working, i press shift but it doesnt do caps or @ or wathever, just no response. So i proceed to removing the keyboard from the laptop, cleaning it up, cleaning the connectors and reconnecting it, closing up the laptop. Everything works fine and i am happy. Then out of nowhere after i tought i had it fixed, the keyboard start doing weird stuff again with shift keys, for instance all keys will work with shift to make capital letters but t and y and other random crap like that, it would go like ERtyUI. and it stops working the day after. Some of the other symptoms I noticed are that I had to press shift a couple times before it catch up and start working for like 10-20 seconds before failing again. repeat cycle style. Okay so after that i try to fix for the second time, open up the laptop, make sure the keyboard connections are fine, reconnect them and i apply tape to maintain them in place in case the plastic pins are not enough and if they somehow come lose. once again it fixes it... but not for long. So i am bored of this crap and try to learn life without shift keys, when suddenly i am on steam with a friend and tell him about the issue, type random letters while holding shift so he can see they are not capital letters when suddenly i see some capital letters in the bunch. like hsldGdHdasdgKgdalT. And the more i do it, the more capital letters there is. and then WOAW it seems like it fixed itself for absolutely no fricking reason. So i come to you with this haunted hardware worthy story. tell me what you think because right now i am seriously mind boggled about what is causing the issue... (this is happening over months)

So I recently upgraded my system from 8350 to i7 6800k. Parts list: msi 1080 seahawk (used this with 8350 as well) ASUS x99 a-ii i7 6800k (STOCK SPEEDS) Corsair h115i EVGA supernova 1000w plat 32gb GSKILL memory Samsung 850 pro 512gb (soon to be getting 950 pro 512gb) So day 1, USB ports crapped out, just the 3.0, still broken to this day. About a week later, I get artifacts like crazy, not really in games, but just randomly in browser or even just in desktop, despite my GPU/CPU running super cool and even stock speeds. About the same time as this, my internet started working intermittently, by that I mean even just using the web browser to load a page half the time it says "Hmm... we cant reach this page" (Edge & Chrome). Steam downloads constantly corrupt every 5 seconds. Even when I switch to wireless same problems. I have nighthawk router and Arris modem, and I have another computer right by mine that works 100% perfect (3570k build). I'm using super fast internet, get 170+mbps on speedtests, so no reason at all this should be happening, and yes I've switched cables. I have reformatted TWICE One of the times I just let windows install drivers The other time I installed latest drivers off asus/intel/NVidia website and put them on a flash drive so I could install them as soon as OS loaded up. STILL SAME ISSUES. Wtf? Anyone have any idea what I should try replacing first? My guess would be motherboard, but idk. Thanks in advance! EDIT: Forgot to mention that I also gets lots of crackling audio since these issues popped up, once again though it happens more in general desktop usage and less in games.

Hello my name is Simon, and in the last months I have experienced some problems with my PC, which I think is being caused by my motherboard, but more on that later. The first problem that I have been expericing is that my PC, for some reason, has been turning on by it self. Sometimes, it seems random, I will just find my PC turned on. And since I know that it is not somebody else who is doing it, and since I make sure the PC is turned off, each time is shut it down, I think that it may be the motherboard doing it. I am not sure, but with the little knowledge I have of PC components I think that the motherboard would be the most logical assumption to be causing the problem. The second problem I have been having, is a little more difficult to explain, but I will try my best. I have been overclocking my CPU, an I7-4770k, but when ever I overclock it, it will for some reason shut down after 30 mins or so, every time I turn the PC on, causing me to force a restart. Now everybody would say that the overclock it not stable, however I do not think that that is the issue, since after the pc have been restarted, the overclock works just fine, and is as stable as anything. This will happen no mather the overclock, just the smallest overclock will trigger it, which is why I do not think that it is just the CPU being a bad draw in the sillicon lottery. I think that it may be the motherboard causing it, again I do not know, I only assume. These two problems is annyoing me, since I do not wanna waste electricity, and since I DO wanna overclock my CPU, if possible, when I know that it can run an overclock stable. I know some of this may be little confusing, so if you have any quesitions, feel free to ask. I want to know IF the motherboard is causing this, because then I will simply replace it, but if the motherboard is not causing it, I do not wanna waste my money on something that is not gonna help. Thank you for your time reading this, and thank you for all the help you may have. Plz help!

Hello, i just bought a new laptop: Dell inspiron 15 5567. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Specs: Intel Core i7 7500U @2.7gHz 8GB DDR4 @2133MHz AMD Radeon R7 M445 - 4GB GDDR5 Windows 10 Pro 64bit ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I bought it mostly for college use but i want to do some light gaming on it. I play some LoL and when i start it, it has low fps on low graphics, but after 10-20 minutes it jumps up to 140-160 fps and i change the graphics settings to max. What can i do to reach these results at every game start? Also, Valley benchmark shows me 9-15 fps.

I'm pretty sure My gaming rig was smited by god and gained the ability to hate me. What seemed like a factory reset became much worse. My original specs where my issues began: i7-7700k Strix Z270E gaming motherboard 16GB DDR4 Evga black 2080ti Corsair cx750 PSU I blew out the dust after a move and found an external 1tb HDD that I havent used in a long time. I thought I might try and use it. Windows decides its a good time to apply a hotfix on my first boot. Circle animation fails and it just sits there. I turn it off and try again but it wont get into windows. I take it to a local computer repair shop. Cant boot any windows media usb. Says its a motherboard issue amd the rest of the componets are fine. Okay so I buy a brand new Asus Z270-WS motherboard and it wont boot. No bios even. Giving post code 09. That refers to "PCH initialization after microcode loading" No idea. Took out the GPU and bought a new evga 850 PSU, didnt help. So I take it back to the shop and he flashes the bios and is still getting that code and no bios. Says it could be the brand new motherboard or the cpu. Clearing the CMOS didnt help. Okay so I take it to my buddys place and we do some testing. My ram works in his rig so its known good. My cpu doesn't boot in his board but his is a Z170 and would need a bios update to support my 7700k (we think). We didnt do that for the safety of his rig. We take his known good 6700k and put it in the brand new Z270-WS where it gives a post code of A2 "IDE detect" instead of 09 like before. We then put his 6700k in the old Z270E board where it fails to boot up as well. Then we put his rig back together and it works just fine. Thank the lord. This testing was done with and without clean drives installed. I have no clue if its my cpu or my new motherboard or both. I still need to find out whats actually broken. Please end my suffering.

Just to preface: I don't need any help. I'll find a full solution soon, and it's fixed enough for now. I just thought you all might enjoy this quick mystery. So I've got my rig (here it is if you're interested: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Yzx9pG), looking good in its nice blue RGB. All of the sudden, it starts glowing a dim orange (pictured below). ORANGE! And, unfortunately, I'm no Bronco fan. Along with the orange glow, Asus's Aura software no longer detects the card. "No big deal," I thought. "I'll just reinstall Aura." Now, as many of you probably know, Aura and other software like it can be rather finnikey. I wasn't really worried... until the fresh install didn't work. "Hmmm... I guess I'll restart?" Oh, silly fool. No go. "Ok, how about I just turn it off and try again later?" This is where things got weird. The thing was still on during shut down... and when I turned off the power supply... and when I pulled the cord. Now, transistors on a motherboard can hold electricity for a while, but they're not supposed to POWER ORANGE FREAKING LEDs! But, I gave it the BOD and left for a small run to Walmart for some things I needed. I also started a timer on my phone... An hour and 45 minutes later, I come home. PSU still off. Cord still unplugged. AND THE ORANGE LIGHT STILL ON?!? At this point, I was coming to grips with the fact that Satan had taken up a summer home in my graphics card (I dunno, maybe my 75° C-under-load card is cool compared to hell? Idk). I figured "hey, maybe I'll get the powers of hell and some wicked sweet FPS now." I didn't. It was time for some more invasive measures. I opened up the chasis and unplugged the PSU cable on the card. Still the light. (What else was I expecting at this point?) Then, I took the card out from the PCI-E lane. STILL THE ORANGE LIGHT. So, was Satan in my RX 580? Not quite. You see, I also pulled a noob move and had the HDMI cable still plugged into the card when I removed it from the motherboard. Once I unplugged it, the LED finally turned off. Weird, right? Why the heck would my monitor change the LED? Well, the answer actually isn't the monitor. Or Satan. The answer lies in a Raspberry Pi and a crappy HDMI splitter. As you'll see below, I've got a little Pi I use to practice coding. I've got it and my rig hooked up to a USB splitter and HDMI splitter to switch my peripherals and monitor between the Pi and my rig. I've used this setup before with no issues, but I recently moved to a new place. Here's my theory: When I set it up here, the Pi mistook my GPU's RGB lighting for a pixel, and output a dim orange to it, stealing it away from Asus Aura. Once I unpowered the Pi, Aura was able to take back control of the card (although it sees it as a motherboard rather than a VGA accessory). It seems far-fetched, but the HDMI cables are all with ethernet, so data can certainly be transferred between devices, plus this HDMI switch is pretty crappy. Crazy, right?

Greetings reader, I brought a rather lengthy post to you lovely lads and lasses. I have an issue with my good old Maximus VI formula and I'm kinda stuck with my investigation. Someone here might be able to help out with a few ideas, pushing me closer to a solution to this puzzle. Also, describing the process though which I arrived where might help out others having similar issues. Hell, at least it might start an interesting conversation. I bought this board back in 2013 with a 4770K which I later upgraded to a 4790K which I could overclock to 4.8Ghz all core without it breaking a sweat, I was very happy with the machine. It has been a very dependable workhorse over the years. A year or two ago, I started having issues with the system. It randomly turned off while being used (regardless of the operating system, I have been dual booting Linux and Windows on it the whole time) and interesting enough, it also randomly turned on from being shut down (power off proper, not sleep). Not very pleasant waking up at 3AM to the geezless thing beeping like a happy bird. Back then I had many suspicions. I looked around on the interwebs and my findings mostly pointed at the PSU. I had little time to investigate in detail, also, my PSU was a CoolerMaster GX750 which I never trusted from the beginning (was given instead of a Corsair that I ordered but the retailer went out of stock) so I thought after 5 years I might as well get a new one. Threw a Corsair HX750i at it. Happy days! At least so I thought. Then I woke up at 1AM hearing the beeping again. Bummer. After a lot of scratching me head, browsing reddit, I noticed someone having similar issues due to a flat CMOS battery. After taking the entire motherboard apart to get to the bloody battery (cheers Asus...) I pulled it out, measured it and sure, it was flat. Popped a new one in and Bob's your uncle. Happy machine again, no problems whatsoever. A month or two ago, for justifyable reasons I decided it's time to upgrade, I bought a new case, mobo, cpu, all the fancy stuff. I also keep this machine running, it is very useful to extend my workflow, I have a good use for it. However, it seems to have gotten mad at me for becoming the second... The random on-off issues started shortly after I built the new machine. Since the issue was known at this point, and the battery I put in was some cheapo from the closest keystore, I just popped a new, better quality one in there and all was good... ...For approximately 14 hours, after which the machine started by itslef, then went into a random on-off cycle. At this point you probably ask "well what the hell are you complaining about, you know the solution". I know the solution, but not the cause. The solution so far is swapping the CMOS battery on a daily basis in order to use the machine. Something is certainly not right. Without CMOS battery, the system boots, but after a short period, it powers down, like someone had pressed the off button. The off button is not to be blamed, disconnecting the front panel connectors makes no difference. The symptoms were the same before and were fixed by the battery swap, and a new battery certainly helps for a while. My thoughts on why the machine turns on/off: I think there is a voltage fluctuation/instability/drop somewhere. Either this corrupts the part of the CMOS which is responsible to store flags to signal to power the machine on in certain scenarios (sets flags for booting up after a memory/cpu reconfiguration, etc) or simply the microcontroller that is responsible for these things is struggling. When the machine turns on or randomly reboots, it boots, goes straight into bios, or I see a message "Overclock unsuccessful" or something like that. It's inconsistent in what it does, so it isn't a stuck/dodgy button or something similar. So why do I suspect a voltage fluctuation? The battery draining this fast is obviously suspicious. If a dodgy capacitor is leaking somewhere, the voltage across relevant circuits may be too low, causing all this weird behaviour. I have basic, mediocre at best understanding of electronics, and though I have a few things laying around (multimeters, soldering equipment, SMD rework gear, osmelloscope, simple PSUs, the usual box of random crap, etc.), however, I don't know how I might be able to diagnose/investigate/find out where the issue is. Which capacitor might be dead, where to even start. I was thinking to borrow the imaging thermometer from my company for a weekend, however, i suspect that the leakage is such low power that it wouldn't really stand out on the images. I managed to find the board view (attached, boardviewer.net) and a weird repair document for the board (also attached, says rev 1.01 but should be applicable), but these didn't lead (me at least) anywhere. For instance, if I select the battery positive pad on the board view, the entire board view image lights up like a christmas tree indicating that the circuit is all over the place. From that I assume that the problem can be anywhere, including that area under the toilet seat, you know, the one you can never clean properly and buggers the hell out of you. I might be just blind and I don't see something obvious here, but that is probably coming with age. So lads and lasses, This is how far I managed to get. Any ideas, suggestions, comments, thoughts are welcome! I would like to fix and keep this system going. It must be some cheap wee component failing but it puts a (still) £400 system on it's knees and I would really see it as a huge waste throwing it all away just like that. Thank you very much indeed for sticking with me and reading all me brain farts! Oh, by the way, if you were wondering what idiot takes the motherboard out of the case, then removes the heatspreader/plastic covering off more than two times to replace the CMOS battery, I'm pleased to tell you it's certainly not me. Gaze upon the glory of my CMOS battery service window modification. MAXIMUS_VI_FORMULA_1.02C.fz Asus Maximus VI Formula Rev 1.01A Repair Guide.pdf

Ok, my cousin and i built the same PCs around 3 years ago, we bought exactly the same wifi card, a Qualcomm Atheros AR9485, thing is 6 months after having built our PCs my cousin started having troubles with his wifi, basically the adapter started "dying" in the sense that the PC would boot up, have good connection for a few minutes, then slowly the connection would die until he only got err_timed_out and after that nothing would load. Well, he went and bought a USB TPLink wifi adapter and he hasnt had much problems since then. Today i came to his house and brought my PC and put it in his room... and 5 hours later i start having problems with the wifi, the adapter usage is dropping to 0% every 3 or 4 seconds, i start getting err_timed_out on google chrome, and after 6 hours i no longer have a wifi internet connection, im still conected to the router but the wifi adapter usage shows 0% and refuses to increase even if i am searching in google (i get timed out). Drivers are updated and i have never had a problem like this at my house, i should mention i stayed here for a few days some months ago and since then ive noticed a bit of intermitent wifi problems at my house in the same fashion (drop to 0% usage) but they would last only for 1 or 2 seconds every 5 minutes or so and I would never get timed out. I fear being here is slowly killing my wifi adapter. I had a hypothesis that it could be some electrical interference messing with the wifi adapter but im not sure if that is even possible neither how to test it. Note: We havent tried puttin the pc in another room, we are in the same room where his wifi adapter started failing. Phone wifi works flawlessly, modem signal is no problem, and i really dont know what it could be. No microwave nearby nor in use. No channel congestion neither other wifi APs. Any insight will be appreciated. TLDR; Built 2 PCs with same components, on one house the wifi adapter begins to fail 6 months after being built. Now i come to the house and my adapter starts failing in the same manner.

Buy Doom for PC on Amazon: http://geni.us/BeA69 Have you ever had a hardware bug SO WEIRD that it feels as though your PC is... haunted???

Hello guys. Today something really weird occurred. Just when I wope up, I noticed that my pc has its DVD drive ejected. But... I wasn't using it for past few weeks and certainly not yesterday. My first question is. How the heck can I check when did it eject? the only time it had was when I went to sleep and left the desktop powered on till torrent finishes downloading. Second question: How did it eject. I mean, it never ever happened before. And also, can the dvd drive get damaged by being left wide open for night? I just ordered GTA V for pc and it would be a pain in the wallet to buy another drive after this one tried commiting suicide. Cheers and thanks for every response.