How often do new builds fail to POST? (curious question)

[MIZU_is_water]

So I just finished building my first PC yesterday, and I was expecting the worst of the worst (i.e, CPU damaged, RAM not recognized, PSU exploding, graphics card smoking catastrophically, or even just not turning on), at least maybe just not POSTing. To my surprise, it turned on perfectly without any hitches. POSTed, will go into BIOS, everything recognized and correct, fans spinning normally. Even installed Windows right away and ran some benchmarks without any problems whatsoever!

 

Now technically, this isn't actually my "first" build. I had 3 PCs up until now, and although the first two ones are mostly built by my father (thanks dad!), I still took some part in the build. The better definition is that this is the first build where I completely built it all by myself, from the first to last part. It was a pretty nerve wracking experience, I even had to get the motherboard in and out 3 times because I forgot some things to do and was impossible to do while the motherboard was still in the case. I was also pretty nervous when I tried to install some parts and discovered many of those needed some force to install. I was constantly thinking that my motherboard would crack or something when it flexed lol.

 

My two earlier builds always fail to POST the first time it ran (the first time it was the RAM not seated well, and then it was the CPU plug that me and my dad forgot to put in), and my dad's other builds also often times do the same. And from what I heard on the internet, the possibility of a build not POSTing the first few times are also quite high. My problem-less experience yesterday left me thinking about this again. Is this really true? How often do you experience a new build not POSTing? How many percentage of builds do you guys reckon wouldn't POST the first few times? Is it really that rare to have a new build immediately work without any problems?

[tkitch]

Plenty often.

 

It doesn't take much to make something not post, so it's very easy to do.

But it's also easy enough to do everything correctly the first time.

[MIZU_is_water]

7 minutes ago, tkitch said:

Plenty often.

 

It doesn't take much to make something not post, so it's very easy to do.

But it's also easy enough to do everything correctly the first time.

Maybe it was due to my noob mind telling me that "if I didn't do A correctly the whole thing would catastrophically fail" and I would have to lose over $650 (very big amount in my country). I studied every manual intensely like it was the SAT or something and I searched up plenty of guides and tutorials on the internet. My hands were also ready on the PSU switch when I first booted it up just in case if something would start to smoke or explode lol.

[LateLesley]

It be honest, they probably work more often than not, but it's usually down the the experience a person has in building PC's together. You'll find people who have done more than 20 builds, will be familiar with the gotchas, and have few problems apart from DOA parts. People with less experience building will have more problems, but that's just part of the learning experience, and things to check and look for, like connectors in the right place, fully inserted etc. Making sure RAM and cards are fully seated. It all comes with experience. 

 

It does also depend on the parts too though, as you can get some badly made parts which have horrendous failures.

 

I remember once having to set up a load of Compaq machines, think it was the late 90s, and whatever model it was, they had bad power supplies, and about 20% blew up as soon as you tried to power the machine. A full on bang, with sparks showering out. That made for an interesting few days, tring to figure out which ones were bombs,

 

Anyway, if you have a bit of experience, you'll find that there's less chance of it not working once yo've built it, and checked all the power connectors etc before switch on. 

[MIZU_is_water]

One more interesting thing I experienced while building my PC. I actually ordered two 4GB sticks, since I felt that dual channel 8GB would be enough for my needs, but the seller sent in a 4GB and 8GB stick instead. I contacted the seller to return the wrong stick, but the seller was kind enough to just let it slide and told me to keep it and in the end I got 12GB of total memory lol.

[Tech87]

Congrats on the successful build!

 

There's user errors that cause POST problems, and then there's hardware issues such as DOA which is the cause of no POST.

 

Dozens or more of no POST threads come across this forum every day, and a good chunk of them are simple user error.

 

However, to get the mathematical percentage of POST failures not caused by user error, I suppose you could gather the general failure rate for each piece of hardware, keeping in mind that every manufacturer will be different, and then draw an average from the group to come up with the chances of getting a faulty component on your order.

[aDoomGuy]

Yeah congrats on your first build!

 

I can only speak for myself, and I do know myself. I often do things to quickly and improper. Which is why if I build a PC or upgrade parts I check that everything (EVERYTHING) is seated and connected firmly, even reconnect if I'm not sure. There been plenty of times I have done this or that to a PC and it didn't post or have signal to monitor due to power cables not plugged in at all or GPU a little loose in its slot or something like that. On my last build I checked every single thing twice before turning it on and it went straight through POST. LOL even once I remember I tried to turn on one of my builds and it didn't post because the power cable from the wall to the PSU wasn't connected lmao took me longer to diagnose than I will ever admit. 

[MIZU_is_water]

11 minutes ago, LateLesley said:

It be honest, they probably work more often than not, but it's usually down the the experience a person has in building PC's together. You'll find people who have done more than 20 builds, will be familiar with the gotchas, and have few problems apart from DOA parts. People with less experience building will have more problems, but that's just part of the learning experience, and things to check and look for, like connectors in the right place, fully inserted etc. Making sure RAM and cards are fully seated. It all comes with experience.

Yeah, I guess experience does play a big role in whether it'll POST or not. I still don't understand why my dad's builds often still fail to POST though, and he's built like 7 already.

 

11 minutes ago, LateLesley said:

It does also depend on the parts too though, as you can get some badly made parts which have horrendous failures.

 

I remember once having to set up a load of Compaq machines, think it was the late 90s, and whatever model it was, they had bad power supplies, and about 20% blew up as soon as you tried to power the machine. A full on bang, with sparks showering out. That made for an interesting few days, tring to figure out which ones were bombs,

Oooh that one, I almost fell into a massive trap when building yesterday. I actually first bought an Armaggeddon Voltron Gold 600, an 80+ Gold PSU that was sold for dirt cheap ($33!), and then I looked over at the reviews and almost all said about the cheapo components inside, then I looked over at the PSU tier list and found out it wasn't even in the recommended sections for an iGPU build, instead, it was on the potentially dangerous list! So I decided to bite the dust and eventually replaced it with a Corsair CX550M. It was listed in the Tier B section for mid-range builds (one of the best in that even), and it was exactly what I'm looking for.

[MIZU_is_water]

11 minutes ago, Tech87 said:

Congrats on the successful build!

 

There's user errors that cause POST problems, and then there's hardware issues such as DOA which is the cause of no POST.

 

Dozens or more of no POST threads come across this forum every day, and a good chunk of them are simple user error.

 

However, to get the mathematical percentage of POST failures caused by hardware, I suppose you could gather the general failure rate for each piece of hardware, keeping in mind that every manufacturer will be different, and then draw an average from the group to come up with the chances of getting a faulty component during your build.

Thanks! Fortunately none of my parts were DOA, and the second-hand GPU I bought was working fully in line with the specs. Maybe I was affected by the thought of losing my whole investment, and I double checked every plug and screw.

I'm not good in math (I was even the worse back in school lol), so I think I'll just estimate that 65% of new builds do. Maybe. I'm not really sure lol.

[Avocado Diaboli]

I only have limited experience with computers I've built entirely from scratch, my current one being my third, but I have yet to have a build not POST at all. Sure, I've had certain problems to deal with and when I built my current PC, I bought a cheap placeholder CPU with the intent of swapping it out once the current one I was interested in became available. Once it arrived, I managed to get one that was DOA, so that caused some headaches. But the initial build with that placeholder CPU was the smoothest experience building a PC I've ever had.

 

I think the best tip I can give to anyone building a PC is just to have the manual of the motherboard handy, because it's usually pretty much a step by step guide on what to insert where and obviously for troubleshooting purposes it's basically a requirement to look up stuff there first.

[MIZU_is_water]

7 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Yeah congrats on your first build!

 

I can only speak for myself, and I do know myself. I often do things to quickly and improper. Which is why if I build a PC or upgrade parts I check that everything (EVERYTHING) is seated and connected firmly, even reconnect if I'm not sure. There been plenty of times I have done this or that to a PC and it didn't post or have signal to monitor due to power cables not plugged in at all or GPU a little loose in its slot or something like that. On my last build I checked every single thing twice before turning it on and it went straight through POST. LOL even once I remember I tried to turn on one of my builds and it didn't post because the power cable from the wall to the PSU wasn't connected lmao took me longer to diagnose than I will ever admit. 

Thanks! I did the same mistake too yesterday lol! I remembered to ready my finger at the PSU switch just in case but in the progress of doing so forgot to actually switch it on first and was confused as hell the moment I pushed the power switch and nothing happened

[Tristerin]

When I put it together correctly - it posts

If there is a bad piece of hardware - it doesnt post

If I dont put it together correctly - it doesnt post

 

So Id say...75% of the time for me I put it together correctly.  Im fortunate enough to have not received DOA core components so the failure is all mine You know, plug in the PSU, stuff like that

[Pcman26]

As long as you bought trusted components from a trusted seller and didn't screw up badly building it 90% chance it will post at least from my experience.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

Never.

You will always do something wrong, usually the parts are good, just you mess up.

[Heufneutje]

I'd say I'd you don't screw up anything it will post fine most of the time. Unless you have factory defects (which has happened to me once with a PSU)

[VioDuskar]

new builds normally fail to post due to user error. 
or, even bad configuration prior. (i'll explain in a minute.)

 

my dad rebuilt a computer once, and brought it to me bacause he couldn't get it to display... he forgot to plug in the PCIe power cables to the GPU. 

i've had friends bring me machines that they failed to secure the RAM in all the way. or forgot to plug in the 8pin CPU power. 

 

recently i swapped my PCIe-3.0 GPU out for a PCIe-4.0 GPU. now normally this doesn't matter, but i use a riser cable in my mini-ITX build. the riser is only rated for PCIe-3.0. 
I had to put my old GPU back in, then go into my BIOS settings to switch the PCIe slot to force 3.0, otherwise the machine fails post on a VGA error code with the new GPU. 

 

[Uttamattamakin]

Congratulations on your first build.  I've only built one recent computer, but put together my share in the 90's and early 00's before I went 100% laptops for quite some time. 

The build I am using now posted on the first time out.  That was likely as much due to having done careful research before I even bought the parts to ensure everything would work together.  The details of building had changed a lot.  SATA SSD's and NVME VS IDE HDD's   PCI-E VS PCI or ISA slots.  The fundamentals are the same.  

That said to be honest more recent computers don't have jumpers and dip switches that have to be set to get them to function and junk like that.  So while making sure everything is seated right is an issue it's not bas bad as it used to be. 

Not posting is only bad and a "screw up" if it comes with a puff of blue magic smoke. 

[Ravendarat]

Ive only built half a dozen computers in the last couple years. I have yet to have one fail to post. I have had  some instability issues with xmp on my brothers computer trying to run ram at 3600 mhz with his 5600x but other than that no issues (knock on wood cause I have a big overhaul of my personal computer coming up)

[CerealExperimentsLain]

My builds fail to post exactly as often as I forget to plug in the 12v CPU power connector.

[Mark Kaine]

Tbh people tend to make mistakes with something they do often, because  they "know" how it works, they tend to not pay as much attention as they did when starting out…

 

My first build posted no problem,  I even put the side glass panel on and all!

 

(i actually still do lol)