Question Any Suggestions on What to do with a Faulty Prebuilt?

[Pal_aches]

EDIT: Sorry to anyone that saw this early. Turns out, pressing ctrl+enter does not remove the indent in a bullet list and instead posts the whole thread! Who know?
Hello all,
As a preface to this story, I would just like to argue that this pre-built is haunted by a malevolent spirit and that incense or a priest may be the only real solution to my problems. That, or maybe a nice, strong fire. Who can really say?

Anyway here are the specs:

• Advertised as: ROG Strix G15DK GA15
• Motherboard: AMD B550 G15DK
• GPU: RTX 3060
• CPU: Ryzen 7 3700x
• Storage:
  • 256GB M.2 Drive
  • 1 TB HDD
• Ram: 16 GB stick

To start, this PC is preused, which is probably where most of these problems originated. Silly me, I was blinded by a superior card to my own, and did not think about the consequences. And consequences there were. The first crashes began occurring right as I was setting up Windows. I figured its a driver issue, but found that after the first couple of crashes it would reach windows login and bluescreen. A bit of fiddling later, I figure its just a hardware failure and back in to Best Buy for repairs. They tell me its a faulty GPU and somehow it was covered under the warranty.

The next set of crashes occurred about 3 or so months after. I found that immediately after log in, Windows would crash. This happened a couple of times until the login window mysteriously disappeared. Instead, the screen would be black and if I waited long enough it would blue screen once again. Right around this set of crashes I ran into a problem I dubbed Windows corruption; the more blue screens I got, the worse Windows would run, to the point where I could no longer access the desktop or any recovery options. To shorten a long and painful phase of troubleshooting, I had to remove write protection manually through the recovery environment, which allowed me to use disk repair, which then let me use a recovery point. I ended up deleting a VPN software back in the desktop, as I noticed having WIFI disabled would lessen the frequency of crashes. This fixed it. For a couple of weeks.

The last set of crashes, and my breaking point, occurred about a few weeks ago. Same circumstances as the second wave, where BSODS would pile up till I could no longer access the desktop. This time manually removing write protection didn't work. Neither did any of the other recovery options. Changing the system type setting in BIOS from "other OS" to "windows UEFI mode" fixed my inability to access desktop, but now I had another strange issue: my applications would randomly crash. Browsers were notorious for this, but I've had just about anything crash. If I tried to play a video, after about 50 minutes it would bluescreen. If I had a marathon of video games on the weekend, nothing happened! Or at least most of the time. My breaking point, when I decided to just rip the damn thing apart was while in a co-op shooter, my headphones filled with static and white noise like there was a troll micspamming in the lobby. But no one could hear it but me! And it stopped when i closed the game.

I tested the OS and found that a brand new windows 10 instance crashes applications out of the box. I tested the RAM and found my old two 8gb sticks did squat. I even installed linux on a USB and managed to cause a Kernel Panic.

I swap out my brand new GPU, the one that Best Buy had previously replaced, and all PC issues stop. Well. Besides performance issues from going from a 3060 to a 460. But I have had no bluescreens.

TLDR: Where should I go from here? Buy a new GPU? a New PSU? I hope to salvage parts but I have no way of knowing what parts are good and what parts are cursed.

 

[SunRoseAlice]

Hello all,
As a preface to this story, I would just like to argue that this pre-built is haunted by a malevolent spirit and that incense or a priest may be the only real solution to my problems. That, or maybe a nice, strong fire. Who can really say?

Anyway here are the specs:

• Advertised as: ROG Strix G15DK GA15
• Motherboard: AMD B550 G15DK
• GPU: RTX 3060
• CPU: Ryzen 7 3700x
• Storage:
  • 256GB M.2 Drive
  • 1 TB HDD

Is the PC passed RMA Return/Exchange period? RMA Warranty care?

When you post looking for solutions you need to explain what the computer is doing or not doing. If not, and the PC can still be RMA, I would recommend doing so. If it is within RMA Return/Exchange then I would return or exchange it as soon as possible.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Not knowing what power supply is in the pc, in many prebuilt PCs they cheap out on power supplies. So the stock power supply may not be able to handle everything. But when you swap to the 460 the power requirements aren’t as high. In any event safest thing is return your pc for a refund and get a different one or build one. If you’ve got a microcenter near you they’ve got good deals right now. My local one is selling an 11th generation i7 and a z590 board for example for 250 bucks.

I saw they also had an rx 6600 for 229, which is right there with the 3060.

 

[Pal_aches]

Is the PC passed RMA Return/Exchange period?

Apologies for the misunderstanding. Yes, this PC was sold as open-box and wasn't given a warranty- by Best Buy or ROG. It is also past the Return Period, so I believe I am out of luck when it comes to their help.

many prebuilt PCs they cheap out

Man, I don't think I will EVER buy a prebuilt again. The whole thing is a pain- from the cheap case that is impossible to work in, to the bargain bin 16gb ram, to trying to troubleshoot through official means. I will look into a micro centers, thank you for the advice. Odds are, I will cannibalize what I can and buy new parts as needed.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

If the board is a standard board you could probably just grab a case and psu.

https://www.microcenter.com/product...pered-glass-atx-mid-tower-computer-case-black

Something like this even would work and whatever psu is reasonable.

 

[hang-the-9]

Apologies for the misunderstanding. Yes, this PC was sold as open-box and wasn't given a warranty- by Best Buy or ROG. It is also past the Return Period, so I believe I am out of luck when it comes to their help.


Man, I don't think I will EVER buy a prebuilt again. The whole thing is a pain- from the cheap case that is impossible to work in, to the bargain bin 16gb ram, to trying to troubleshoot through official means. I will look into a micro centers, thank you for the advice. Odds are, I will cannibalize what I can and buy new parts as needed.

Open box, issue with that is that at times someone got it, had issues, returned it. It may not have been tested before putting on the shelf. Another more illegal thing people do is buy a system, swap in their faulty hardware into it, and return that while taking out the new part for their own use. You may check with the card vendor if that card itself is in warranty outside of the full system.