Very odd things happening with a Custom PC I bought from a local dealer

[OffbeatBryce]

Hello,

I got a custom PC for video editing. I paid about 2000 for it. I've had it for a year and overtime things start to not work. Screen will go black randomly then it comes back on only to crash running software such as premiere etc. sound will stop working completely. Certain programs will never open.

It's a windows 10 pro machine with 16GB of ram XEON dual core processor. I have a NVIDIA 8GB graphic card. All these components match all the software requirements.

I recently bought a Windows 10 Pro laptop off newegg. That for some reason will run all the software without a problem. No black screen at all. I think something is wrong with my PC but I don't know what.

I called the place I bought the custom PC from and was told it was something I was doing wrong and the guy refused to look at it without charging a 100 dollar fee. Is there anyone here that knows what's going on? I have updated all the software, graphic card and sound drivers etc.

My Laptop is pretty much identical in specs to my PC and the laptop runs all the software fine so not sure why my PC won't. Even more strange is when I plug in an external hard drive into my PC that works perfectly fine on my laptop I get an error that tells me the driver isn't write access which is bull crap because I can write to it just fine on the laptop.

I even borrowed my friends graphic card which is a newer one and stuck it in my PC and I still get a black screen very often. But only with certain software like premiere. Sometimes it happens when I watch YouTube videos. It can't be the graphics card since I've tried two now and the one I borrowed was released this year.

 

[trampus123]

just do a soft system wipe and see if it works you will need to reinstall all the programs you have. You can find it under update & security then recovery there you will see reset this PC.

 

[smorizio]

few things. use a usb stick make a bootable memtest86 on it. boot from the usb stick run it overnight see if there any ram errors. also with the power off make sure your ram and all gpu and cables are locked down. the blacking out can be a sign of a failing power supply. what the make and model of the one in your case. if it a no named unit i would swap it out with a seasonic focus unit.

 

[OffbeatBryce]

few things. use a usb stick make a bootable memtest86 on it. boot from the usb stick run it overnight see if there any ram errors. also with the power off make sure your ram and all gpu and cables are locked down. the blacking out can be a sign of a failing power supply. what the make and model of the one in your case. if it a no named unit i would swap it out with a seasonic focus unit.

I'm not sure what the make and model is. It was supplied by Dell but a guy in my state built the PC for me as he has direct connections with Dell. I'll look up the case info later.

If it is the power supply is there a way to test how much power is going to it? What's interesting is if I shut down the computer and turn it back on the software works fine up until about 6 hours and then it fails again with the black screen. Possibly the power supply is overpowering itself after being on for a while?

 

[OffbeatBryce]

I did some research and turns out after using this site https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator to calculate what specs my machine are I should be using a 450W powersupply. I currently have a 365 power supply. Could that explain the screen going black programs freezing etc?

 

[andreas.scott]

I did some research and turns out after using this site https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator to calculate what specs my machine are I should be using a 450W powersupply. I currently have a 365 power supply. Could that explain the screen going black programs freezing etc?

You have a 2000 dollar workstation with a 365 PSU? 500 has been the standard for low end GAMING the last few years, 650 for semi hardcore, and you are telling me that you are running a video editing machine with that?

Disclaimer: I usually overestimate my knowledge regarding PC parts, but this seems fishy

 

[OffbeatBryce]

I did some research and turns out after using this site https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator to calculate what specs my machine are I should be using a 450W powersupply. I currently have a 365 power supply. Could that explain the screen going black programs freezing etc?

You have a 2000 dollar workstation with a 365 PSU? 500 has been the standard for low end GAMING the last few years, 650 for semi hardcore, and you are telling me that you are running a video editing machine with that?

Disclaimer: I usually overestimate my knowledge regarding PC parts, but this seems fishy

The computer guy who built my editing PC told me I don't need anything higher than a 365 power supply and is refusing to replace it with another one unless I pay him 300 dollars to diagnose the problems I'm getting. I'm not longer happy with the guy. How do I do this on my own? Can any computer have any power supply?

 

[andreas.scott]

I did some research and turns out after using this site https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator to calculate what specs my machine are I should be using a 450W powersupply. I currently have a 365 power supply. Could that explain the screen going black programs freezing etc?

You have a 2000 dollar workstation with a 365 PSU? 500 has been the standard for low end GAMING the last few years, 650 for semi hardcore, and you are telling me that you are running a video editing machine with that?

Disclaimer: I usually overestimate my knowledge regarding PC parts, but this seems fishy

The computer guy who built my editing PC told me I don't need anything higher than a 365 power supply and is refusing to replace it with another one unless I pay him 300 dollars to diagnose the problems I'm getting. I'm not longer happy with the guy. How do I do this on my own? Can any computer have any power supply?

Yes and no. You usually need to do some simple research to see how many pins your graphics card has (6 or 8), but many of the new PSU'S can fits with both so it prolly don't matter.

It's usually easy to find out If u need to tho. You can Google it or simply open up and see how many it has (the only wires going to the graphics card should be from the PSU so you can remove them, count, and put them back.) (Obviously when it's not plugged in to the wall so you don't kill your PC like I did an hour ago). If it's an 8gb Nvidia it's probably 8 pin though

Step 2: buy a new psu, I'd recommend like 650w.
If u are new to this, replacing a PSU is relatively easy. Take a picture of how the wires are connected to the different components inside the PC. Remove the wires, then the PSU, install the new, and the rest should be obvious ;]. PSU'S are usually the same size and all