I Asked Best Buy to Fix my PC… They FAILED

why would origin PC sponsor a video

where their top-of-the-line gaming

machine performs like

this well maybe because it

doesn't hey there we go that's better

the neuron should be getting hundreds of

frames per second in CS2 and ours would

have if we hadn't given it to our techy

friend 2 fix and gotten it back worse

than before of course it arrived from

origin in perfect working order but well

we'll get to that it's a really common

situation and for many people the next

move is to prepare their wallet and head

to the tech shop if they had an origin

PC they could just use their 24/7

lifetime support but if they don't have

an origin PC well the big question is

where do you go the service department

at a big box store would surely have the

processes and tools to diagnose and

repair your PC but on the other hand

maybe the veteran Tech at the mom Pop

shop down the road is best equipped to

evict your systems

Gremlins yeah we couldn't decide which

route to go either so we dropped off two

identical and identically broken systems

courtesy of origin to compare big box

versus small business but before we get

into the results we need to know the

problem let's take a look at the messes

that we're going to be handing over I'm

that friend everyone asks for tech

support but I don't mind helping to set

up such a beautiful

machine it looks so

fast and it

is but it's a little loud okay I've

watched a lot of videos about system

tuning and I know what this

means

overheating that is where everything

went from oops to

OMG that cable that was loosened during

unpacking handled communication between

the PC and our Cooler's I Q Link system

Hub so that knocked out RPM monitoring

for our fans meaning it's Full Throttle

o clock all the time now a quick reality

check before we go further the link AIO

and fans all have temperature probes in

them so this Behavior doesn't normally

happen but in general a hub running full

speed due to a loss of signal is a very

common scenario and one that should be

easy for a technician to rectify too bad

our friend isn't a technician first they

tried rolling back the Nvidia driver to

the earliest one available Unfortunately

they did so without removing the

existing driver so not only did this not

solve the problem it created a new one

device manager is now reporting error

code

43 oops too bad my friend didn't notice

then they ran C cleaner and started

uninstalling stuff in hopes that it

would help which it did not friendo was

running short on ideas by this point so

they dug around in the Bios and disabled

everything they could find that would

cause extra heat in hopes that the fans

would slow down and for good measure

they also locked the core clocks as low

as they would go it's too bad the LTT

hat Pro doesn't make you smarter just

more water resistant LTT store.com now

as a pretty average buyer of a pre-built

system I don't know any of what my

friend did and even if I did I wouldn't

understand what it meant all I would

know is my games are unplayable they

crash and my system is as loud as a

vacuum

cleaner I would have no way of knowing

is it a hardware or a software problem

or even how to tell the difference and I

would probably be scared of damaging it

any further now I could contact the

manufacturer and for a brand new pc

that's probably a pretty good bet origin

PC has scored well for customer service

in our secret shopper series origin PC

what can I say wow A+ a nail under 10

minutes and bacon face mask 24/7 A+ and

they have free lifetime support but not

everybody has a brand new PC or An

Origin PC for that matter now of course

what we actually are dealing with here

is a software and bios smess and one

loose cable the quickest way of fixing

it then would be to plug the cable in

clear the SOS and reinstall Windows but

it can also be fixed without doing

either of those things if you know

exactly what we did the texts of course

don't so let's listen in and see what

kinds of conclusions they drew starting

with the langly Best Buy hey so I bought

this off of a friend a couple days ago

and it's been giving me problems when

I've been trying to play games on it um

they're just running super slow and the

thing sounds like it's going no um chew

who bought it um from origin I believe I

thought butas it from no no no no is a

custom made right uh um I'm not sure he

he bought it and never even took it out

of the box it's a yeah put a sticky note

here with my steam in case you need to

get in there like when you play games

they're lagging or they're super slow

yeah super slow one of the games I have

hell divers 2o when I open it it just

crashes and it says something about the

CPU being bad or something I'm not sure

chewy did a really good job of both

playing the ignorant customer who has no

idea what he's talking about while also

putting out a nice little trail of

breadcrumbs for them to follow in order

to diagnose this issue he even gave them

access to a steam account that has a

specific game installed that requires

AVX support so they would get the error

message that would help them reconfigure

the BIOS we not taking

it excuse me I mean I guess right like I

can't force you to work on something you

can just be like no look this job is not

right for us maybe take it somewhere

else but we we are not taking it it's a

little direct we're not working on

custom

Bill he says you know what up like that

because we have those parts from the

brand directly with manufactur warranty

okay fortunately I'm really sorry for

that but that be okay he tried to soften

it a little bit some called

memory mem the shop nearby they do B C

and stuff like that on the one hand I

kind of get his rational now look we

don't necessarily have access to

replacement parts for this thing on the

other hand if you're going to recommend

that I go to another shop can you at

least tell me the actual name of the

shop ah the irony of not being able to

remember the name of memory

something Express that's it so we just

got told to leave essentially at the

first Best Buy that can't be policy

Emily is that that's not policy is it no

we called them afterwards and they told

us that yes they actually absolutely do

work on like pre-built computers or and

also custombuilt computers that they

they don't sell in their stores you know

what I bet it's about they probably saw

how high-end it was looked at the issues

that we were having with it and went

this thing's haunted and just didn't

want to deal with it cuz you make a

mistake on a you know $600 office box

okay what that's a $50 mistake or a $100

mistake you make a mistake on on a you

know 5,000 6,000 Canadian dollar gaming

rig let's move on drop off this time at

the Best Buy on King George Highway

heyel is this big is this what do you

want to do now get it fixed whatever

whatever it needs chewy really does play

the ignorant customer extremely well he

has like strong trust fund kid Vibes

I've got this like crazy machine I just

like you don't know fix it I guess sure

whatever JW's our community coordinator

by the way so if you ever see a reply on

Reddit that's not from me it's probably

from him St

or a monitor it's an interesting

question do you hook it up to a TV or a

monitor unless they were trying to help

figure out if we were plugged into the

onboard GPU or the dedicated graphics

card maybe it's a custom leave order uh

I I bought it off a friend I'm not sure

what is a custom PC they won't look at

it wait this is an interesting

distinction

and I can kind of see where they're

coming from but even at this second Best

Buy location they're drawing a line

between a system that was built of

custom parts by an experienced

integrator Like An Origin PC and a

system that could be built of the exact

same Parts but by the individual user

and in that case it's not about the

value of the parts and the risk of you

know breaking them or the difficulty

finding Replacements because they're

willing to work on an origin PC they

just don't want to work on potentially

those exact same Parts if you put it

together yourself and maybe bungled

something up because who knows you could

be trying to blame them for it if you

bent a pin in the socket or whatever the

case may be they've probably run into

some horror stories working on custom

PCS

you so my friend tried but he moved just

before just after he sold it to me it

seems almost seems like what he did made

it worse I don't really know what he did

and the thing is if you've ever worked

in a tech shop you will know exactly how

common this kind of scenario is oh yeah

my friend or my nephew or my uncle

worked on the system and like I don't

know what they did and you see all kinds

of wild things that supposedly techy

friends and family members will do to

systems they're well-intentioned they

just don't really have familiarity with

the hardware this is not a software

issue so it's kind of a hardware issue

we need to ship it out to

the what you can't tell me that you know

what kind of issue it is without even

like turning on the system then again

what I suspect is that they just don't

want to deal with it there in the store

they want to send it to the depot so

they're just telling us anything that it

takes to get us to accept that this

needs to go to the depot so that they

can just kind of go yeah fancy expensive

system I don't want to deal with it I

send it away to the other guys P

shipping and diagnosis it's $100 man 100

bucks to even start to do anything do

you have any important data that's a

good question they're going to call you

after diagnos do you want to sign up for

the wait what sign up for membership

hopefully you're going to fix it I won't

need a membership to Best Buy the whole

drop off process at the second Best Buy

took about 20 minutes half of which was

filling out paperwork they did log the

issues that we had with the machine and

they gave us a case ID and a phone

number we could call to get updates but

we're still having a hard time figuring

out exactly what Best Buy's policy is

with respect to working on custom PCS

versus just OEM PCS from HP Lenovo and

the like when we called the main line

they said no there's no reason that they

wouldn't look at a completely

custombuilt PC let alone one that was

built by a system integrator but both of

the stores we talked to were like whoa

whoa whoa whoa whoa when it came to

working on custom PCS and only one of

them was willing to work on our origin

now for the one I'm more excited about

let's listen to the drop off at black

laab which you guys may recognize as the

mom and pop shop that we bought all the

old inventory from a couple of months

ago Keith seemed like the kind of battle

hardened technician that should be able

to make short work of this but only the

result results matter and let's see what

they are what's going on with it right

to the point um so first of all it's

insanely loud and I feel like that's not

right and it's it's running slow in

general but especially trying to run

games like it can't even run anything

really really yeah SSD obviously I'm not

sure huh first thing he asks is do you

have an SSD that makes a ton of sense

it's really interesting how the kind of

shop you go to

dictates the kinds of questions they ask

just like secret shopper you know Dell

is asking questions like are you buying

an entire fleet of these things do you

want on-site service whereas a custom

builder like origin PC is asking what

games do you want to play and what FPS

do you want to play them at so in the

same way Keith probably sees a lot of

15-year-old machines so he wants to know

okay is there anything obvious that's

making this thing dog slow like does it

have a hard drive and also do I even

want to work on another machine that has

a hard drive in it wait you know 10

minutes for an application to install

you didn't even take it out of the box

interesting what yeah how

much uh that's hilarious chewy doesn't

know how much he paid for it like 3K he

just made up a number yeah he was moving

away so we just want to get it off his

hands but it's not running right nope

maybe that's why he wanted to get it

off yeah for now so it goes into Windows

yes and then everything goes is there a

password no but my steam info is Hest

sticky note there perfect I'm going to

go home

tonight I can't believe neither of the

best buys called chewy on giving his

steam credentials whereas kei's like Yo

dude the low points for professionalism

but high points for efficiency the whole

interaction with Keith took less than

five minutes is it a 49 you know uh I

don't know we get this video part

10 I'm just kidding that

oh man

see I don't know Keith very well but

I've spent enough time with him to know

that I think he's honest enough that he

wouldn't actually just swap out the

hardware in someone's machine who

obviously has no idea what they have but

he's also smart enough to see that this

is someone he freaking could if he

really felt like it awesome all right

okay thank you take care of just as I

remember him an efficient troll now it's

time for pickup Chewy was sick that day

so we sent in llo to grab the machines

starting with Best Buy so I just want to

SC can I see the document that they're

looking at please yep my goodness we got

a whole

folder jeez motherboard uh the hard

drive Ram everything is good so this is

the T P okay wait a second whoa whoa

whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa

how much did I pay for this whole tube

of thermal paste of which you guys used

one tiny dollop they sold me a giant

tube of thermal paste because they Reen

read the

cooler really how much did I pay for

this 20 bucks in thermal paste that

wasn't even the problem you guys okay uh

nothing wrong with the hardware just the

pH like you know the overheating was

causing the problem overheating was the

problem no you put on new thermal paste

you think you solved the problem but H

we're about to look at this machine and

I don't think we're going to find the

problem solved if they think overheating

was the problem if anything under

heating was the problem we had too much

cooling fans they played the game for a

little while and see how it goes they uh

kept it on like you know the computer

for almost like you know more than 24

hours you to sees anything happening

passing anything okay all is good I'm

afraid I don't really understand what

they're saying so they reimbursed me the

hardware repair

and then charged me almost double for

software repair because they reinstalled

the operating system they made no

mention of Bio settings no mention of

the loose link Hub cable they charged me

20 bucks for a gigantic tube of thermal

paste that I think it's pretty clear

from the way that I'm talking about this

system I have no idea what it is I am

never going to use did they even solve

the problem you had the lot of fan so

the fan like over the time you were B

noise oh oh the fans were noisy yeah

yeah because say you had three here

three here six oh just a lot of fans in

it yeah so that is normal

there more fans is not more noise yeah

we have 12 fans which means they should

be spinning very slow and making very

little noise oh Best Buy Best Buy Best

Buy it is very heavy yeah yeah I know I

know I going have to carry are you manag

to carry yeah it'll be okay yeah going

somebody to their credit it seemed like

they were offering to help them carry

the system out that's one thing they did

well but I paid

$123 to fix a computer that as far as I

can tell is not fixed actually it was a

total of 209 because what a total of 209

holy

bananas we paid 250 bucks for them to

not fix the

problem maybe they shouldn't work on

custom

PCS all right let's see how black lab

did can I get the documentation for that

one about the same price though

realistically I guess what it comes down

to now is did Keith manage to fix the

computer hey I just had a pick up oh

okay what was wrong with it oh it had to

be completely reloaded completely

reloaded it was wacko man those fans

were just roaring I tried everything to

get them to shut up oh yeah okay

reloading software all that stuff just

didn't work so ioaded everything did all

the drivers again it's awesome

interesting Okay cool so it's all it's

all good now yep and if he has any

problems whatsoever just tell him to

call me that's nice offering the

followup and he did have some malware on

there so malware oh okay do we have any

idea what malware he's referring to did

we have logging software on there to see

what they were no nothing no no the best

I can figure is CA cleaner and wind zip

yeah I wouldn't consider those malware

awesome thank you so much thank you so

much have a great day all right you too

full marks for efficiency and love the

personality but I think at best Keith is

headed for a partial pass here he says

that the fans are quieted down now and

there is a way to do that without recing

that Link cable but he didn't manage to

find the underlying problem and he made

no mention of any of the issues in the

bio so I have to say I'm a little

worried that the performance of the

machine even if the fans are quiet is

not going to be up to Snuff he also

charged a little more than Best Buy did

but if you managed to solve the problem

at least solved enough that I can use my

computer

then it's hard to really complain about

that God I can sure complain about how

much it costs to get service done on a

computer I can see why people just buy a

new machine like if you have a

5-year-old Dell or something and you

take it into a shop they're like yeah

it's going to be three or four labor

hours to reload Windows put on drivers

and get it up and running again be like

a screw it I'll just get a new one and

then it'll just be fast anyway and this

my friend is where e-w babies come from

starting with the Best Buy PC I am not

that impressed with the condition of

this computer I mean we dropped it off

brand new and it is so covered in

fingerprints and thermal paste that I

could probably defeat the biometric

security of the phone of this technician

not to mention they left this giant

stupid service tag sticker on it

like why it comes off pretty easily so

just remove it I don't know maybe I'm

just in a bad mood and being picky

because I don't think they solve the

problem let's see let's see maybe I'll

feel differently when we open it up and

they did a great job or

whatever all right get me my

screwdriver I'm talking to me I will get

me my

screwdriver how's their thermal Pace

job um

realistically probably not going to

cause any problems but I'd have put on

more especially since like I have plenty

do we have thermal results for uh the

after no probably shouldn't have pulled

this off then oh seriously you made it

that easy on them I thought you meant

you were going to pull out like one of

these USBC connections between the link

devices you pulled a freaking USB header

off and they didn't notice that they did

not

brother I mean if you diagnosed it as a

software issue and you didn't look that

closely at the hardw where I can kind of

see how you could miss it but you went

you did a full re and re on the CPU

Cooler so you thought it was hardware

and you didn't check if a USB header was

uninstalled what that tells me is I'm

going to press this

button and that's going to happen which

they passed off as normal how much you

want to bet origin PC based on the

experiences we've had with them would

fix this issue over the phone in like 10

minutes before we hook up a monitor and

see how they did software wise let's

have a look at Keith's

Hardware also a little fingerprint but

the difference here is that the

fingerprints are in the typical carrying

positions and uh are not made out of

thermal paste so this is probably

us wait where's the US oh he plugged it

back in did he plug the USB header back

in we didn't do it okay so that's

interesting Keith is still it was a

software issue at least that's what he

told us but he found the hardware issue

which solved his problem if you do the

right thing that's definitely better

than just not seeing it at all even if

you aren't sure exactly which thing you

did fixed it he took longer he took a

week compared to 3 days and he did

charge us more but here let's get this

thing fired up oh and of course my RGB

is working properly now too now that

we're posted let's see how they did they

managed to enable XMP they put it on the

first profile which is 6,000 megatrans

per second rather than

6,200 AVX is still

disabled frequency control is fine

though you know what's funny to me we've

talked about this in our troubleshooting

challenges before if you suspect at all

that a bios configuration issue is

present modern systems all you got to do

is go into the profiles create a profile

for what they had just in case you know

if they had like weird Legacy boot

settings or something like

that reset it and see if that solves the

problem and if it does then great you

enable XMP and you're done you don't

have to dig through all the sub menus to

find what stupid thing their friend

adjusted there's no avoiding it is there

we're going to have to start a tech shop

so people can have their computers fixed

properly well we'll see maybe black laab

did great now that we're on the desktop

I'm even more confused did they really

install user Benchmark and then just

leave it here yeah Ida to which is not

free software like you're not allowed to

just use it however you want and leave

it on any system you want oh this is

even a oh no it is a trial for yeah yeah

there's even a thing that pops up and

tells me that probably their worst sin

was that Norton 360 was not on this

computer when we dropped it off now the

reason for that can actually be traced

back to MSI who includes Norton in their

driver package bundle thing but when you

do a Windows refresh I kind of expect

you to pay attention to what I had

installed on the machine and not leave

anything extra on it that seems to be

about it now let's get this machine shut

down

so ah our audio is usable let's move

over to Keith's machine oh Keith didn't

turn off fan speed monitoring so we get

that CPU fan error when the system First

turns on that's a rookie mistake it's

even in the simple interface that's how

quick that is to fix oh Keith used the

higher XMP

profile and did he reset seos no AVX is

still off he's got all the frequency

stuff fixed why not just clear seos both

of you In fairness to Keith the CPU fan

error message is a lot less of a problem

on these MSI boards on an Asus one it'll

hang until you go in and tell it not to

check it now that we're in Windows I see

no sign of

user Heaven Benchmark okay a really

Heaven does anyone use that anymore and

B can't can't believe in software

installed on people's systems if you

have a conversation with them that goes

I put this on there in order to do this

it's really useful for this you may want

to use it otherwise you can just take it

off it's not harming anything then at

least Le that's a conversation we had if

you're just leaving software installed

on my system it's it's sloppy no Norton

though Kudos Keith for installing the

drivers properly either doing it

manually by downloading them and then

installing them or by making sure you're

paying attention when you use that

package and unselecting Norton for

gamers since we have Heaven on here I

guess we can do a quick check and see if

the system is performing as we would

expect and it is casual 600 fr per

second did they really put 409s in these

things mhm oh

origin you guys and your crazy systems

now that we've run through both systems

the results are both clear and also not

clear Best Buy they failed they solved