Hey folks, I bought a prebuilt PC about a year and a half ago and decided to clean the radiator and the entire system today. After disconnecting everything and taking pictures (or so I thought), I cleaned everything up. Fast forward two hours, and when I was reconnecting everything, I found a cable that seems to have come out of nowhere and doesn't fit in any ports. I'm pretty new to PCs and don't really know where all the cables go. I'm in dire need of help!
For reference, my setup is as follows: Motherboard - Gigabyte B550 Gaming X V2, CPU - Ryzen 5 5700x, CPU Cooler - BoostBoxx AIO ARGB 240mm, GPU - RTX 4060ti. If needed, I can share pictures as well. Thanks in advance!
5 Answers
For cleaning PCs, you really don’t need to take them apart. I just use pencils to keep my fans from spinning when I blow out the dust, and a mini vacuum kit does the trick for me. It’s quick and easy if you do it regularly!
Just because you see a cable floating around doesn't mean it needs to be plugged in somewhere. If the cable is from your power supply, it may not connect to anything at all. Try reconnecting everything as best as you remember, then power it on to see what happens.
First off, where's that loose cable coming from? Is it coming out of the CPU cooler? That might give us a clue about where it should go.
Yeah, it's definitely from the CPU cooler.
Did your PC work fine without the cable? If you're not sure, just try powering it up. If it doesn’t work, check your motherboard manual or look it up online. If you're still stuck, maybe even give ChatGPT a try for more ideas!
Believe it or not, I tried all of that but can't find where that cable connects. The weird part is, without it, I’m getting no output on the screen. Maybe I've connected something else incorrectly?
It sounds like there could be a loose connection going on. Make sure everything is secured tightly where it connects; a loose cable could lead to the issues you’re describing!
I’ve been at it for hours, and it’s just that one cable that’s giving me issues. I can turn the PC on, but it flickers off then back on without sending a signal to the display. All my fans are running, and the pump is working too, so I don’t know what’s wrong.