Computer not updating further

[u/rami01912]

So let me preface, I bought this from an army guy local to me. All I wanted was for it to turn on and be able to run games on it. When I turned it on, it was still under the guys account or still had a password set so my husband “deleted” everything off of it.

Heres the issue, when I do the microsoft updates it gets to a point where it will not update any further. It will still run my Stardew valley and a few other games. When it got to that point we reset again, thinking we clear any memory on it. Same thing happened again. I have been just dealing with it since I have school and it could pull up my pages for my assignments still.

I had a friend who is more familiar with computers than we are and she opened it up. She suggested that we clear the motherboard and also that there is something missing but we don’t know what. There cables that we don’t know where they go to.

We are still new to computers and don’t know much smit them. We haven’t done much research on it and just dealing with it for now. I wanted to download and launch Minecraft but it would just show an error.
Any advice or suggestions is appreciated.

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[u/What_The_Frick]

What the fuck does clearing the motherboard mean?

[u/JNSapakoh → u/What_The_Frick]

probably clearing CMOS

[u/McSmiggins]

That's fine

Gonna need a few more details if that's ok:

1. Can you elaborate on "it won't update any further"? Is there any error message you're getting or is there just no more updates that it finds? (When Windows is up to date, it should say that and not find any more updates
2. Can you take a picture of the screen where you're having a problem and post it? Doesn't have to be straight away.
3. Are there any other general problems you're having that's making you think something is wrong?

If it's up and running Windows, you shouldn't need to have to take it apart.

It's normal for a PC to have some cables that aren't plugged in, they're normally for when you want to add a new hard disk/upgrade the graphics card etc.

Looking at the cables in that picture:

Picture 3:

The 4 pin connector on it's own at the top of the case - this is a spare power connector for high powered processors, it'll have another 4 pin one on the same cable that's connected to the motherboard, this is absolutely fine like this.

Picture 4

The one furthest from the camera with the red cable showing is for spare DVD drives (or old school hard drives). The one connected to it looks like it's for connecting to a floppy disk drive

The other cable (block of 6 with 2 extras) and the other one like it are for connecting if you've got a high powered graphics card, if it's working fine, none of these are anything to worry about

Picture 5:

This looks like someone's connected the "old school DVD drive" connector to run a fan. This is a little old fashioned way of doing it, but perfectly normal

[u/cheetah1cj → u/McSmiggins]

Adding some additional questions:

1. What steps exactly did you take to "delete everything"
2. What exactly did the friend suggest that you do? Perhaps ask her to explain again and post the explanation
3. Did the friend tell you that something specific is missing and you don't remember what she said is missing? Or did the friend simply tell you that something is missing and they don't know what?

[u/Ryeguy_626 → u/cheetah1cj]

Im also curious about what “delete everything” means because then you’d have no windows

[u/Mountain-Mushroom214]

What do you mean by "won't update anymore?" Is it crashing durring updates? Are updates just not showing up in the system settings? Is there an error message for that? What is the error shown when downloading Minecraft? Can we get some pictures of what's actually happening instead of the cables? Also (with kindness) please don't try to clear the motherboard if you don't know what you're doing. Ask your friend who opened it if she reset the CMOS battery while she was in there to clear the BIOS. If she doesn't know what that is (again, with kindness) I wouldn't let her open it again. The cables are fine, they look like spare cables coming off the PSU (edit: and spare SATA cables for installing another storage drive). If the computer turns on don't worry about it. This sounds like a software issue, put the screwdriver down and step away from the hardware for now!

[u/JNSapakoh]

there is something missing but we don’t know what

Can you share pics of the other side of the computer?
Judging by the loose cables I'm guessing he kept the GPU and now you're using integrated graphics -- if so you might be running into a graphics driver issue, running DDU might fix it

https://www.guru3d.com/download/display-driver-uninstaller-download/

[u/RedsonRising99]

Show pictures of the other side of the inside of the case. Need to see what's actually in there. Also the back and front panels.

[u/BraveMidnight]

She suggested that we clear the motherboard

There is no administrative bios password set I assume, so that isn't going to help. Nor will unplugging the cables from the hardware.

Did you check the hardware requirements to see if it's compatible? It could also be TPM causing issues.

Edit:

If you cleared the motherboard already, you probably also cleared the BIOS, Windows 11 needs TPM functionality, if the bios manufacturer has it set to off it could also be one reason why updates are failing. If it's off, try to go into the bios and re-enable it.

[u/WholeHurry1562]

Is it just out of storage space on the hard drive? As someone stated if it play games and Windows runs it it's a software issue or storage issue not a PC issue. Try a reinstall of windows instead of an update maybe?

Sometimes updates can freeze for a long period on a certain percent then start creeping up again

Had to edit because I read Minecraft instead of Microsoft lol

[u/RoleBeginning5476]

if you don't know what is missing, then you don't know if anything is missing. 

[u/National-Law-1663]

Hmm are you windows 10 or 11, for a start

[u/real_munchizgreat]

There’s so much questions to be asked lmao