Wow. I don't think I'm ever going to buy ATI again.

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"I don't owe either company anything, but I also won't be buying another card for a while."

Agreed! Also, I've bought OEM video cards in the past and had one not work and got a refund. If you're trashing ATI and Newegg and never buying anything from them again, then that's your beef but you will be missing out. Besides, did Newegg leave a note with your card when they sent it back to you why you got the same card? If not, like some others have said already, you should have called.

Funny thing about a PNY Ti4400 I bought on ebay about a year ago. It worked before it was shipped, it worked when it arrived, it didn't work about 2 months ago when I tested it. This was supposed to be a replacement for my MSI when it died, but I ordered a VisionTek instead. I removed the stock fan from the PNY and tossed it.

I would like to see that card on fire as well!!!! :eek:
 
final GT,

I read a previous post that was very important that no one seemed to pay attention too. That is your PSU specs.

Have you got a decent PSU? how many watts? Make sure you have enough amps at the voltage required by the vid card.

godzillasdm
 
finalgt said:
However, the reason I'm probably not going to buy ATI again because ATI believes rampant crashes inside video games and 3D apps is not a valid reason to RMA your card...sorry, that's just lame, and terrible customer service. Yup, I bought a refurb card. But if that's how ATI supports their retail products, that's not exactly a seal of quality approval, y'know? Again, I'm not blaming ATI for Newegg's (admittedly incredibly rare) fuckup...in the process of trying to learn how to fix my card I stumbled upon the list of issues they WON'T support with an RMA, and there are at least a couple items on the list that are inexcusable, and should be supported without question.
Click to expand...

ATI will RMA for any of those problems, the list is to cover their backsides legally if they decide not to RMA due to a card being tampered-with/overclocked. I have RMA'd an 8500 to ATI for crashes in 3d applications, and they were great about it.

Legal mumbo-jumbo aside, ATI wants to keep it's business, so it instucts it's customer service people to RMA any problem that is caused by a defective board. Just call and explain your problem to them and they should be cool with it.

Although in your case it was a refurm so that doesn't count I think. I believe ATI doesn't cover refurb boards sold by third parties, never hurts to call though.
 
@trapine said:
To blame a Certain card because you brought a Shithouse refurb is just idiotic :rolleyes:
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and then complaining about it because youre too lazy to do anything about it

i just LOVE how he wont take it up with newegg
 
Speaking of horror stories with ATI...I bought a Rage Fury MAXX when it first came out and I had fun troubleshooting that card because I never figured out what the problem was. Then I bought a Radeon 8500(retail) and I didn't like the way it performed...I bought a new mobo and cpu for it and still didn't solve my issues. I sold it on ebay and I told the buyer if he had any problems to just send it back and I'd refund his money and 2 weeks later he emails me back saying how great the card is and everything went smooth. :rolleyes:

I've only bought one nvidia card and it was a gf3 ti 200(actually my mommy bought it for me for my birthday). :)

But to this day I'm still using ATI cards despite all my experiences.

In the end I ended up breaking my rage fury maxx in half and swore I wouldn't buy another ATI card. WTF happened? :confused:
 
I doubt if some fault can be even attributed to ATI. First rule of thumb in building a reliable and stable system, NEVER BUY REFURBISHED COMPONENTS...PERIOD. I have my 9700pr brand new the day it came out, still churrning away today, just have to dust it off once in a while ;)

Granted ofcourse ATI had a "colorful" trackrecord in the past, but this generation products are rock solid.
 
Might as well post some BS since this seems like a good chat thread. :D

Refurbs are always a gamble, but that gamble increases with the price and complexity of the product. I have heard of many bad stories with refurb'd video cards in my day, so no one should be entirely surprised. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be an option, it just means you have to be willing to take a risk. Honestly there shouldn't be ANY risk, but things happen.

As for NewEgg, excellent vendor...one of the best if not the best. Take it from me; I've been a customer for over two years and have spent God-only-knows how much money there. I'd say easily over 30 Gs, since I use them to build custom PCs for clients all the time. I believe I've only had 4 RMAs in that time span, and at least one of them was my own fault. Two of them were due to poor shipping. That's about as good as it gets, IMHO.

As for ATi, I used to avoid them like the plague. Drivers were simply atrocious on earlier cards. That being said, they have been immensely improved. A guaranteed release once a month, the top beta-testing team in the industry, they listen to card issues, and quite frankly the drivers match nVidia, IMHO. Trust me, I've worked with enough cards in the last two years to know...and I own right now 2 nVidia and 1 ATi gaming cards. If I'm going to spend $400-500 on a card, I'm going to know it's good first. As for hardware issues, I've never had to send an ATi card back but have had to send nVidia cards back at least two times.

Do not avoid a company because of one bad experience, especially if it involves some uncertainty in the first place. And don't judge a manufacturer by past stereotypes. Buy the card that's best for you, regardless of company...I know I do. :D
 
Great thread title. having bad luck on a refurbished item really warrants blackballing a company. Maybe they got you before you could get them:

finalgt
[H]ard|Gawd
Join Date: Aug 2002

"I wonder how many of the people here saying that he's so wrong for thinking about RMAing it wouldn't do the same thing themselves.

Breaking a product trying to overclock/tweak it is one thing, but if the thing breaks off in your hand when you're installing it, I'd imagine a company should be good enough to RMA it for you. If you're properly installing a $300 video card and something breaks, you don't fucking "suck it up and take it like a man," you fucking complain until a company realizes their mistake and corrects their mistake. I wouldn't expect that sort of shoddy build quality in an MX400, let alone a near-flagship video card.

There are times when people have to be good consumers, and there are times when companies need to be good companies. You're not being a good samaritan by being a good consumer during one of the times where the company is at fault, you're just screwing yourself over. But if you like needlessly wasting $300, I guess that's up to you... "

There was something fishy with his story in that thread, as there is with this one.
 
Funny part is, I epoxied ramsinks on my 9800 Pro (with no intention of removing them) quite liberally, and through my constant handling one of the ramsinks actually CAME OFF and was like that inside the case. I noticed because I started getting artifacts with my OC. :D

Not only that but I over-OC'd my card when I first got it by accident, and also run it very very MAX OC 24/7. It's almost 14 months old. I've taken it out about 50 times, always using a screwdriver to reach around the massive ramsinks for the latch, and I probably dropped it once or twice. Removed the GPU HSF several times. Not only does it still work, it works perfectly and as good as the day I bought it.

Moral of the story: you have to be pretty damn clumsy and/or incompetent to break a high-quality card.
 
I always buy vidcards retail for this very reason. To me once I have to RMA it, the money saved has already been lost in the sheer amount of time and hassle it takes to get that card back...and if it doenst work then?
 
I love how you chose the topic vs your first sentance in the original post...
 
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