Well my motherboard works like a charm and the case is all up and running and the new memory’s totally grate, but…
DAMN, why the HELL didn’t I take a second look before I bought the WRONG VIDEO CARD.
Yeah, uh. I’m an nVidia guy. Started off with a GeForce4 MX440, then progressed to a GeForceFX 5200… so I’m ready to make the leap to something much better, something in the mid-100’s range, and I find one that fits my specifications. 256MB, DVI/VGA/S-Video, AGP 8x, etc. etc…
…and it’s only until it arrives in the mail a week later that I realize I bought an ATI RADEON 9600 PRO. AUGH.
This isn’t to say that ATI makes crappy cards or anything – I’m sure a Radeon 9600 Pro is a great card – but grblah, I was like… what the hell did I do. I had a really sweet nVidia setup, and now I have to change my drivers and all that crap. But whatever, I guess the card’s still good.
Wrong! I install it, everything shows up fine, I install the drivers and all that, and then I go on to trying a 3D application, and all of a sudden, my main LCD monitor, connected through DVI starts flickering and flashing on and off. Uhhh… okay.
So I try fiddling with the BIOS, slowing down AGP speed, turning off Fast Write, lowering graphics aperture, lowering 3D quality, all that stuff – and still, my monitor completely goes BROKEN with anything 3D on-screen.
It’s not until I UNDERclock the video card, to like 1/4 its factory core setting, that it works fine… and so my guess is it’s just fried straight out of the box.
Oh well! Reason enough to return it to newegg for a refund (15% restocking fee and shipping cost though ;_;), and get myself a really good GeForce in return. In the meantime, I’ve just gone back to my GeForceFX 5200… and things are happy in nVidia-land once again.
welcome back to LJ 🙂
THANKS FOR CHEERING ME ON
Somehow, my Radeon 9200SE likes to act up, especially whenever I take my computer out of Hibernate mode…then again it could be I am running a crappy eMachines box.
Yes, Nvidia DOES make better drivers. That’s why I got a 5700LE, which is roughly comparable to the 9600 after overclocks. And it cost me about $80 though I probably should have looked for one with a good heatsink instead of dinky-aluminum-motherboard-heat-sink-reject-on-core-with-paper-thin-fan. The memory in particular could probably do with better cooling, since it really impacts higher-resolution performance and I can’t get the speeds very high at all there.
However, I found out that they don’t support the 5700LE on Linux….or at least, if they do it’s not with this particular card because as soon I tried using their drivers X crashed on startup. So it’s 2d only in Linux-land for me(but my old Geforce2 was fine there).
m mmmmmmm…geek talk.
I use onboard video.
I’m not a PC gamer.
I have a fucking emachines.
I’m a horrible geek at the moment.
My new mobo doesn’t even have onboard video. 😛
Which is a good thing, because it’s better than my old one but it costs less due to absence of unneeded onboard media.
I only use nVidia. I just don’t trust those ATIs.
The nvidia 5700’s and 6800’s are good. We use them at work.
And newegg shouldn’ be charging you 15% restocking for something that was fucked when you got it. I usually thought restocking was for when customers wanted to return something because they weren’t satisfied… If it’s busted, they shouldn’t be restocking it back to their ‘shelves’, they should be RMA’ing it back to ATI.
I bought a pre-OC’d 5700 from Directron. Given the spec comparison and the price, I think it’s the best deal.
And from their FAQ:
” There is a restocking fee of 15% on all returns for refund, unless waived by our Customer Support Agent. Newegg is not responsible for manufacturer defects. We are not manufacturers. We are willing to replace a defective item. If a refund is requested instead of a replacement we will charge a 15% restocking fee. Why? Claiming “defective” is the easy way out of a restocking fee just because you don’t want the item. If it’s defective we will replace it (rma type repair).
For CPU and Memory refunds, any restocking fee we use will be a reflection on current market value for the same cpu item. Newegg.com will not allow returns and then re-orders in attempts to make a profit on CPU and Memory price fluctuations.”
I don’t want them to replace it – I want a refund. I dunno, it looks like they either send me another Radeon 9600 Pro that supposedly works, or they just give me money back with 15% deducted. Am I reading this wrong?
No.
And 15% on an unwanted product isn’t that bad, depending. I remember at CompUSA, we sold customer returned products as open box at a 15% or more discount, even if the product was new but only the box opened. So, when they take that 15% off, sometimes the company is doing that because *they* have to sell it at a discount, too.
And the claiming it as defective is a strategy I’m sure too many people pulled on newegg. Newegg are nice people.
Buying products is more fun when they work. 🙁
The only way I’d go ATI, is if it was in a laptop (either mac or pc) or a mac mini that I was buying and there was no way around it. Otherwise, it’s nVidia all the way.
Hehehehehe. And doesn’t Apple use nVidia as well?
apple machines are powered by motorola’s latest GafTra chip. Garenteed to run at 95% maximum pretentious faggery. (HINT: GafTra is Art Fag backwards)
They do. But not in select models. For instance, the 15″ and 17″ PowerBooks use ATI, but the 12 uses nVidia. The Mac mini uses ATI unfortunately. But it’s a Radeon 9200 chip, so that shouldn’t be too bad.
i thought you’d be amused to know i had a dream with that kid from cross-country in it last night. the ugly kid… “hot lips”?
oh man. brian kearney, that foxy momma.