my (aweful) PNY experience

"Jeff B" wrote in message
news:S9t_c.104440$9d6.12396@attbi_s54...

CompUSA does not fix, only replace - with an equivalent card from another
manufacturer, or a later model from the same manufacturer
if the original is not stocked.

really? Are you saying that if I bought a x800 pro from Comp,
then when they got x800xt's in stock, I could 'trade up' to the
x800xt (for more money, of course).


Wanna wait around for a recycled PNY defect ? PNY demonstrated
do not care about failed product.

You sure got that right!


Also, if you read the small-print of the PNY (er... ) "lifetime
warranty", you will see that it only applies to the production
lifetime of that particular model, which for some PNY lines is less
than 6 months.

I wish the above statement were true. I have replaced many video cards that
are more then 6 months old, including a couple of my own. BFG has the best
warranty around.


Good point, but I've found that if a card lasts 6 months, it will
last 'forever', forever meaning until it dies
of absolescence.


So if it is out of production and PNY does not keep spare inventory,
where are they going to get one for you ??
Oh, I know.... send you someone else's defective return.

LOL! They do that even when they have do have spare inventory!

which is 425/400 3D/2D. So what you say? Turns out, the prob all
along is that with this particular brand of card, the D3 lockups are
caused by different clock values for 2D/3D.

Is there a reason why you didn't send it back to Outpost in the first place?
Did you have the card for a long time or something?
I didn't realize the Ultra was only clocked at 400 memory. My eVga 6800GT is
at 500 default. It must be the faster memory timing or something.
The core can have different 2D/3D speeds, but the memory can't. Coolbits
adjusts the memory for 2D/3D together. You set one and the other
automatically changes.
I can think of at least 3 other OC utilities for your card. It seems like at
least one of them should have worked.
Anyway, good luck with your replacement for the replacement.

Gary


--

Tweaks & Reviews
www.slottweak.com

The 6800 GT is 350 core and 1000 memory except for BFG cards like mine which
are OC'd slightly out of the box, 370 core and 1000 memory. 6800 Ultra's are
400 core and 1100 memory.
"GTX_SlotCar" wrote in message
...
which is 425/400 3D/2D. So what you say? Turns out, the prob all
along is that with this particular brand of card, the D3 lockups are
caused by different clock values for 2D/3D.

Is there a reason why you didn't send it back to Outpost in the first
place?
Did you have the card for a long time or something?
I didn't realize the Ultra was only clocked at 400 memory. My eVga 6800GT
is
at 500 default. It must be the faster memory timing or something.
The core can have different 2D/3D speeds, but the memory can't. Coolbits
adjusts the memory for 2D/3D together. You set one and the other
automatically changes.
I can think of at least 3 other OC utilities for your card. It seems like
at
least one of them should have worked.
Anyway, good luck with your replacement for the replacement.

Gary


--

Tweaks & Reviews
www.slottweak.com

The issue of having different 2d/3d clock speeds is not unique to PNY - my
Point Of View card had the same problems.

All ok since syncing the 2 speeds.

Paul

"Jeff B" wrote in message
news:0fm_c.238379$8_6.203475@attbi_s04...
This Post goes way beyond the typical "I bought a
ASUS/Abit/MSI motherboard. It didn't work right, so never by
an ASUS/Abit/MSI motherboard!"

PNYs idea of "warranty" is to send you a
somebody elses reject. They even slap a "refurbished" sticker on
the back, and it is one of those that voids the so called "warranty" if
you remove it. Read on for the details:

I got a 6800u, and had to send it back to PNY cause lockups
in Doom3 were constant. Boy, what a mistake! (sending the card back, that
is)
This replacement CANNOT be clock adjusted AT ALL. With coolbits, I can
move the slider, but doing so is pointless cause I get an error message
and
the adjustments won't stick. It always reverts back to "default"
which is 425/400 3D/2D. So what you say? Turns out, the prob all
along is that with this particular brand of card, the D3 lockups are
caused by different clock values for 2D/3D. So in effect,
PNY booby trapped the card by permanently fixing the clocks to
values that cause the computer to crash. It was deliberate!
And this has nothing to do with the AC characteristics of the card
it will do 446 Mhz core. But they've done something to
defeat coolbits, so you can't adjust the 2D/3D speed to make them the
same. So my workaround was to use a BIOS editor to set the 2D/3D to the
same value. This worked......for about 4 hours. Suddenly, I'm getting
lockups and weird corruption during the windows splash screen. Pop in
an EVGA card, no problem, so it was the card itself.
The kicker is that the original card worked just fine. About 4 days AFTER
I returned my perfectly good card, I found that it was a
wrong setting problem,
not a bad card. My original did 446/1114 core/mem, and worked perfectly.
I traded it for "the card from hell" cause I mis diagnosed the problem.



Bottom line is this:
PNY gets in some number of problem cards over time, and all they do
is shuffle them around and randomly send them back to unhappy customers.
Joe gets Bills bad card, Bill gets Sams bad card, Sam gets Toms bad card,
etc. No wonder they offer a "lifetime warranty", it doesn't cost them
anything.
I doubt if they do anything in terms of debug. So be advised if you have
thoughts of sending a card back to PNY....you won't get
a new card replacement, you'll get somebody elses reject.

Jeff B




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"OldFartJAC" wrote
The 6800 GT is 350 core and 1000 memory ......6800 Ultra's are
400 core and 1100 memory.

I see. When Jeff said
"It always reverts back to 'default' which is 425/400 3D/2D", I thought he
was talking about 400x2 memory (DDR). What he meant was 425 core in 3D and
400 core in 2D. Well, in that case there's nothing wrong. The memory has to
be the same in 3D and 2D, but not the core.

Gary

--

Tweaks & Reviews
www.slottweak.com

1. I did NOT get screwed by the purchase of a PNY card.
The card worked perectly.
2. Buying a PNY card was not a bad idea since it worked perfectly.


What about after the sale?

If I had not sent my original card back, there would not have been
any "after the sale" problem.

next time, try reading a persons post before you falsely accuse them
of wrong doing.


What wrong doing did I accuse?

Complaining because I was sent someone elses reject from PNY. Your
comment was that anyone who has the misfortune of getting a defective
product deserves whatever happens to them.
In other words, I'm the bad guy here, not PNY.

Is there a reason why you didn't send it back to Outpost in the first place?

Yes, Outpost did not have a replcement card available.

Did you have the card for a long time or something?

Only about 5 days. I spent many hours in debug, not knowing it
was a setting problem. I had tried other cards in Doom3 that worked,
it never occured to me that different 2d/3d clocks was the problem.

I didn't realize the Ultra was only clocked at 400 memory. My eVga 6800GT is
at 500 default. It must be the faster memory timing or something.

I'm using a evga 6800GT right now. It too has a prolem, the memory has
poor AC characteristics, it will go only to 975 Mhz. The GPU is pretty
good though.

The core can have different 2D/3D speeds, but the memory can't. Coolbits
adjusts the memory for 2D/3D together. You set one and the other
automatically changes.
I can think of at least 3 other OC utilities for your card. It seems like at
least one of them should have worked.

On that topic, I found that there's a catch with the "set 2d/3D clocks
to the same value" fix. Turns out that between 426 and 445 Mhz core, it
isn't possible. All values are mutually exclusive. The 3D list goes
425,428,430,433 etc. The 2D values are 425, 427,431,434etc. They don't
'sync up' until 446.
In the end, this wasn't a problem cause I could change the values with a
BIOS editor, so I successully played D3 at 433/1112......for about 2
hours. Then, a different bug surfaced. When booting, during the XP
slpash screen, the screen would get garbled and lockup. I traced the
prob to my Intel .inf update which is required for my particular mobo.
As soon as I installed it, the second prob occured. It was at that
point that I gave up and sent the card back to Outpost.
What I didn't emphasize in my posts is this:
When I first got the replacement card from PNY, it worked, I could
change clock values using coolbits. But after about one hour of use,
suddenly, coolbits stopped working and I could no longer change clocks.
Later the same day, the card suddenly developed the 'garbled screen'
problem. Point is, the card actually worked fine when
I first got it, then had two distinct failures within 3-4 hours.
It was at this point that I bailed and sent the card back to Outpost.
If they refuse to take it back, I'll be forced to deal with PNY again.

Jeff B

StarQuake wrote:

The issue of having different 2d/3d clock speeds is not unique to PNY - my
Point Of View card had the same problems.

All ok since syncing the 2 speeds.

Paul

I've tried 3 different cards, PNY, BFG, evGA. The BFG and evga worked
fine at different 2d/3d speeds. the PNY did not.

How did you sync the clocks? I found that the 2d and 3d list of values
are different.

Jeff, as a side note, don't judge all eVga 6800GTs by the one you're using
now. Mine goes to 415 core and 1170 memory (585x2) and is stable. Funny
though, I can blow a fan right on it and the core or memory won't go higher.
I put AS5 on the gpu and polished the bottom of the ramsink (took the paint
off) and filed down the standoffs for a closer fit to the memory, used AS5
on that, and it still won't clock higher. It runs quite a bit cooler, though
:-) I guess the card is at its limit.

As one who has just gone through a video card problem (lucky for me newegg
ended up taking care of it), I understand your frustration. I hope Outpost
sends you a new card. If not, maybe you'll get lucky with PNY and get your
old card back :-)
It's kind of ironic. Someone, somewhere, has returned a card to PNY and will
receive your old card and tell everyone how great it works and how great
PNY's warranty is.

Gary

--
Tweaks & Reviews
www.slottweak.com

"Jeff B" wrote in message
news:n7F_c.35391$3l3.16634@attbi_s03...

1. I did NOT get screwed by the purchase of a PNY card.
The card worked perectly.
2. Buying a PNY card was not a bad idea since it worked perfectly.


What about after the sale?

If I had not sent my original card back, there would not have been
any "after the sale" problem.

next time, try reading a persons post before you falsely accuse them
of wrong doing.


What wrong doing did I accuse?

Complaining because I was sent someone elses reject from PNY. Your
comment was that anyone who has the misfortune of getting a defective
product deserves whatever happens to them.
In other words, I'm the bad guy here, not PNY.


Werent you the same guy whining weeks ago about how you didnt like some
card, and were actively spamming the heck out this group trying to sell it
because they were so scarce at the time and you thought it was a crap card?