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#1
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my (aweful) PNY experience
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 |
#2
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On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 16:41:32 GMT, Jeff B wrote:
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 If you had been reading this NG for any length of time, you would not have bought a PNY card.... period. One exception:- If you decide that you REALLY want a PNY card, then buy it with the "return-for-exchange-no-questions-asked" CompUSA extended warranty. And extend the warranty if the replacement is another PNY card. John Lewis |
#3
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"John Lewis" wrote in message ... On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 16:41:32 GMT, Jeff B wrote: 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 If you had been reading this NG for any length of time, you would not have bought a PNY card.... period. One exception:- If you decide that you REALLY want a PNY card, then buy it with the "return-for-exchange-no-questions-asked" CompUSA extended warranty. And extend the warranty if the replacement is another PNY card. John Lewis My PNY 6800 GT runs fine at Ultra speed. Even with the 3D speed set different from the 2D speed. Maybe Jeff is just a moron who can't make himself happy. |
#4
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If you had been reading this NG for any length of time, you would not have bought a PNY card.... period. Not with a card that is unavailable world wide. On the rare chance that one does become available, you take it. besides, many ppl will get a defective card from a manufacturer, and from that one data point conclude that ALL such cards are defective. Since PNY cards are exactly the same design as EVGA/MSI/XFX/BFG, it should be no more or no less risky than any other brand. One exception:- If you decide that you REALLY want a PNY card, then buy it with the "return-for-exchange-no-questions-asked" CompUSA extended warranty. And extend the warranty if the replacement is another PNY card. That doesn't work cause you have to pay extra for that extended warranty. Besides, you can do the same thing for free with the manufactures warranty (theoretically) because cards normally can't be "fixed", they can only be replaced. But replaced with what? Since component level servicing can't be done at the vendors repair depot, they will: 1. return your card without doing anything to it, or 2. replace it with a defective card someone else returned, or 3. give you a new card. All vendors except PNY do 3 above, cause that's the only proper remedy. But if you are dealing with a unscrupulous vendor PNY, they will replace it with a different defective card they received from someone else. They figure that since they make it so inconvient to apply for warranty, they will eventually wear you down and you'll give up, and it hasn't cost them anything. I bought this card from Outpost.com, cause they'll give a full refund if you return it, and they don't charge extra. The bigger point is that in a world where 6800u are typically unavailable, you take what you can get and hope that you get a good card. This is what happened to me. I got a good card from PNY, and traded it for a defective card. The real problem is that PNY slapped a big'ol REFURBISHED sticker on the back, so now I have to worry that Outpost won't take it back cause it isn't the same card they originally sold me. |
#5
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Try using that same editor (or download a pre-modded bios from
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...eadid=17272276 etc., that fixes the freezing prob and perhaps raises the default core voltage. rms |
#6
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On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 19:05:38 GMT, Jeff B wrote:
If you had been reading this NG for any length of time, you would not have bought a PNY card.... period. Not with a card that is unavailable world wide. On the rare chance that one does become available, you take it. besides, many ppl will get a defective card from a manufacturer, and from that one data point conclude that ALL such cards are defective. Since PNY cards are exactly the same design as EVGA/MSI/XFX/BFG, it should be no more or no less risky than any other brand. One exception:- If you decide that you REALLY want a PNY card, then buy it with the "return-for-exchange-no-questions-asked" CompUSA extended warranty. And extend the warranty if the replacement is another PNY card. That doesn't work cause you have to pay extra for that extended warranty. Besides, you can do the same thing for free with the manufactures warranty (theoretically) because cards normally can't be "fixed", they can only be replaced. But replaced with what? 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. Wanna wait around for a recycled PNY defect ? PNY demonstrated do not care about failed product. 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. 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. Try BFG for a real lifetime manufacturer's warranty. I still recommend the CompUSA extended warranty for high-ticket items, purchased during a CompUSA sale of course. John Lewis Since component level servicing can't be done at the vendors repair depot, they will: 1. return your card without doing anything to it, or 2. replace it with a defective card someone else returned, or 3. give you a new card. All vendors except PNY do 3 above, cause that's the only proper remedy. But if you are dealing with a unscrupulous vendor PNY, they will replace it with a different defective card they received from someone else. They figure that since they make it so inconvient to apply for warranty, they will eventually wear you down and you'll give up, and it hasn't cost them anything. I bought this card from Outpost.com, cause they'll give a full refund if you return it, and they don't charge extra. The bigger point is that in a world where 6800u are typically unavailable, you take what you can get and hope that you get a good card. This is what happened to me. I got a good card from PNY, and traded it for a defective card. The real problem is that PNY slapped a big'ol REFURBISHED sticker on the back, so now I have to worry that Outpost won't take it back cause it isn't the same card they originally sold me. |
#7
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Jeff B said:
If you had been reading this NG for any length of time, you would not have bought a PNY card.... period. Not with a card that is unavailable world wide. On the rare chance that one does become available, you take it. I was sympathizing until you wrote that... You took your chances, got screwed, come here bitching and then refuse to acknowledge that in retrospect, buying a PNY was a bad idea. Most people eventually realize that anyone can sell a product that works and everyone eventually sells a turd, the difference is what they do about the turd. -- Mac Cool |
#8
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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. 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! |
#9
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I was sympathizing until you wrote that... You took your chances, got screwed, come here bitching So you are saying that anyone who has the misfortune of getting a bad card deserves to get screwed because after all, they "took a chance". and then refuse to acknowledge that in retrospect, buying a PNY was a bad idea. Did you get my post mixed up with somebody elses? Must have because 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. next time, try reading a persons post before you falsely accuse them of wrong doing. |
#10
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rms wrote: Try using that same editor (or download a pre-modded bios from http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...eadid=17272276 etc., that fixes the freezing prob and perhaps raises the default core voltage. rms Thanks RMS. Actually, I did eactly that, I used a BIOS editor to fix the "can't change the clock" problem and that was the end of that type of failure. I played D3 for 2-3 hours crash free after moding the BIOS. Just as I thought I had successfully worked around the crashing problem, a completely different prob for which there was no BIOS fix surfaced. It became incompatible with the Intel .inf update that I need to run for my mobo. That was the last straw, I called Outpost and got an RMA number. |
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