Title: Hate Post by: Sky on April 06, 2007, 09:51:52 PM Welp, it's late. I'm about to hit the sack and I check my email. I'm pissed and I'm done being quiet about it. TIme to spread the word.
Remember that evga 8800 gtx wtfexpensive gpu? Well, the RAM on it is defective, has to be underclocked to work properly. This is a widespread issue with the evga cards and they're trying to keep it quiet. They promised me a cross-shipment, and things seemed cool. They shipped me a vanilla 8800 (mine was factory overclocked). I contacted them to return it, and heard nothing for two weeks (I contacted a different person in their rma dept every couple days during that time without a response). Finally I said fuck it and just returned the vanilla card using the return postage they sent (and the vanilla card appeared to be a used or refurb card!). Finally a guy wrote me back after I wrote their manager about the lack of contact and how I sent the card back. One guy said send it back, another wanted me to take a picture to verify I wasn't lying! The card took another couple weeks to be considered delivered. It was delivered to a guard a few days after I sent it, but all I heard for the next several days were threats of charging my CC for the full amount of the cross-shipped (wrong) card if I didn't return the defective card. Then I get an email saying the RMA is complete, as if there was no problem and I had sent back the defective card. This was over a week ago, haven't heard from them since. So I'm pissed, and tired of evga. So I fall back on the good ol' egg. Which brings us to the present. I'm covered for a year replacement through the egg. So I shoot off an email to their rma, they've always been cool. But since I contacted the manufacturer first, they claim it voids my warranty and tell me to deal with evga, the folks who pissed me off so much I contacted the egg in the first place! What the fuck. I zipped off an angry email to the egg, I do thousands of dollars a year through them personally and professionally, both these companies are supposed to be great customer service. Right now I'm righteously pissed with a fucking expensive (nice, I'll grant you) video card with underclocked memory (because it won't perform at stock speeds). And my only apparent option is to deal with the manufacturer who is sending out refurbs for a card I paid premium dollar for! Just thought I'd pass this along in the hopes it helps someone else avoid a problem. Next stop....BBB. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Trippy on April 06, 2007, 10:20:19 PM Well that sucks. My current card is an eVGA but I'm going to skip them for my next card. I'd talk to Newegg again and talk to somebody else over there.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 06, 2007, 10:36:22 PM Yeah, since you had a service plan through Newegg, I'm honestly not sure why you skipped them first. They're probably technically correct in denying your RMA on the card, seeing as you don't have it anymore, and they would need that card to get their money back from eVGA (I imagine). I always just go through Newegg first if I can help it.
As an aside, my BFG card has been working flawlessly, so I would heartily recommend them. Title: Re: Hate Post by: schild on April 06, 2007, 11:43:44 PM Eeek. I was almost going to get an Evga mobo. Le Sigh.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Engels on April 06, 2007, 11:53:06 PM I recently had a fiasco with New Egg myself. Something I payed Next Day shipping on didn't get to me for 5 days after it left their facility, and I spent over 7 emails 'convincing' them that I should be refunded shipping costs. The blessing/problem with New Egg email customer support is that your 'case' is handled by one rep the whole time. If that rep turns out to be a retard, you're stuck.
I finally got through to the rep, with an elaborate argument that included time lines, quotes from the rep herself, ontological arguements on the meaning of 'late' and several charts and graphs illustrating my declining satisfaction with this particular rep's ability to cogitate the days on a calendar, etc. I still like New Egg, mostly. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 07, 2007, 08:03:16 AM Ouch. Somehow, I've had nice agents when I've needed them. Especially when I wanted to send back a card that was about a year old, but I didn't have all the original pack-in stuff. That particular rep didn't care.
Also, sometimes actually Calling them can be helpful. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 07, 2007, 08:46:59 AM Yeah, since you had a service plan through Newegg, I'm honestly not sure why you skipped them first. They're probably technically correct in denying your RMA on the card, seeing as you don't have it anymore, and they would need that card to get their money back from eVGA (I imagine). I always just go through Newegg first if I can help it. I do still have the card. Evga seemed like it was doing a good deal, cross-shipping the replacement for free. But the replacement was a non-KO (factory overclock), the wrong card. So I sent the /replacement/ back. I still have the original card.As an aside, my BFG card has been working flawlessly, so I would heartily recommend them. The only reason I skipped the egg was evga. I was using their message boards to isolate the problem, someone (ok, a LOT of someones) had the same problem, crashing in 3d apps after a couple minutes. All of us had success with underclocking the memory. One guy was told that was reason for rma and got a working card, so the rest of us just went ahead with rma through evga, mostly because they cross-shipped. That's when the word got about about refurbs being sent out. Eeek. I was almost going to get an Evga mobo. Le Sigh. I'd check out the manufacturer's forums before buying any new pc hardware after this episode. I know there are some issues with evga's 680i mobos from just reading the 8800 boards.And yeah, next step is Actually Calling Them. I'm hoping newegg just misunderstands the situation, thinking I don't have the original card. I'd call evga if it weren't for the whole refurb thing, that bothers me. My first contact to evga was Feb 20th! Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 07, 2007, 10:52:58 AM Oh, seems I misunderstood you as well. If you have the original card, you should be fine.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Morfiend on April 07, 2007, 02:09:21 PM I'd check out the manufacturer's forums before buying any new pc hardware after this episode. I know there are some issues with evga's 680i mobos from just reading the 8800 boards. They where having a lot more than a few problems with their mobos. I would steer clear of the 680i boards until you know for a fact all the problems are ironed out. Anyway, the only real reason to get a 680i is if you plan to do SLi, and thats a whole 'nother thread. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 07, 2007, 02:22:12 PM I had planned on 680i for this pc, and came to the same conclusion. Since I don't plan on doing SLI I went with 975X.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Engels on April 07, 2007, 03:26:56 PM Good man. My instinct with this sort of stuff is to steer clear of 3rd party hardware till all the nuts and bolts are ironed out. No NForce chipsets, no evga motherboards, no nothing, until the two new technologies, namely Core2Duo boards and the new 8000 series video cards, not to mention Vista, have their collective acts together. Once that's been ironed out in the market for a while, its cool to go out and buy the new Gigabyte WTF9000 ExTr33M3 board, but not till then.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 07, 2007, 09:03:05 PM Honestly, the only problem is that evga used memory for stock cards in their factory overclocked boards. Speculation says they saw the big gains in o/cing 8800s on enthusiast sites, tested a few batches and went at it. Not all the memory can stand up to it. The stock 8800gtx's are splendid, and the factory o/c boards with good memory are even better. I don't regret my purchase for a second, it's the customer service that has me seething.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Venkman on April 08, 2007, 05:11:15 AM I'm stupid, so need to ask: does this affect any nVidia 8800 card? Or just certain ones? And how can I check the 8800 I currently have to see if it's got the same issue?
Title: Re: Hate Post by: hal on April 08, 2007, 06:23:22 AM 3 to 4 weeks ago i received my system with an EGVA 8800 GTS 640 MB and I have no issues with it. It is the factory overclocked model as well. I am certainly not denying the problem discussed here just saying its not an all model problem.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Engels on April 08, 2007, 08:52:52 AM I'm stupid, so need to ask: does this affect any nVidia 8800 card? Or just certain ones? And how can I check the 8800 I currently have to see if it's got the same issue? No no, just the ones assembled by eVGA that are factory overclocked. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 08, 2007, 10:07:27 AM 3 to 4 weeks ago i received my system with an EGVA 8800 GTS 640 MB and I have no issues with it. It is the factory overclocked model as well. I am certainly not denying the problem discussed here just saying its not an all model problem. Holy crap Hal...that might be your most cogent, clearly-written post...ever. :-D Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 08, 2007, 04:56:03 PM Only evga factory overclocked cards. The memory is robust, so most of them seem to be ok with the overclock, but QA missed a bunch. That's why I'm not really upset about that part of the problem, just to CS mishandling. Even at stock speeds it's a monster card.
Check the evga boards if you're curious. DQ, you'd know you had the issue about two minutes into the first 3d app you ran :) Lockup and bsod. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Venkman on April 08, 2007, 06:21:59 PM Oh, ouch. Ok, no issues, and I've been pushing things a bit. So far I've not played anything I couldn't max out, but that's only been TR, LoTRO, Call of Duty 2 and random others. Any recommendations for an envelope pusher?
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Trippy on April 08, 2007, 06:35:37 PM Oh, ouch. Ok, no issues, and I've been pushing things a bit. So far I've not played anything I couldn't max out, but that's only been TR, LoTRO, Call of Duty 2 and random others. Any recommendations for an envelope pusher? FF XI Benchmark or 3DMark06.Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 08, 2007, 08:41:12 PM Doom 3?
HoMM5 can be surprisingly taxing. Title: Re: Hate Post by: schild on April 08, 2007, 08:45:32 PM Really, you've got 3 options.
FEAR, Half Life 2 Episode 1, and Oblivion with some ridiculous texture pack. Basically, the games you've tested with Darn are small fries. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Trippy on April 08, 2007, 08:45:53 PM Doom 3? I don't think the built in Doom 3 demo can loop, though I could be wrong. I like the leave one of the two above benchmarks running overnight in a new system and if it's still running in the morning (or afternoon as the case may be) I know there's no major hardware problem with the video card.Title: Re: Hate Post by: Venkman on April 09, 2007, 05:06:28 AM Ah, yea, forgot about Oblivion. Not a big fan of the HL series.
What about one of the Age of Empires RTS things, like the newest one. Not so much? I always figured MMOs were small fry for this sort of thing because they seem to need to lag behind the bleeding edge if they want more than a relative handful of subscribers. Title: Re: Hate Post by: schild on April 09, 2007, 05:14:18 AM Uhhh. I didn't know you had to be a fan of something to crank up some graphics and shit.
I'm not a big fan of HL2 or Oblivion, but the landscapes are undeniably gorgeous and computer crippling. I can run AoE3 on my dogshit machine at almost 80% max, so, no. Same with C&C 3. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Kitsune on April 09, 2007, 09:02:25 AM My current card is eVGA, a 7900GT, and it's been problem-free. The only manufacturer on my shit list right now is PNY, because every single 4400 PNY card owned by not only myself but my two roommates died from the capacitors blowing. Sending them off for replacements got back refurbished cards that also died from bad capacitors a couple months down the line.
From what I hear, BFG is the top of the pile when it comes to video card quality, but their cards are also more expensive than the competition. Title: Re: Hate Post by: ajax34i on April 09, 2007, 10:16:31 AM SLI or CrossFire should be the ONLY reasons to choose any particular chipset, because otherwise there's apparently no performance loss from putting any type of video board into any type of motherboard chipset (http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/04/04/does_chipset_to_gpu_matching_matter/).
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sir Fodder on April 09, 2007, 11:00:19 AM Thats a pretty harsh deal from EVGA and Newegg, surprising because it seemed to me like those two companies have some of the best customer service reputations in the biz. FWIW I got one of the EVGA 8800 GTS 640MB boards and it seems to handle some really extreme overclocking just fine, maybe they put the nice RAM on the less expensive boards by accident...
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 09, 2007, 01:24:11 PM Oh, ouch. Ok, no issues, and I've been pushing things a bit. So far I've not played anything I couldn't max out, but that's only been TR, LoTRO, Call of Duty 2 and random others. Any recommendations for an envelope pusher? I've run FEAR, Medeival 2 (HAET), Gothic 3, MUA, EQ2, LotRO and maybe a couple other stragglers I can't recall. (add Oblivion, but I haven't added textures or tweaked it yet, looks good stock maxed out)The only two that choke the gtx are EQ2 and Gothic 3, but they look shweeeet. With Gothic 3, I've modded it a bit for better visuals (pushed beyond what you can do with just ingame settings via ini). With EQ2, I still have the lights turned down a bit and maybe 6 full-res models, with distant models only on medium (or maybe high), and it can choke in town, especially hub areas like banks or kelethin broker. I've got shadows almost all the way up, but player torches set to one. EQ2 is a MONSTER engine but it really delivers on visuals once you get max textures, lots of specular lights and shadows firing off. Crazy nice. Art style is always debatable, but LotRO looked wicked bland to me after a few weeks of EQ2 on the 8800gtx. I'd say EQ2 takes the stress test crown, lots of room to tweak it upwards with lighting and shadows, as well as adding more large-texture models. Still room for more lower-textured models, I think I capped lower textureds (which is still medium or high, I forget) at 65 or so, which is why I get the town lag around banks...but it looks great. I also have a lot of max particles going on, too. Gothic 3 does have a lot of headroom left via the ini, so either can push your hardware as far as it will go and still leave a lot of room to max out settings. Good stuff! HL2 never stressed out my 9800pro, but I run at 1280x720, maybe that's it? 256-bit memory controller ftw? I haven't loaded it on the new machine yet. FEAR doesn't touch it, I've got it maxed out and it's like glass (great visual effects, too). And as I said, I'm at a fixed res, so take that into consideration! Quote maybe they put the nice RAM on the less expensive boards by accident... Luck of the draw, pretty much. Current opinion seems to be it's all from the same pool (that is, all the gtx from one pool, all the gts from another). The bad caps could be from that year when every damned thing made had bad caps. Had two motherboards go at work during that year.Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 09, 2007, 02:16:02 PM Ah, remember that guy out in the midwest who set up a business of swapping out those bad capacitors?
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 10, 2007, 06:29:44 AM More hate: LotRO edition. Can't cancel my preorder. They said I could return the box to a store location. I imagine /that/ would be an enjoyable experience. I'll be hitting the bank and having them block eb/gamestop orders, methinks. Looks like I buy games from Amazon now. It's turning out to be one heck of a week.
Have to call newegg and maybe evga at some point this week, too. Haven't heard shit from either company. Right now newegg has my complaint letter (sent just before the first post of this thread) and hasn't responded beyond auto-reponse, and as far as evga is concerned, my RMA is completed and I'm satisfied! :-o Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 10, 2007, 07:25:14 AM If you just Reserved LotRO and got the pre-order disc from EBstop, you should be able to get a refund of the $5 or however much you put down.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 10, 2007, 09:01:38 AM Ordered online like a dumbass. Last time I do that. No pre-order disc, I had to download the beta.
The gpu saga rolls on....contacted newegg via their online chat. More like the newegg experience I've become used to over the years, quick professional friendly. Got an RMA # issued in five minutes. Downsides are dualfold: it's not a cross-ship and it's out of stock. One thing I was hopeful about evga, they cross-ship, which is huge imo. I'll be out of town this weekend, so it's not a huge deal, but I'm looking at a week or two without a gpu in my shiny new pc :( What's worse is that it's out of stock (which I find interesting given the fairly widespread memory issues...), so I'll probably end up with a refund and still have no gpu in my pc. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 10, 2007, 09:06:14 AM They're fairly quick with their RMA process, and if you can arrange it so they give you a quick refund, you could certainly get a new card installed inside of 2 weeks.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 11, 2007, 12:05:56 PM I'm officially without a home computer right now. I'll probably hook up the old busted tonight. Should be a shock after a couple months of the new hotness.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 20, 2007, 08:42:11 AM And the end of the story draws near. Got a refund from newegg because they took these cards off the 'shelf'. It was out-of-stock, now it's removed from the website. My bets are the RAM simply couldn't handle the overclock in large enough quantities to make them reliably.
Going to shop for a vanilla 8800gtx. I'd like to go evga, but now I'm wary. Maybe asus? Title: Re: Hate Post by: Furiously on April 20, 2007, 09:08:53 AM I'd just llke to add I love my i680 mb. Has so many fan connectors, with temp controllers. There were some initial issues with the BIOS, but I think they've worked them all out. I've never had any issues.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 20, 2007, 11:39:22 AM BFG. Lifetime warranties and stuff.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Trippy on April 20, 2007, 05:52:50 PM And the end of the story draws near. Got a refund from newegg because they took these cards off the 'shelf'. It was out-of-stock, now it's removed from the website. My bets are the RAM simply couldn't handle the overclock in large enough quantities to make them reliably. With ASUS you tend to pay more for crap you don't need like all sorts of ancient games, "spycam" software, and crap like that. Some people here like BFG. They have a lifetime warrenty similar to eVGA's.Going to shop for a vanilla 8800gtx. I'd like to go evga, but now I'm wary. Maybe asus? Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 21, 2007, 08:55:37 AM Problem with both evga and bfg non-overclocked cards on newegg is refunds. Given I just got a refund from this debacle, I want that option in the future but most non-overclocked cards are a limited non-refundable warranty (and overclocked cards are what started this whole thing)! Which translates to 30-day replacements only. Lifetime warranty from the manufacturer sounds great, but when you pay top dollar for a card and get a refurb as a replacement, I don't call that acceptable.
Right now I'm looking at a PNY card. 30 day/1 year standard newegg warranty + 5 year manufacturer. I've never used a video card for more than 4 years, so it sounds like the way to go for me, assuming performance holds up. I think it's just a reference card so I'm going to look into it. I wish newegg wasn't being so stingy on their warranty of these cards, but I imagine they've been burned to hell with this last round (seeing that they took the evga ko down entirely), but I find it odd they still warranty the overclocked cards but not the stock cards that seem to perform more reliably? I would still, despite the recent events, like to go with evga for the 'step-up' program, in case nvidia poops out a new design in the interim. The lesson once again is the importance of good customer service, no matter what industry you work in. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 21, 2007, 09:52:21 PM You could always shell out for a warranty. And I'm not sure what "warranty situation" you're talking about, as I've never had a problem returning a card. My 9800Pro was almost a year old, and they took it back without a problem. Same with the AIW card that died a month later.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 22, 2007, 08:08:51 AM The difference between this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130072 Quote Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy * Return for refund within: non-refundable * Return for replacement within: 30 days This is our Detailed Limited Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy. Products that state "This item is covered by Newegg.com's Non-Refundable 30-Day Return Policy", or items labeled as “Non-refundable” (or similar labeling) must be returned to Newegg.com within 30 days of the invoice date for this policy to apply. Products covered by this return policy may only be returned for a replacement of the same item. and this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133194 Quote Standard Return Policy Basically, you're stuck with whatever you buy for a lot of their video cards. I don't buy things with the limited return policy that removes the option of a refund. I RMA'd my creative card for a refund and they didn't invoke a restocking fee. With the gpu, it was removed from stock so they refunded, but that was a special case - and it was covered by the standard return policy, or with all evga's dicking around, it'd have been past newegg's replacement period under the limited policy.* Return for refund within: 30 days * Return for replacement within: 1 year This is our Detailed Standard Return Policy. Unless another return policy is indicated, products sold by Newegg.com are covered by this Standard Return Policy. Merchandise under this Standard Return Policy may be returned a) within 30 days of the original invoice date for a refund, or b) within one year of the original invoice date for a replacement of the same item. All returns require an RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) number. All items returned for a refund are subject to a 15% restocking fee. Many manufacturers offer additional factory coverage. With regard to such, you should contact the manufacturer of your item directly for information regarding eligibility and specific Terms and Conditions. Basically, getting burned by the slow CS is making me put the priority on service contracts. Another option would be to get the superclocked evga and just keep returning it until I get a good one, though the possibility of going for a couple more months without a functioning gaming pc that I built in early February isn't something I find enticing. Title: Re: Hate Post by: stray on April 22, 2007, 08:13:12 AM That's the biggest downside with NewEgg in general (return/refund policies). I'd never buy, say, a Display from them at least.
Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 22, 2007, 10:51:53 AM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143046 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143046)
Boom. Great card. Lifetime Warranty. Standard return policy, which is fine if you want another of the same card, which I'm usually fine with. Title: Re: Hate Post by: stray on April 22, 2007, 11:16:10 AM That's AGP.
Or are you just picking one for yourself? [EDIT] The standard return policy sucks too though. That restocking fee is a bitch. Also, you have to pay for shipping something back, no matter how borked the product is (not sure if they tell you that upfront). Basically, NewEgg sucks in general. It should be a last resort for just about anything imho.. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 22, 2007, 11:29:27 AM What, do you have a better option to find just about anything you need that is PC-related, and even some stuff that is not?
Also, I just looked through a bunch of video cards; They all had standard return policies. And yes, while shipping can suck, I've never been hit with a restocking fee. Title: Re: Hate Post by: stray on April 22, 2007, 11:40:29 AM What, do you have a better option to find just about anything you need that is PC-related, and even some stuff that is not? Pretty much. Local/privately owned computer supplier near where I live --- though if something isn't in stock (which is rare, the place is like a warehouse), it'd take a little longer to get than ordering online. The only thing I can't find from them are some memory brands, but that's one of the things I have no qualms about ordering (at Newegg even). As far as major/popular components go, even CompuUSA is servicable. I've bought a fair share of ATI and different Nvidia brands from them. ... Then again, I guess it's all moot. I've moved back to Macs. So just the Apple Stores are good enough for me, I guess. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Strazos on April 22, 2007, 04:15:07 PM If there is a good PC store in my area, I don't know about it.
And that's doubtful. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Trippy on April 22, 2007, 05:56:44 PM That's AGP. I disagree that Newegg sucks in general but I do agree that if you want to buy something that you think you might return you should think about buying locally at a place with a good return policy. E.g. I would never buy a monitor mail order unless it was the absolutely last resort cause I tend to return monitors multiple times until I get one I like. This was true even back in the CRT days and is especially true now with LCDs and their dead/stuck pixels, leaking/uneven backlighting, power supply whining, "squished panels" (panels that are screwed in too tightly), and so on and so forth.Or are you just picking one for yourself? [EDIT] The standard return policy sucks too though. That restocking fee is a bitch. Also, you have to pay for shipping something back, no matter how borked the product is (not sure if they tell you that upfront). Basically, NewEgg sucks in general. It should be a last resort for just about anything imho.. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 23, 2007, 08:01:44 AM AGP? Huh?
Ok, so it's only 4 of 18 cards with limited returns, no refund. But they're the pick of the vanilla 8800 crop, and today the evga vanilla went out of stock. Restock isn't bad, they've never invoked that on me. Worst I've had to do is pay return shipping, once. Newegg has generally been great. I ended up going with the evga superclock, I'll just keep returning it until I get a good one. Title: Re: Hate Post by: Sky on April 25, 2007, 09:16:08 AM Evga superclock gpu came in yesterday. Installed it last night and played FEAR for 15 minutes straight, then ran 3dmark06 trial version (10500, iirc). Either would've crashed the original card I had, and the 3dmark score was slightly better than the other card even before I've tweaked the system.
Before I went to bed, I loaded up EQ2 and ran around Kelethin for a while, which is pretty crushing on the gpu, lots of lights and shadows plus many load in/outs of max res textures as players ran around me. Gpu stayed rock solid for about an hour or so, temps hit 74C. I had also turned my case fans back to low (from medium), so all this was whisper quiet. Looks like the saga of Hate may be closed. :-D |