finally had to exchange my 4850!

[taltamir]

also he didnt break the card, he fixed it. it came broken.

I understand that you are an unhappy user, I agree that having to fix a piece of hardware as soon as you take out of the box is atrocious and should be unacceptable, but i have since accepted it as the norm in the computer industry... Every MP3 player, every motherboard, every video card, every OS (vista is the LEAST buggy at launch OS MS has released, people don't remember how messed up XP gold or previous editions were)... first thing i do is fix them (upgrade bios, upgrade software, upgrade drivers, work out incompatibilities, etc). Even the new gen consoles like the xbox and the PS3...

You definitely have a right as a customer to be upset at it. But that is the unfortunate state of the electronics market, competition is so fierce that everything has to be released early, by everyone, to have a snowballs chance in hell to compete (otherwise it is obsolete the day it is released). So the customers are the lab rats. It is either that, or only buy things that have been around for long enough for problems to have been ironed out (or clearly identified so you know what you are getting into, or avoid it if it is an extra bad part)

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Is something way different with the 4850 over the 4870? Cause I got my 4870 yesterday and other then making a modded profile to increase the fan speed I havent had to do jack shit to make anything work. Heck the fan speed thing isnt even needed, I trust the temps it runs at have been tested by ATI and deemed normal, I just did it cause lower temps cant be a bad thing.

 

[SilentRunning]

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
Is something way different with the 4850 over the 4870? Cause I got my 4870 yesterday and other then making a modded profile to increase the fan speed I havent had to do jack shit to make anything work. Heck the fan speed thing isnt even needed, I trust the temps it runs at have been tested by ATI and deemed normal, I just did it cause lower temps cant be a bad thing.

4850 has a single slot heatsink that dumps the heat back into the case, 4870 has a dual slot heatsink that expels heat out the back.

I can't actually believe that people feel that retailers and manufacturers should warranty the customer's work/errors.

I remember maybe twenty years ago being in a store that sold bird baths and a woman purchased a hanging bird bath. After paying for it she walk out of the store and dropped it. She walked back into the store and expected the retailer to replace it (which they would not.) Now the retailers get ripped of on a daily basis by customers returning products they damaged.

 

[spittledip]

Originally posted by: RamIt
I highly doubt this guy ever had a 4850. Go look at his previous post history and you will see what i mean.

I was going to post this in his last post, but I thought it would be not looked on well if i did so. i am glad someone else sees this shill for what he is. He never owned the card.

 

[soybeast]

I find it quite amusing actually. And then I'm reminded of worst and more important things, like why the 4th amendment has become so trivial in the minds of our elected officials. But I capitulate. Kinda like our elected officials who wish to qualify for the most votes possible for their continued ab/use of our represenative power.

 

[IEC]

So, how much is the Nvidia focus group paying you?

 

[pmv]

Why do people keep giving ambient temps in F and card/cpu temps in C? All this conversion (-32...x5.../9) makes my head hurt. Then you make it even worse by putting the wrong units!

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: shangshang
as some of you might know, i have an ongoing saga with the 4850

last night, while gaming in A. Creed, the game froze (didn't crash out of the game complete, just froze). Before freezing, I did notice that the fan was NOT running as high as it should be, but it would intermittedly kick in at 100% for a bried second and then thorttle back to the default quite level. It kept doing this (I could hear when it hit 100%), but i was too busy gaming so I didn't pay much attention (until AC froze completely).
But when it froze, i checked Catalyst, and temp said 102F! And prolly was higher than 102F before AC froze.

At this point, I said, oh crap, fried card.

Now I have the Visiotek 4850 with MSI Bios with bios fan tweak. Everything was working fine before this though. But could it be that the MSI bios and/or fan tweak be messin up my fan spooling?? Like I said, MSI bios and fan tweak was working fine.

Anyway, since I bought it from BB and still under 30 days, I exchanged it no problem. Best Buy had no problem exchanging it. But the brand new replacement 4850 out the box had physical damage! The plastic heatsink cover was cracked, and the mounting metal bracket was bent. I didn't bother putting the damge card in my PC fearing that the card could sustain electrical damage and it might burn up my mobo. Back to BB for another exchange, and this time it's much better.

I don't know that the hell happened there, but the damn fan refused to spool higher than the "default level". I think I'm just going to keep my replacement Visiotek as is, no Bios flashing, no bios fan mod, no nothing. I'd tweak the XML file, but I don't tweak no bios. Prolly just gonna keep it long enough to Ebay it off. This card has been a nightmare for me. Good thing I as still under 30 days from BB, or else Visiontek would probably say no to RMA since I had an MSI tweaked bios.

Sorry AMD, but I will not be buying your 4870. I'll prolly be waiting for an NV card to drop and send this 4850 to Ebay for good!

I find it hard to believe that AMD had failed to foresee the heat issue. I'm of the opinion that AMD purposely release it with a crappy reference heatsink/fan Bios so that users would NOT easily overclocked it (and thereby not buy the 4870).

You buy a video card that is known to get hot in every review out there then bitch it runs hot,you don't take any real precautions and expect the card to overclock?..since when does AMD state you can overclock their cards within the warranty or spec?

Maybe its me but if I lived in a hot climate and purchased a card that is known to get hot I would make sure I took real cooling precautions regardless of the brand in question,do you have case fans in your case?.... did you try something simple like one of these. .

Bottomline if I lived in a hot climate /home I would make sure I had adequate cooling and if that failed even try a third party cooling option.


The profile XML hack does work you have to make sure you do this link, ,mine never worked if I left it on "Automatic" so had to set it to Manual,however I have put my XML file back to normal now since never had any issues.

I'm going to improve my cooling but don't really need too.


The only thing I would say against AMD is personally I think they set the fan speed a bit too low for idle,however once we start seeing proper fan speed changing options rather then the hack this will not be an issue.

Btw my old Nvidia 7800GT use to idle at 62c and reach 82C,don't see me bitching about that(I live in a cool climate area England with 4x80mm case fans,and 1x120mm fan in my PC case(that card caused me more issues then any AMD/ATI card I ever owned).

 

[Kuzi]

The OP has been bashing AMD/ATI since the first day he joined the forums, check his older posts, they are all the same. Then he says he bought a 4850 card and creates threads about how bad of a card it is, heat, drivers, crashes, IQ, and even talking about AMDs financial situation on the GPU threads.

I wonder how much Nvidia pays him to be here.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: SilentRunning

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
Is something way different with the 4850 over the 4870? Cause I got my 4870 yesterday and other then making a modded profile to increase the fan speed I havent had to do jack shit to make anything work. Heck the fan speed thing isnt even needed, I trust the temps it runs at have been tested by ATI and deemed normal, I just did it cause lower temps cant be a bad thing.

4850 has a single slot heatsink that dumps the heat back into the case, 4870 has a dual slot heatsink that expels heat out the back.

I can't actually believe that people feel that retailers and manufacturers should warranty the customer's work/errors.

I remember maybe twenty years ago being in a store that sold bird baths and a woman purchased a hanging bird bath. After paying for it she walk out of the store and dropped it. She walked back into the store and expected the retailer to replace it (which they would not.) Now the retailers get ripped of on a daily basis by customers returning products they damaged.

what if she had not dropped it? what if the paint just game right off, and then she tried to fix it, and then returned it when she failed? should she be punished for trying to SAVE THEM money by trying to fix it herself instead of just returning it outright?

Actually the metaphors are detracting from the example. I try to save a card from the landfill pile by fixing something in it that came broken. Heck the manufacturers themselves now apply a fixed bios, this isn't something I pulled out of my behind, it is something I pulled out of a NEWER VERSION WITH THE FIX APPLIED!
So trying to fix something that came broken is hardly ripping off retailers.

 

[shangshang]

hey Taltamir,

if i remember correctly, you had the MSI bios flashed on your card with the fan tweak on the bios right? If this is the case, can you do me a favor and test this out. Can you test out your bios-fan profile against a modified XML fan profile, and see which profile takes precedence on spooling the fan.

This is what I mean:

1. create a fan profile in Catalyst Profile Manager (say "fan 50%") and edit the corresponding XML file to values of "manual" and "50". (setting fan to 50%)
2. now activate your Catalyst "fan 50%" profile. (so now fan should be running at 50%)
3. Monitor the GPU temp in Cat.
4. Open up Furmark and run a windowed LOADED stabilty test (don't go into fullscreen so you can monitor the temp in Cat panel).
5. As the GPU temp rises, do you notice that your fan is or is NOT spooling past 50% (listen to the fan noise) as GPU temp rises to a level that you think the BIOS-FAN profile should have kicked the fan past 50%?

I think in my test, when I activate an "XML tweaked" fan profile, then the XML profile takes precedence over the BIOS fan-speed profile, effectively PREVENTING Bios from spooling the fan higher. However, if I don't use any profile in Cat Profile Manager, then the BIOS-controlled fan spools up accordingly to whatever temperature graph was set in the BIOS.

I have not read of any guy using both the BIOS fan tweak and XML fan tweak simultaneously. If what I'm finding is true, then I think this exposes a weakness in that a virus could modify the XML file and override the BIOS?? Or doesn't have to be a virus! People could activate a "low" fan profile and yet not be aware that when GPU temp goes up, their BIOS-controlled fan ain't kicking in. But see if you can do this test!! I want see if I can get a confirmation.

Anyone can do this test too.

(BTW, LOL I went back to flashing my Visiontek with the MSI bios and modding the bios profile of the fan after I said I wan't going to do it! Sorry, but this damn card just runs way too hot.
And I love it how some guys give me a "righteousness" speech about abusing the warranty when
1. I'm being sold a hot running product with a weak sauce heatsink,
2. the policy says "return within 30 days for whatever reason
I'm serious, if these people feel that way, then please head over to DC and the White House and start preaching there first!

Now the next guy who questions if I actually own a 4850, you better put your money where your mouth is homie... because I'm sending you a pic of it... so have the bet in before you question me! Deal???!)

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Kuzi
The OP has been bashing AMD/ATI since the first day he joined the forums, check his older posts, they are all the same. Then he says he bought a 4850 card and creates threads about how bad of a card it is, heat, drivers, crashes, IQ, and even talking about AMDs financial situation on the GPU threads.

I wonder how much Nvidia pays him to be here.

I'll admit, shangshangs posts annoyed me in the beginning as well. I rolled my eyes when I saw them. But, he probably gets paid just as much as AMD pays you for bashing an avid NV fan. Nothing? After your comment here, I'd say you guys are just about equal.
And give the guy a break dude. At least give him some credit for trying out the 4850?
He seems to know a little too much about the card, bios, xml editors to NOT own one.
Savvy? He has his opinions just as you have yours. Talk about the tech/problems. not the poster.

 

[taltamir]

The default bios HAS fan settings, they are just too low, fixing the fan settings in bios just changes them.
The XML fix will be useless if it did not overrule the bios fan settings, there is nothing to test.
Driver settings take precedence over bios settings.

There have been a few virii like what you described, but generally they don't work out very well. It is really not so much as a flaw as just the method of design. A virus that modifies the drivers to stop the fan, could have just as easily rewrote the bios to do the same (by coming bundled with winflash and a premodded bios with bad fan settings).

 

[shangshang]

Alright that's what I thought!

However, I was hoping that the XML tweak would allow me to manually control the fan,... and yet the BIOS would still kick the fan in higher speed when it detects temp to be at dangerous level. So it looks like what the XML fix needs is a nany program to launch multiple fan profiles base on various temperature ranges! Anyway, I think i'll just stick with the BIOS fan tweak then.

BTW, I find it odd that the default basal fan level in the Bios is set at "0" until temp reaches around 60C or so. I wonder how many people will see their 4850 below 60C without the fan running? unless they live in the Artic! So I just set my basal fan level to be 40% and max temp when fan hits 100% to be at 102C. This seems to work nicely for me here in southern cal summer environment. Running Furmark pushes the fan pretty hard, I'm guessing 70-80%, but during other gaming, the fan prolly spools to around 50-60%, acceptable.

What are your fan settings in bios? basal level? max temp level? curious.

 

[shangshang]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: Kuzi
The OP has been bashing AMD/ATI since the first day he joined the forums, check his older posts, they are all the same. Then he says he bought a 4850 card and creates threads about how bad of a card it is, heat, drivers, crashes, IQ, and even talking about AMDs financial situation on the GPU threads.

I wonder how much Nvidia pays him to be here.

I'll admit, shangshangs posts annoyed me in the beginning as well. I rolled my eyes when I saw them. But, he probably gets paid just as much as AMD pays you for bashing an avid NV fan. Nothing? After your comment here, I'd say you guys are just about equal.
And give the guy a break dude. At least give him some credit for trying out the 4850?
He seems to know a little too much about the card, bios, xml editors to NOT own one.
Savvy? He has his opinions just as you have yours. Talk about the tech/problems. not the poster.

hehe I admit I have a character flaw. It's a character flaw man, like every person has one, and prolly will stick with me/them until i/they die. But see guys tend to focus on the character flaw more than what I say about the 4850. All I have said about the 4850 is true. And you're right, I know too much about it to not have owned one!

But I can see the conspiracy theorists:
"oh he hates AMD so much that he would be willing to spend his hard earned money to buy an AMD product so that he could have the "cred" to bash it freely".

 

[Kuzi]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: Kuzi
The OP has been bashing AMD/ATI since the first day he joined the forums, check his older posts, they are all the same. Then he says he bought a 4850 card and creates threads about how bad of a card it is, heat, drivers, crashes, IQ, and even talking about AMDs financial situation on the GPU threads.

I wonder how much Nvidia pays him to be here.

I'll admit, shangshangs posts annoyed me in the beginning as well. I rolled my eyes when I saw them. But, he probably gets paid just as much as AMD pays you for bashing an avid NV fan. Nothing? After your comment here, I'd say you guys are just about equal.
And give the guy a break dude. At least give him some credit for trying out the 4850?
He seems to know a little too much about the card, bios, xml editors to NOT own one.
Savvy? He has his opinions just as you have yours. Talk about the tech/problems. not the poster.

Did not expect such a post from you, but fine. You have your opinion, I have mine.

Just want to say I've never owned an ATI card, from 1996 (NV1) till now I've been buying NVidia video cards. So I think I'm a bigger NVidia fan than most people here. I own two computer gaming cafes with 200+ PCs all using Nvidia cards. They will soon be replaced with 4850 cards, so I'll let you guys know how it will go.

 

[IlllI]

were you that same guy whose room was 92 degrees?

 

[idiotekniQues]

Originally posted by: clandren
were you that same guy whose room was 92 degrees?

yep. and his room probably magically goes down to 72 when he has nvidia products in his rig.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues

Originally posted by: clandren
were you that same guy whose room was 92 degrees?

yep. and his room probably magically goes down to 72 when he has nvidia products in his rig.

Not likely.

 

[idiotekniQues]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues

Originally posted by: clandren
were you that same guy whose room was 92 degrees?

yep. and his room probably magically goes down to 72 when he has nvidia products in his rig.

Not likely.

based upon his posting history, it is.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: idiotekniQues

Originally posted by: clandren
were you that same guy whose room was 92 degrees?

yep. and his room probably magically goes down to 72 when he has nvidia products in his rig.

Not likely.

based upon his posting history, it is.

Whatever floats your boat man.

OP: how is your new 4850 working out now?

 

[Creig]

Keys, I'm not quite sure why you're defending this guy. Did you not read his original post?

Now I have the Visiotek 4850 with MSI Bios with bios fan tweak. Everything was working fine before this though. But could it be that the MSI bios and/or fan tweak be messin up my fan spooling?? Like I said, MSI bios and fan tweak was working fine.

Anyway, since I bought it from BB and still under 30 days, I exchanged it no problem. Best Buy had no problem exchanging it.

He modded the card and then returned it to the store. Since when does Best Buy allow you to mod your card and then exchange it if it suddenly starts acting up? And it wasn't just the BIOS he altered:

I did change the thermal paste before even installing the card, so I don't know the temp with the old paste. But I did noticed the old thermal paste was a bit hard, so I just slap on a fresh patch.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=31&threadid=2199828

So he mods the card by changing the thermal paste, flashes another manufacturer's BIOS onto it and then returns it to the store because it's "malfunctioning". Uh-huh... I didn't think we condoned that sort of behavior here or allowed people to discuss doing it.

On a side note, anybody who mods their equipment before testing it to ensure it's stable in its stock configuration has no idea what they're doing no matter how much XML, BIOS and driver info they're spouting.

 

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: shangshang
And I love it how some guys give me a "righteousness" speech about abusing the warranty when
1. I'm being sold a hot running product with a weak sauce heatsink,
2. the policy says "return within 30 days for whatever reason
I'm serious, if these people feel that way, then please head over to DC and the White House and start preaching there first!

You know that the return within 30 days for any reason is probably the reason you got that 2nd damaged card and someone who buys that 1st card you exchanged will have the same experience you did because you returned a damaged card.

 

[Jessica69]

Originally posted by: shangshang
And I love it how some guys give me a "righteousness" speech about abusing the warranty when
1. I'm being sold a hot running product with a weak sauce heatsink,
2. the policy says "return within 30 days for whatever reason
I'm serious, if these people feel that way, then please head over to DC and the White House and start preaching there first!

First, your self-important, pre-teen attitude about the return policy (Hey, it's 30 days no questions asked, so I can do whatever I want to do with it....I'm not responsible!), despite you physically changing and damaging the card, is exactly the reason more and more retailers, online and B&M, are tightening their return policies....to combat kids buying parts and screwing them up because they know everything while actually knowing little.

As for the weak sauce heatsink and hot running card....surprise....it wasn't exactly a secret. All you had to do was pull yourself away from your PS2, read a review or two, and you'd have discovered that every single card being shipped right now has that exact same "problem", if you can call it that.

Grow up, get a life and try to act like an adult. At least most people on this and other boards, when flashing their BIOS on their cards and such, take responsibility for their actions and don't claim their screwups are the manufacturer's fault.

 

[The Odorous One]

Originally posted by: Jessica69

Originally posted by: shangshang
And I love it how some guys give me a "righteousness" speech about abusing the warranty when
1. I'm being sold a hot running product with a weak sauce heatsink,
2. the policy says "return within 30 days for whatever reason
I'm serious, if these people feel that way, then please head over to DC and the White House and start preaching there first!

First, your self-important, pre-teen attitude about the return policy (Hey, it's 30 days no questions asked, so I can do whatever I want to do with it....I'm not responsible!), despite you physically changing and damaging the card, is exactly the reason more and more retailers, online and B&M, are tightening their return policies....to combat kids buying parts and screwing them up because they know everything while actually knowing little.

As for the weak sauce heatsink and hot running card....surprise....it wasn't exactly a secret. All you had to do was pull yourself away from your PS2, read a review or two, and you'd have discovered that every single card being shipped right now has that exact same "problem", if you can call it that.

Grow up, get a life and try to act like an adult. At least most people on this and other boards, when flashing their BIOS on their cards and such, take responsibility for their actions and don't claim their screwups are the manufacturer's fault.

Wow, another "no holds barred" reply from ms. Jessica. At least this time I'll have to agree.....