ATI video card reliability?

[Santilli]

Hi
My second ATI X800XL just went south, or I should say North, since it's going to New York for RMA. Is it just me, or is the ATI software kind of buggy, and, the cards getting less then a year each?

I'm seriously considering going to an NVidia card next. My Dual was not shutting down after hitting shutdown, and, I had some other software weirdness. With the ATI software, and card gone, I now have a machine without weirdness, and, it shuts down everytime.

I'm using an old AGP Kyro II, currently, but, it works, though I'm REALLY suffering without the two monitors working.

Greg

 

[P5-133XL]

I really haven't seen that ATI cards or software are any worse then Nvidia. All have problems to some degree or another. Over time, On both brands, the biggest issue I've noticed are fans that fail and when they do, the card is inevitably toast.

Now one thing I've noticed, very recently, have been new ATI x1900 AIW cards that have bad RAM: It was very easy to spot -- The POST has very bad articfacts to the point of unreadability, so effectively you can't install the card. Both cards that I've seen this with had S/N's within 100 of each other, so I suspect that ATI installed a bad batch of RAM.

 

[Santilli]

Any experience with Nvidia customer support? ATI just seems to send you a new card, provided you take the time to do the RMA process.

Greg

 

[P5-133XL]

Nope, When I've returned Nvidia, it has always been to a retailer; distributor; or it was left with the customer to deal with.

I did recently returned, to ATI, a AIW 9600 pro and got a AIW 9600XT (a modest upgrade) back to my surprise and it looked brand new (The fan cover was nice and shiney): I don't really have the info to decode date from the S/N. So for all I know, they simply replaced the fan and tested whatever components were underneath.

I really wish that the warrenty standard for video cards were 3 years, like they used to be, but unfortunately everyone seems to have switched to 1 year .

 

[Santilli]

ATI reminds me, at this point of footjoy. I spent about 150 bucks on dryjoys, when 150 bucks was 400, a long time ago.

One of the soles broke, and, despite what the 'online support'
said, I sent the shoes back, since I had nothing to loose.
They sent me back a set of current new dryjoys, valued at over 300 dollars, new.

You can see where I'll probably never buy anything but footjoys in the rest of my life. Wonder if ATI is going to be the same?

Greg

 

[Tannin]

I haven't had an ATI card fail on me in a good six years. But then, I haven't used an ATI card for anything except landfiil in at least 7 years.

But seriously now, we pretty much only use Leadtek video cards, 100% Nvidia chipsets, of course. Last time I had one fail it was a Gforce 4 Ti ..... that's quite a few years back since we sold them. No, wait, I had a Gforce FX5700 go funny on me too, which they replaced 3 days before the warranty was due to expire.

Even Mercutio, our resident High Priest of Nvidia Fear and Loathing, will agree with me when I say thgat if there is one thing I really, really like in a video card, it's a generous heatsink and no fan at all. As P5 says, if a card fails, it's nearly always because of the fan.

 

[Mercutio]

I've had *ONE* ATI card fail, going back as far as I can remember. It was a Radeon 9600 or 9700. They shipped my replacement back from Canada Next Day Air and there was a handwritten note in the package that explained what was wrong with the old one and that I shouldn't ever have it happen again.

I normally buy Gigabyte cards these days, because I like their big honkin' heat sinks and no fans, but I know others have had issues with them. I haven't had any problems with OEM cards from Sapphire, Gigabyte, MSI, or Powercolor.*

Now, for every story someone can tell of not having problems with failed nVidia cards, I can tell five stories where an nVidia card either outright died or needed to be replaced to fix a computer. Usually because the OEM put the shittiest HSF they could find on an IC that can be used as a cooking surface even under the best conditions.

Maybe nVidia's tightened their quality standards for OEMs. I don't know whether that's the case, but there aren't enough hours in the day for me to want to try something other than what works. ATI is what works.


* I did have an issue with a Jetway card, but that was JETWAY. I've recounted this elsewhere, but basically it was a PCB with just the GPU and heat sink, no RAM or caps or anything else on the board. Does that even count as DOA?

 

[Buck]

I haven't had any ATI, nVidia or Matrox cards I've sold go bad. In the past 5 years I've had one customer who purchased his MSI/nVidia card elsewhere go bad (caused unusual voltage fluctuations), but that's it. Oh, and I typically avoid video cards with fans unless the power is absolutely needed, such as with high-end Quadro cards. If such a card is required, then the key is to keep dust out of the computer. This can be done with positive air pressure in the case and a filtration system - not perfect, but it is reasonable.

 

[Will Rickards]

Moral of the story, I think you just have a bit of bad luck there Greg.

 

[Mercutio]

I will say that the warranty on $250+ cards is often "Lifetime" or 5 years or something similarly ridiculous. I got into an argument with someone who works for BFGTech (BFGTech is a local company) and one of his counters to my "Everything nVidia is an utter pile of shit" argument was that they put lifetime warranties on all the piles of shit they sell.

 

[sechs]

I've only RMAed one ATi card, and that was because the fan was noisey.

Unlike ATi, nVidia doesn't sell cards under its own brand name. It's been pretty loose on standards, which has given them a deserved bad rap. ATi only branched out to third parties relatively recently, and keeps a pretty tight grip on what those manufacturers can do.

ATi has also reduced their warranty. Although I'm sure that this partially due to them deciding to use lower quality parts, it's also because they were pushing out so many SKUs that it was getting ridiculous to support them all for five years.

 

[Santilli]

Well, the first one I got from David, and, it had the silent
Gigabyte heatsink on it. It was fine, until I played a couple real extended sessions of Quake 4, then it would artifact, and, finally, died. RMA'd it, and, they sent a replacement. I ebayed that card, ASAP, since I don't think the heatsink was up to the chip. Funny part is it ended up being bought by someone in Newfoundland. I suspect he might NOT have overheating problems up there.;-)

This one had a problem posting for awhile, would work every other time, and, the computer wouldn't shut off promptly.
Finally, no post/black screen. This card was from ATI, had their rather noisy fan on it, and, I put a squirrel fan next to it, sucking the hot air away, just in case.

I've got another in my gaming computer, HIS XL 850 IIRC.

Maybe the 800 and 850 are just REALLY hot chips, and very hard to cool???

We've also got a 700 ATI in the girls computer, and, it seems to be working fine.

One thing is it seems like their customer support is excellent, and, they RMA on repairs very quickly.

Greg

 

[sechs]

I currently have a made-by ATi x850 XT, and I've never had an overhearing problem, even with the stock fan. I replaced that with an Arctic Cooling ATi Silencer for noise reduction purposes.

If you think temperatures are a problem, have you been checking them?

 

[Buck]

As a standard Home-User video card I like to use the Gigabyte 7600GS with its silent heat-pipe design. However, the key is to make sure the computer enclosure ventilates well. This usually includes some sort of air flow going by the video card and being able to exit shortly thereafter. Many OEM systems don't allow for this type of clean case ventilation. Antec's Solo/Titan/Atlas series are nice because you can arrange for two reasonably quiet 92mm fans up front coupled with an equally quiet rear 120mm exhaust fan and power supply fan. This provides low db air movement through the entire case. With this type of setup, there are no worries piling three or four drives up front with a silent heat-pipe style video card in the middle.

As I mentioned elsewhere, if you want a well sized, open case, the (crappy looking according to dd) wonderful Addtronics W8500 case flips the motherboard so it is accessed from the opposite side of a typical case. This might seem odd, but it allows the video card to have the heatsink and fan on the high side, allowing for the heat to rise away from the GPU instead of pooling under the card. With obvious benefits, I believe this would help a hot running GPU -- perhaps not by much, but in some situations every bit counts.

 

[Handruin]

I'm on my 3rd independent ATI card right now and so far I've had only a few small problems with the one card that was donated to me (ausu x800xt) and some video problems with my 9500 pro. The x800xt came with visual artifacts right from the POST and the 9500 pro had noise in the display. RMA'ed the x800xt to newegg and the replacement has worked perfect through countless hours of gaming. I returned the 9500 pro to the store and got a replacement.

My first was a radeon 64 DDR vivo card from many years back. That card lasted a long time and never had a problem. I eventually gave it to a friend after I decommissioned the computer.

My Radeon 9500 pro still works to this day and it has seen the most amount of gaming of any card I've owned. The stock fan has not yet died.

My current 1900xtx is a very warm card but it doesn't seem to be an issue. No problems yet, but I also haven't had it very long.

 

[Santilli]

Well, the replacement card came FEDEX NEXT DAY?
I shipped it to ATI Fedex ground, and they took a little more then a week to get the card back to me.
Works great, and, I really missed dual monitors.
My case is well ventilated, and, I've put a squirrel blower next to the card, sucking any hot air out of the case, along with the stock fan, sucking the hotair off the heatsink, right into the squirrel cage. My server has a bunch of fans, venting on both sides of the motherboard, that sits in the middle of the cube type case. Full size fan blows over the cpus, and, they are cooled by Swifttech coolers. Another side fan exit's heat, sucking the hot air away from cards and cpus. Cat likes to sit behind it when it's cold...

Hope this one lasts...

It did teach me to have an extra old AGP board around for testing, and, emergencies...

S