Getting screwed. Could use some help.

AltTabbins

AltTabbins

Fully [H]
Joined
Jul 29, 2005
Messages
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I purchased an HD 4870 512mb from newegg on Feb 28th of this year.

When I got it, it was pretty close to DOA. I was getting artifacting in some games there were bad textures in most everything I played (Fallout 2, World of Warcraft, Battlefield 2 etc).

I did some benchmarks and testing and didn't find anything wrong with the card so I thought that it was a driver issue. I was going to RMA it but because there was a mail in rebate, I understood that I couldn't go through newegg. I contacted HIS and setup an rma. I faxed in the forms and waited a week and got nothing. I called and they said they never got it (no problem.. it happens). I resent it from a different fax machine and got confirmation this time that it was sent. Week later... nothing. I call again and this time email in my forms and get nothing back. Its been over 3 months now and I have had it with this.

So I look to newegg. I call and get the run around that they cant return the card without the upc. I understand that, but thought that maybe with their customer service being as "amazing" as people say it is that maybe they could work with me. I don't want a refund or even a new card. Hell, I would even take a downgraded open box card at this point.

Anyways.. im posting this in hopes to get some kind of rep from HIS or Newegg who can help me out. If neither posts, I hope this can be a good warning to people who are considering HIS video cards and maybe think twice about where they purchase from.
 
I was thinking about going with a HIS 4890 but after seeing this post I think I may pay the extra money and go with XFX. Good luck with getting a new card.
 
Now you know that you should never apply for rebates until you are satisfied that the product works properly.
 
Go over to the evga forums.
They have a newegg rep that,s really active.

I dont recall his name, but post this so it,s obvious and I,ll bet you,ll get some action.
 
ojibewa said:
imho,

I think this is your problem not the card

Enermax Liberty 500w

http://www.techsupportforum.com/har...92217-power-supply-information-selection.html

I run a PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 watt..
Click to expand...


i doubt it. i pummeled the shit out of my old liberty 500w, ran two 7800GTXs in sli along with a HEAVILY overclocked opteron [email protected] with 5 hard drives and 2x1gb mem. system was watercooled also. had over 14 fans in the system. 5 of those fans pulled 10w each when running at 12v.

that psu ran my system rock solid for a few months before it was put into a htpc
 
ojibewa, even if that was the problem it still doesn't void the other problem. The lack of customer support from HIS to lloose.

Keep us update lloose. Hope things will look up.
 
I agree with the customer support, a company is nothing without it..

I am sorry you're having problems.

hope you get it sorted..
 
Zero82z said:
The 500W Liberty is plenty for the OP's system. Almost certainly not the source of the problem.
Click to expand...

Its been rock solid for a while now. I have a corsair 750 that I used in a build that I tested it in and it had the same issues.
 
Just an update, we have a rep in our company who frequents China looking for new suppliers/products for us and he is going to take my card over to Hong Kong with him and go to HIS directly to see if they can exchange it. Lets see what happens. :)


Oh yeah, just wanted to shout out another big fuck you to Newegg and Lexy Pacific (the company that HIS uses to processes RMAs in the US). Zipzoomfly.com has gotten 17 hundred of my money since this thread has opened that would have gone to newegg otherwise.
 
Last edited:
loose, i bet your power supply is the source of the problem. I had the exact same issues with my 4870x2 on an enermax liberty 620.

I would almost guarantee it's your power supply.
 
RADEoN said:
loose, i bet your power supply is the source of the problem. I had the exact same issues with my 4870x2 on an enermax liberty 620.

I would almost guarantee it's your power supply.
Click to expand...
1. The 500W Liberty is more than powerful enough to handle the system in question.

2. lloose tried a Corsair TX750 power supply as well and the issue still occurred.

So no, it's not the power supply.
 
Zero82z said:
1. The 500W Liberty is more than powerful enough to handle the system in question.

2. lloose tried a Corsair TX750 power supply as well and the issue still occurred.

So no, it's not the power supply.
Click to expand...

Oh, I guess when I had the exact same issue with the same power supply but higher wattage, I really wasn't having the exact same issue.

The issue I wasn't having was artifacts in a lot of games, 3dmark05 ran fine, 3dmark06 and vantage artifacted.

On paper, the liberty 620 was more than enough for my current system, but in case you didn't know, power supplies lose efficiency over time, especially when being stressed.
 
RADEoN said:
Oh, I guess when I had the exact same issue with the same power supply but higher wattage, I really wasn't having the exact same issue.
Click to expand...
Yes, you really weren't having the exact same issue, because switching to a different power supply didn't fix anything here.
 
I would be willing to have lloose send the video card to my house to have me test it.
 
Why not just try and see if it is the psu? Sure its rated to have enough power and has been working with the previous config but the new card makes different demands on the entire system and something may be wonky somewhere there.

I had an Antec True Power 2.0 500w on a system and when I added an 8800GTX it wasn't able to run it. But put that same psu on a different system (opty 185 to a E6700) and it runs the video card fine.
 
I dont know what you expect from newegg if you sent in the UPC. I have use multiple online retailers and nothing even comes close to newegg customer service. If you want really bad customer service, call OCZ rebate "house"
 
I am going to take the card to a buddies house who is running a Tough Power 700. I really hope its just something in my system so I can just not worry about all this RMA shit.
 
kuyaglen said:
Why not just try and see if it is the psu? Sure its rated to have enough power and has been working with the previous config but the new card makes different demands on the entire system and something may be wonky somewhere there.

I had an Antec True Power 2.0 500w on a system and when I added an 8800GTX it wasn't able to run it. But put that same psu on a different system (opty 185 to a E6700) and it runs the video card fine.
Click to expand...

RTFT. below is a post that was a little above yours.

Zero82z said:
1. The 500W Liberty is more than powerful enough to handle the system in question.

2. lloose tried a Corsair TX750 power supply as well and the issue still occurred.

So no, it's not the power supply.
Click to expand...


OP i say the card needs RMAed and I hate HIS becaused they fucked me on the rebate. they said they were gonna help me out then started ignoring my emails.

 
We'll see what happens. Ideally, I would welcome an issue with my setup that would cause the issues. I would rather buy a new piece of hardware any day over deal with RMA/returns.
 
I always recommend to my friends that they try to buy only XFX, EVGA and Corsair. As long as you're reasonable and honest, I've never had a single problem with them. The same could be said with newegg. I love them so.

The other brands are probably fine if you live in Asia or EU. :)
 
Last update. I tested with a couple different psu's (750tx, TR2 750w, Toughpower 700w and for giggles, a 430w thermaltake backup I have).

I got different results for every power supply and I couldnt figure it out. I talked to my co-worker who I built a system for and he said the 750tx I used to originally test my video card was working great. He is running a crossfire 4750 setup and said there hasn't been even a hiccup in performance. I took my card over to his place and popped it in to find that it was working great. Just to make sure, I stopped at my friends place and tested in his system (TR 750) and again, not a single problem. I figure it HAS to be my power supply at this point so I grab an Antec EA650 from best buy on the way home. I slap it in...... and my card is acting up again. Same thing... bad textures and bad minor artifacts when I turn the res/AA up. I ask my buddy Jon with the TR 750 to come by my place. We toss his in and same thing as before with the textures. In a last ditch effort, the thought comes to mind to unplug my fans from the controller I have running them. We fire up the ol' rig and what do you know.. no more bad textures. I plug in each fan one at a time directly to the psu and have no issues. I unplug all of my fans and plug in JUST the controller and I got the bad textures. I think there was a short or something in my controller that was causing issues with my power supply (It was a no-name give away from a lan party I went to a while back). Anyways, long story short I tossed the controller and everything is running like butter.


Thanks ojibewa, RADEoN, kuyaglen and everybody who insisted that it was my power supply. If you didn't speak up, I would be dealing with some crappy RMA issues and it wouldn't have fixed the problem in the long run.

Cliffs-
Weird shit
Tried multiple setups, some worked, some didn't.
Couldn't figure it what was causing the power issue.
Turns out my generic fan controller was causing an issue with my power supply.
Upgraded to an Antec 650w just to make sure and tossed the old fan controller.
Everything is bueno now.
 
lloose said:
Last update. I tested with a couple different psu's (750tx, TR2 750w, Toughpower 700w and for giggles, a 430w thermaltake backup I have).

I got different results for every power supply and I couldnt figure it out. I talked to my co-worker who I built a system for and he said the 750tx I used to originally test my video card was working great. He is running a crossfire 4750 setup and said there hasn't been even a hiccup in performance. I took my card over to his place and popped it in to find that it was working great. Just to make sure, I stopped at my friends place and tested in his system (TR 750) and again, not a single problem. I figure it HAS to be my power supply at this point so I grab an Antec EA650 from best buy on the way home. I slap it in...... and my card is acting up again. Same thing... bad textures and bad minor artifacts when I turn the res/AA up. I ask my buddy Jon with the TR 750 to come by my place. We toss his in and same thing as before with the textures. In a last ditch effort, the thought comes to mind to unplug my fans from the controller I have running them. We fire up the ol' rig and what do you know.. no more bad textures. I plug in each fan one at a time directly to the psu and have no issues. I unplug all of my fans and plug in JUST the controller and I got the bad textures. I think there was a short or something in my controller that was causing issues with my power supply (It was a no-name give away from a lan party I went to a while back). Anyways, long story short I tossed the controller and everything is running like butter.


Thanks ojibewa, RADEoN, kuyaglen and everybody who insisted that it was my power supply. If you didn't speak up, I would be dealing with some crappy RMA issues and it wouldn't have fixed the problem in the long run.

Cliffs-
Weird shit
Tried multiple setups, some worked, some didn't.
Couldn't figure it what was causing the power issue.
Turns out my generic fan controller was causing an issue with my power supply.
Upgraded to an Antec 650w just to make sure and tossed the old fan controller.
Everything is bueno now.
Click to expand...

Zero82z said:
1. The 500W Liberty is more than powerful enough to handle the system in question.

2. lloose tried a Corsair TX750 power supply as well and the issue still occurred.

So no, it's not the power supply.
Click to expand...



hehe. You're welcome lloose. Glad you got it working.
 
Replacing a fan controller is better than replacing a video card. Nice you got this solved.
 
The ~$10 price savings of buying a HIS card instead of an XFX card really isn't worth the time wasted trying to force HIS to honor their warranty. Practically every thing I have ever heard about HIS with respect to their warranty service has been a nightmare.


For ATI AIB partners, this seems to be the general trend lately

Asus: honors warranties
Biostar: haven't heard anything either way
Diamond: haven't heard anything either way
HIS: notorious for 'warranty-dodging'
MSI: haven't heard anything either way
Powercolor: another warranty-dodger
Sapphire: yet another warranty-dodger
Visiontek: had been good for a while, but recently is a warranty-dodger
XFX: seems to honor warranties
 
MSI is generally a good bet. My friend has owned a pc shop for 20 years and uses MSI almost exclusively for mobos and gpus. Swears by them. Of course, his rma is tops b/c anything breaks, he just sends it back to his supplier and the customer gets a new part as soon as they drop it off at the store. Worth paying retail imo.
 
daemionsos said:
Now you know that you should never apply for rebates until you are satisfied that the product works properly.
Click to expand...

That is an easy way for companies to take out to not honor returns. A lot of items with rebates expire within days of receiving your product, so the user has a choice, keep the item with extensive testing and lose the rebate, or take the rebate and hope the product works in the first place.

Not having a UPC should not be an excuse, it's not like the UPC identifies the product. Products have serial numbers.


This is one reason why I don't do rebates, I got caught in the same situation before.
 
It is funny how things work out.


For those saying he should have bought XFX...


Can you imagine him going through all those RMAs and coming to the forums saying "he will never buy ATI again"?

This is one of those cases where I'm kind of glad it worked out the way it did. Imagine going through so many cards and not realizing it was the fan controller.
 
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