Sapphire RMA nightmare

S

seanmcd

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 20, 2003
Messages
1,457
Sapphire X1900XTX, bought in April. Worked flawlessly in my system up until about two months ago. It suddenly wouldn't play any 3d games, and a day later wouldn't work at all.

Contacted Sapphire, started the RMA process. A little over five weeks later, they returned a card to me.

This card seemed to work ok at first, but I noticed little spots on the screen after exiting a game. (not every time, but it happened at least twice). These spots would dissapear after a window was opened and maximized. This was the first sign something was wrong. Next, I ran 3dMark2k6. During game test 3 and 4, the screen goes completely bezerk with spikes shooting out of all the objects on screen. It would actually complete the benchmark, but the spikes/glitches were the second bad sign. I tried uninstalling/reinstalling 3dmark, removing drivers with driver cleaner pro, reinstalling cat 6.12's - same thing.

Sent the card back to Sapphire. They claim they tested it for three days and never saw any problems. The wouldn't replace it, and sent it back.

Ok, took the card to a friend's house - same results. He tried Vista, XP x64, XP 32bit... 3dmark2k6 goes bezerk on graphics test 3 and 4 every time. He also got strange lines in Battlefield 2142. He hasn't gotten little spots on the screen, but the card definitely has a problem.

SO, contacted Sapphire again. They are now telling me that they found nothing wrong, and I "was in agreement" with that, and that they can't replace a card that "isn't defective". I'm starting to feel like I'm getting shafted here. This is quite surprising, as big as they are, and I've never really heard anyone talk badly about Sapphire.

So - has anyone had a similar experience? Anyone experience their X1900 card glitching on graphics test 3 and 4 in 3dmark2k6? (if so, what was your fix?) Anyone have any advice at all? The last thing I asked Sapphire is - if YOU think nothing is wrong, then why can't you take that card back and give it to someone else, and give me a different one??
 
1900XTX's glitching in tests 3 and 4 is common. I've heard of it before and mine did it too. Its heat related. They probably test their stuff on a board lying in the open, not in a hot case.

I used atitraytools to bump up the fan speed higher per temperature, and it also speeds up every 5 degrees instead of 10. Its not any louder but the glitches are nearly gone. Only the occasional black triangle remains.
 
Def bump the fan speed up. You running stock cooler? ocing at all? Im guessing you downclocked with problems arising..
Sounds like a ram heat problem too me .02
 
Thanks for the responses. I have actually tried forcing the fan to 100% before running 3dMark2k6 and it didn't change anything. Yes it's using the stock cooler. A friend of mine has the card now.
 
I remember messing with the drivers the same time change the fan speeds. So it might have been that but I don't remember what I did..
 
I had the exact same problem with the X1900XT artifacting in 3dmark06. I fixed it by reinstalling the drivers and thoroughly cleaning everything with driver cleaner.
 
Eagle156 said:
I had the exact same problem with the X1900XT artifacting in 3dmark06. I fixed it by reinstalling the drivers and thoroughly cleaning everything with driver cleaner.
Click to expand...
I wish it was that easy in my case. We've pretty much ruled out a driver problem unless the 6.12 cat's have a known issue with this...
 
I don't mind trying 6.11 - When I get the card back from my buddy I'll try that. Seems like a glitch like that in 6.12 would have been discovered by other people already though...

I am not in a total crisis here as I already have an 8800 GTS in my box, and it's working great. I mainly want the X1900XTX to be perfect again so that I can sell it.
 
Sapphire wouldn't even let me RMA my card, they claimed the serial number wasn't one of theirs... yeah... right. Sounds like you got further than me :mad:
 
Devnull said:
Sapphire wouldn't even let me RMA my card, they claimed the serial number wasn't one of theirs... yeah... right. Sounds like you got further than me :mad:
Click to expand...
Funny that you say that - as when I originally started the RMA process, I gave them the number that has "S/N" in front of them several times before they guided me to a lone sticker towards the bottom that didn't have "S/N" in front of it and they said "yes that's it" Never made any sense to me
 
I think my ATi story is worst then yours. My sisters X850XT seem to have a problems installing Drivers and having it stay there. Zero Display Service Error. So my sister called up ATi ok we thought the problem was fixed. Made a shortcut from WoW to the desktop. After a Restart of the comp drivers was gone again. Called up ATi. Busy signal. Keep calling for the pass hour Busy. When I got though the line for tech support was gone. Stayed on the Line for customer support. Asked for number for Tech Support. Said to make a support ticket. Made one explaining the problems. The next day got a reply. His answer has nothing to do with the drivers problem. Replied to him saying that his Answer didnt work and had nothing to do with my Driver problem. He replied. Said to do the samething. Around this time I was very pissed. Called ATi for the last time asking to be transfered to Tech Support. The lady said I had to fill in a Ticket. I let my sister use my laptop for the past week. Trying all Drivers from older ATi drivers, to the ones on the HiS CD, to Omega. None would stay. This pass week the Card Died. No screen at all. Going to Replace the Card with a eVGA 7600GT KO.
 
update:
after testing in three different systems, and getting the errors in 3dmark2k6 each time. (and several clean installs of various OS's on one system, each time the issue was there), and getting spikes shooting out of objects in BF2142, I convinced them to take the card back. (I also sent them screenshots, and offered a video clip of the 3dmark2k6 spikes/glitches)

They called me up. (they being a male technician of some kind, same guy I dealt with the first go - round). He told me they tested again and didn't find anything wrong. He said "i'm not sure what we can do for you..." I stood my ground and said, "i just want a card that works, plain and simple. I bought the card in April of 2006, and it lasted until November before it completely died, and the replacement has entirely different issues that I can reproduce on any system I have access to"

Ok here's the best part: He finally tells me that he's going to try and find a brand new card to send to me. Then he said, if you experience the same problem, we can not do anything for you. "You will have to find someone to buy your card, or sell it on ebay..."

Now, chances are the card they send me now (if it's actually different) will work fine and the case will be closed. BUT, if not - I'm sorry, but when the first card worked flawlessly for 6 months, and the same hardware has no issues with two 7900GTO's in SLI or my current 8800GTS, I don't think telling me I'll have to sell the faulty card they keep sending me on Ebay is a proper response to someone who paid $490 for it 9 months ago... I hope for their sake the card they send is 100%
 
Send an email to their marketing dept with a link to this post. Be nice but explain that not honoring their warranty would place the company in a bad light with potential customers.

As I have a Sapphire, and bought it based on research of past performance and company reputation, I am highly interested both for myself and the customers I build computers for.

Keep us posted.
 
I have the same card but am from the UK. The law here puts the onus on the supplier not the manufacturer. Warranties here can only add to your rights - they cannot take them away. Also, they do not specify a warranty period since it is about what is reasonable. People still get shafted though.

Would the supplier not offer you a replacement card?

To say to you that if this replacement fails to work properly you are on your own is utterly terrible. They clearly do not want the responsibilty of their own products. If they supply crap, they should clean up their mess. I will certainly look elsewhere for my next card.
 
I've been staring at Sapphire's card for a while because newegg has good prices on them but the more I hear about them, the less I want to get a R600 from them. What companies have good support for ATI cards? I don't hear of sweet techsupport experiences on this forum like the Nvidia forum... :(
 
Final Update:
Receive a second replacement card today. Seems to be an ATI card, and not Sapphire (says ATi everywhere, no longer says Sapphire anywhere). The mounting bracket thing on the end was severely bent - looks like someone dropped it. I took the bracket off and carefully straightened it out... No big deal there but FINALLY a replacement card that works!!!. This saga began on October 6, 2006 - and finally ended on January 25th, 2007. Three months and twenty days...
 
oh god sapphire rma....you know, it's funny because I was going to start a similar thread just a few days ago.

At the beginning of december my sapphire x850xt had the memory go out (no it was not overclocked). It had the characteristic green-lines-of-death all over the screen. I RMA'd that bad boy back to sapphire and it took them over a month to finally get a card back to me. Plus, they have absolutely zero communication skills. They don't tell you anything or give you any sort of progress indicator. You have to call them up (and I should note that sapphire does not do their own rma service, they outsource it to some crappy company) and ask them what the deal is. Then after they finally sent me my card, I found out they had shipped it to the wrong address (after I had already sent them one email telling them to correct it, which they acknowledged) and I had to drive to the ups facility to pick the darn thing up. Of course, I wouldn't have even known that the card was shipped had I not been calling and harassing them for a tracking number.

I just don't understand how it takes a company over a month just to replace a defective product. I hear so many stories about nvidia card makers (bfg, xfx, evga, etc.) who have a new card on your doorstep within one week. 5-6 weeks is just ridiculous.

My word of advice to anyone getting an ati card: do not get sapphire. I don't care who you get, but don't get sapphire, cause if the card dies you're gonna regret it.

The only bright side of the story is that I RMA'd a regular x850xt and they sent me back an x850xt-pe. The speed difference is negligable but the VIVO and dual-dvi are nice.
 
did you talk to the same guy every time? I owned about 2 sapphire graphic cards, and all 2 of them had problems, and every time I called the tech support line (of course, it's disconnected, so you have to play around with ATI's answering machine to get to tech support), I always got the same guy. And he always asked "Where did you buy your graphic card and when did you buy it?" It's like the guy knows the warantee services of the retailers better than that of his own company, cause I get recommended to send the card back to the retailer, lol. the greatness of sapphire's tech service. I gave up on em and just bought an eVGA card.
 
StealthyFish said:
did you talk to the same guy every time? I owned about 2 sapphire graphic cards, and all 2 of them had problems, and every time I called the tech support line (of course, it's disconnected, so you have to play around with ATI's answering machine to get to tech support), I always got the same guy. And he always asked "Where did you buy your graphic card and when did you buy it?" It's like the guy knows the warantee services of the retailers better than that of his own company, cause I get recommended to send the card back to the retailer, lol. the greatness of sapphire's tech service. I gave up on em and just bought an eVGA card.
Click to expand...
Yes I spoke with the same person each time. My only theory is that they only test on one hardware platform, and the particular issue the card had only showed up on Nforce4 motherboards? Who knows. There was no doubt in MY mind that something was indeed wrong though. The most rediculous part about it was the part where he told me I couldnt' send the card back again. That's really insane.

I don't want anyone that might be reading this to think I'm bashing Sapphire cards. I've had other Sapphire cards in the past that worked fine (and still work fine). It's mainly their support process I'm disgusted with. Please keep in mind I've seen threads like this for a lot of other brands. I just wanted to bitch a little bit, especially when they told me I couldn't send the card back anymore (after only sending the replacement card back a second time). Sapphire is huge - they do a ton of OEM work and I THINK they make the majority of ATi cards...
 
Thats why you should buy a card from ATI not from like other companies that make the card and uses ati's chip or simply nvidia all the way.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top