Power Supply too weak / dying? Please help me!

magicpants · Jun 17, 2005, 07:19 PM

Okay, this is a long post but if anyone can spare the time I would be so grateful for any advice.
I am getting artifacts with my PC - usually when gaming. The game will run fine for a few minutes then 'something will happen' and suddenly lots of the textures (not all) will become multicolored (look nothing like the original texture) and often flickering and multi colour polygons will be drawn from the centre of the screen. Usually if I alt-tab to windows and then back to the game, the problem is fixed. Also along with these problems I often get chequered bars drawn down the screen. Heres a screeny... http://www.narcissisticrage.net/images/Image1.jpg,
That usually happens in game and dissapears when I alt-tab to the desktop but on this occassion it stayed, also i should note that it dissapears when a part of the screen is 'redrawn' (i.e window dragged over it).
I'll try to get one of the polygons/textures too and update this post, but the problem is my machine often crashes (usually a black screen and screeching sound from the soundcard).
I'm hoping that it is not my ATi X800 XT PCI-E 256mb as it is quite a new card, unfortunately I have no other PCI-E machines to test it on. The card is fitted with an artic cooling 4 cooler, and is at stock speeds 500/500. So i'm pretty certain its not heat related. My CPU and 'ambient' temps are usually in the 50's also (celsius).
My power supply is the Jeantech JN-120F-450-AP, http://www.jeantech.com/Products/Pow...120mm_psu.html although I bought mine before PCI-E existed so it never came with a PCI-E connector so I had to buy mine seperately (mine is a revision 1, but it still says it supports Intel 2.01 and 2.03 versions).
I have tried removing my Audigy soundcard and using on-board sound instead, I have tried different plugs from the PSU for my PCIE 6 pin converter, used different Nforce drivers, video drivers and sound drivers, I have re-seated the X800 and my RAM, I have upgraded my BIOS, disabling and/or unplugging my second monitor, used min and max settings for both CPU and memory voltages, un-overclocked both my CPU / FSB / RAM and GPU, and currently I have my CDROM exhaust fan and floppy drive unplugged in case it was 'drain' on the power supply.
To be honest I'm running out of ideas.

I should mention that this PC 'did' run ok, it would occassionally do that chequered liney thing as it was POSTing (another reason I don't think its temperature related) and often turning it on and off lots fixed the problem. Then, more recently it would have the problem in games whilst running windows, but only occassionally....and now it seems to happen all the time, sometimes I can run games for an hour without it happening once, and sometimes it just keeps happening and it crashes my PC. I don't believe it has ever happened whilst I've just been sitting in windows - as I often leave my PC on overnight downloading files.

My system is as follows,
crappy old Dell 19" and Adi 15" monitors
X800 XT 256mb PCIE
1GB (2x512mb) Crucial DDR RAM - PC3200 2.5v (altho my BIOS only goes down to 2.6, these are oldish chips - still they run fine at 3v too)
Athlon 64 3200+ Socket 754
Asus K8N4-E Deluxe
Creative Audigy (running the latest modded Audigy 4 drivers, not that it matters)
2 80GB IBM Deskstar drives running a raid array and an old 15GB Maxtor

Thanks for reading all that...Please help me :/

p.s Is there some kind of logging utility I can run to monitor how much power my video card or another component is getting? Then maybe I could see if there is a dip / spike when this 'anomaly' occurs.

e v o · Jun 17, 2005, 07:46 PM

Check your rails either via the Bios or Motherboard monitor, throw "mbm" in google.
Use ATI Tools, or ati Tray tools to check your temps. You can also fan control it through those programs.

If it's an option, i would just buy a new PSU for PCI-E. I've never heard of that PSU company, but it looks like a decent PSU. If your looking for another 120mm fan one, check the OCZ 520 modstream, or the Powerstream series, but they use the 2x80 fans. I also recommend the Seasonic S12 series.

Ben

magicpants · Jun 17, 2005, 08:19 PM

I already use ATT for my fan speeds etc, I make sure theyre at 100% when the GPU is 50c and above.
I looked at my BIOS for about a minute and recorded the voltages and how much they fluctuated
Vcore 1.45 - 1.48
3.3v 3.21 - 3.23
5v 4.99 - 5.02
12v 11.71 - 11.77
Is this normal?

Also, heres a screeny from BF2 - I was just playing. Just after I saw this the screen filled with polygons and my screen went black and I got that lovely high pitch screeching from my soundcard :/

http://www.narcissisticrage.net/images/screen018.jpg

EDIT:
I've been monitoring voltages using Speedfan whilst running the ATI Tray Tools Artifacts scanner.
12v 11.46 - 11.58 (dropped quite a lot because of GPU load??? is this the problem?)
5v 5.03 - 5.05
3v 3.17-3.26

Is that 12v value too low?!
No artifacts have been recorded yet... but maybe because power consumption is steady and not 'real-life' like it would be in a game... :/

Geminiwave · Jun 17, 2005, 10:08 PM

that 3v rail is getting a big low, thats for sure.

Its quite possible that its a heat issue as well.

Actually the bars across the screen are usually indicative of bad RAMDACs on the graphics card, but there is also a very real possibility that its the PSU.

Try putting in a different PSU.

magicpants · Jun 18, 2005, 09:52 AM

I'm doing the same thing now with speedfan and the artifact tester open. It seems to be fine for ages, then it'll suddenly start artifacting.
Also, because of some tests I was doing - when i shut the PC off last night it was artifacting like crazy, I turn it on this morning and the POST screen was almost unreadable but it did say that the CHIP fan had a problem (I assume the chipset fan.) I figure this must be power related though as it looks to be spinning fine according to speedfan is running at 7670-8036 RPM.
I'll try and get a new PSU today, I just want to be sure as I'm starting a new job and don't have any money to throw around at the moment.
Thanks for your continuing advice.

EDIT: 1 Thing, if it was bad RAMDAC's wouldn't the problem be far more consistent? I have gamed for hours in the past and had no trouble, its has only become more obvious recently.
Obviously i'm hoping because I don't want to put my X800 in the bin.

EDIT: It 'seems' to b f*cking up when the 3.3v rail drops below about 3.2/3.22 so you might be right. I'll go down my local store and pick up a new unit today, please tell me which of these 3 would be best. I don't really want to get the third since its £100......

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...4397&doy=18m6D 650w thingy
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...0687&doy=18m6D 500w but dual rail?
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...0708&doy=18m6D pricey...

For reference I run 3 hard drives 2 sticks of ram, and X800 with artic cooling, an audigy, DVD-RW, floppy and 2+ USB devices. So i figure my power drain won't be that high - would the 500w be okay? I just found this too, a review for the blue storm http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/power/...e/ax500/p2.htm sounds promising. Comes supporting PCIE although the advert on the sellers website says nothing about it.
The only other shop around sells the Jeantech PSU's and I'm not overly keen on them at the moment.

Another dumb question.... can a GFX card not getting ENOUGH power cause it to overheat?

magicpants · Jun 18, 2005, 01:53 PM

Okay...i bought that Blue Storm PSU.... i'm still having problems so i figure it must be the graphics card. :'(
Any more ideas?

magicpants · Jun 18, 2005, 03:06 PM

I just dismantled my card and cooler and cleaned off any excess paste, i noticed there was a little touching components near the memory chips - though this is the paste supplied with my Arctic Cooler 4 and afaik is non-conductive.
After doing a bit of a stress test I noticed I started getting artifacts when ATT detected my Core at 60C and Environment at 55C I'm sure the core can go a lot hotter than that....

Im still confused as to why this card only fails under strain...it runs windows as far as browsing etc is concerned seemingly fine.

magicpants · Jun 18, 2005, 08:59 PM

Okay... now i feel kinda silly, and bewildered at the same time.
I was going through every component in my PC testing it as well as I could to ascertain whether it was DEFINITELY my GFX card that was bust... Upon removing my CPU I found that one of the pins was doubled over (bent). The first thing I did was of course, try to straighten it. The pin came off, which wasn't a suprise - so I did what anyone would do and put the CPU back in and hoped it would work on the off chance that the pin was never used anyway and was maybe just shorting with another pin (hence all my problems).
I'll upload a picture when i can, but the pin on the CPU that has snapped off is (with the snubbed arrow corner pointing down and right) 14th column along and 2nd line up. If anyone has a diagram mapping Athlon 64 (socket 754) pins then I'd be interested to know what it does (or did

).
I'm now running a PCI RAGE IIC graphics card as its the only other card I have lying around that isn't AGP.

Can anyone please suggest an application that would stress my CPU, but that would run on this card?

Obviously ATITool is out of the picture now.
If I can get the CPU to 'fail' now then I'm happy that I just have a dead CPU and I'll buy a new one, but I don't want to go out and buy a new CPU when this leper of a CPU might work fine. I'm going to look myself but please if anyone can recommend software - do.
My saga continues :/

Necrosis · Jun 18, 2005, 10:19 PM

Hopefully it's just a misc. grounding pin. Hmm I would give a search for toast, and run another app in the back along with it to stress out the CPU.

magicpants · Jun 19, 2005, 08:53 AM

Okay.... well i found some apps - CPU Hi-t Professional Edition - No errors in any of the tests.

Super Pi - To 32M Decimal Places, Error.

I went to the pub whilst Super Pi was running, but I'll try some more today to double check

EDIT: Toast ran with CPU Stability Tester 6 for 20 mins with no errors.
I'm now running S&M 1.71 with its most rigorous tests.

Another example of the error I was getting before when I had my ATi X800 XT 256mb PCI-E running, this is using AtiTool's Artifact tester and I was using ATT to monitor the card / ambient temps at the time http://www.narcissisticrage.net/images/corrupt.jpg

EDIT: S&M completed ALL CPU tests successfully... I'll do SuperPI 32M once more

magicpants · Jun 19, 2005, 05:12 PM

Okay, went out and bought a Nvidia 6600 PCIE card (which I intend to take back for a refund tomorrow) - stuck it in my machine whilst i went for a swim and left it running SuperPI - no error for 32 million this time. Im now running ATITool's artifact tester on this NV card...

EDIT: Crap, NV card seems to work - runs ATITool for ages and even ran BF2 (very slowly at my old settings, lol). To double check I plugged my X800 in one last time, it was going funky before it even got into windows. Looks like I need to find the cash for a new gfx card *cries*

Anyone want an 'almost' working X800 XT for cheap?

e v o · Jun 19, 2005, 07:50 PM

well, i would RMA it if you can, keep that 6600gt at least until you get the rma back (if you can)

Ben

magicpants · Jun 19, 2005, 09:21 PM

Its just a vanilla 6600, I'll be taking it back tomorrow because I'm moving house Tuesday (this couldn't have happened at a worse time).

Thing about this card is that I bought it from a guy on e-bay, he got it from his friend who apparently got it from overclockers.co.uk - so I have nothing to go on but whats on the card here

Things aren't looking good on that front, on the plus side it was 'only' £200 (very good for an x800 xt 256mb pcie in the UK).

Another thing is.....whilst I was looking around for replacements I've noticed that the Nvidia 7800GTX is out in 3 days! I'm sure it'll cost a bomb, but I'm wondering if its going to be worth it.

Anyway, thanks for your comments - if you have any RMA advice pray tell (can I get ATi to look at it even though I have no proof of purchase i.e receipt?).

e v o · Jun 19, 2005, 11:21 PM

I'm not sure about that, in the future, i recommend never to buy computer parts from ebay. At least not major ones, cpu/mb/gpu. Deal sounds like it was 'too good to be true'. About the RMA, i dunno, you would have to ask someone around here more knowledgeable. Try to PM the ATI guy here or email ATI itself if you already havent

Ben

magicpants · Jun 20, 2005, 12:24 AM

Yeah, I've learnt my lesson - I'm definitely going to be more careful after this and not just go for those cheap deals.

What is the name of the ATI guy please? I've seen him post as I've been a DH fan for a long time now, but to be honest I couldn't track his name down through searching just now.

Jun 17, 2005, 07:19 PM	#1
magicpants DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 24 Rep Power: 0	Power Supply too weak / dying? Please help me! Okay, this is a long post but if anyone can spare the time I would be so grateful for any advice. I am getting artifacts with my PC - usually when gaming. The game will run fine for a few minutes then 'something will happen' and suddenly lots of the textures (not all) will become multicolored (look nothing like the original texture) and often flickering and multi colour polygons will be drawn from the centre of the screen. Usually if I alt-tab to windows and then back to the game, the problem is fixed. Also along with these problems I often get chequered bars drawn down the screen. Heres a screeny... http://www.narcissisticrage.net/images/Image1.jpg, That usually happens in game and dissapears when I alt-tab to the desktop but on this occassion it stayed, also i should note that it dissapears when a part of the screen is 'redrawn' (i.e window dragged over it). I'll try to get one of the polygons/textures too and update this post, but the problem is my machine often crashes (usually a black screen and screeching sound from the soundcard). I'm hoping that it is not my ATi X800 XT PCI-E 256mb as it is quite a new card, unfortunately I have no other PCI-E machines to test it on. The card is fitted with an artic cooling 4 cooler, and is at stock speeds 500/500. So i'm pretty certain its not heat related. My CPU and 'ambient' temps are usually in the 50's also (celsius). My power supply is the Jeantech JN-120F-450-AP, http://www.jeantech.com/Products/Pow...120mm_psu.html although I bought mine before PCI-E existed so it never came with a PCI-E connector so I had to buy mine seperately (mine is a revision 1, but it still says it supports Intel 2.01 and 2.03 versions). I have tried removing my Audigy soundcard and using on-board sound instead, I have tried different plugs from the PSU for my PCIE 6 pin converter, used different Nforce drivers, video drivers and sound drivers, I have re-seated the X800 and my RAM, I have upgraded my BIOS, disabling and/or unplugging my second monitor, used min and max settings for both CPU and memory voltages, un-overclocked both my CPU / FSB / RAM and GPU, and currently I have my CDROM exhaust fan and floppy drive unplugged in case it was 'drain' on the power supply. To be honest I'm running out of ideas. I should mention that this PC 'did' run ok, it would occassionally do that chequered liney thing as it was POSTing (another reason I don't think its temperature related) and often turning it on and off lots fixed the problem. Then, more recently it would have the problem in games whilst running windows, but only occassionally....and now it seems to happen all the time, sometimes I can run games for an hour without it happening once, and sometimes it just keeps happening and it crashes my PC. I don't believe it has ever happened whilst I've just been sitting in windows - as I often leave my PC on overnight downloading files. My system is as follows, crappy old Dell 19" and Adi 15" monitors X800 XT 256mb PCIE 1GB (2x512mb) Crucial DDR RAM - PC3200 2.5v (altho my BIOS only goes down to 2.6, these are oldish chips - still they run fine at 3v too) Athlon 64 3200+ Socket 754 Asus K8N4-E Deluxe Creative Audigy (running the latest modded Audigy 4 drivers, not that it matters) 2 80GB IBM Deskstar drives running a raid array and an old 15GB Maxtor Thanks for reading all that...Please help me :/ p.s Is there some kind of logging utility I can run to monitor how much power my video card or another component is getting? Then maybe I could see if there is a dip / spike when this 'anomaly' occurs.

Jun 17, 2005, 07:46 PM	#2
e v o HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,037 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Check your rails either via the Bios or Motherboard monitor, throw "mbm" in google. Use ATI Tools, or ati Tray tools to check your temps. You can also fan control it through those programs. If it's an option, i would just buy a new PSU for PCI-E. I've never heard of that PSU company, but it looks like a decent PSU. If your looking for another 120mm fan one, check the OCZ 520 modstream, or the Powerstream series, but they use the 2x80 fans. I also recommend the Seasonic S12 series. Ben __________________

Jun 17, 2005, 08:19 PM	Thread Starter #3
magicpants DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 24 Rep Power: 0	I already use ATT for my fan speeds etc, I make sure theyre at 100% when the GPU is 50c and above. I looked at my BIOS for about a minute and recorded the voltages and how much they fluctuated Vcore 1.45 - 1.48 3.3v 3.21 - 3.23 5v 4.99 - 5.02 12v 11.71 - 11.77 Is this normal? Also, heres a screeny from BF2 - I was just playing. Just after I saw this the screen filled with polygons and my screen went black and I got that lovely high pitch screeching from my soundcard :/ http://www.narcissisticrage.net/images/screen018.jpg EDIT: I've been monitoring voltages using Speedfan whilst running the ATI Tray Tools Artifacts scanner. 12v 11.46 - 11.58 (dropped quite a lot because of GPU load??? is this the problem?) 5v 5.03 - 5.05 3v 3.17-3.26 Is that 12v value too low?! No artifacts have been recorded yet... but maybe because power consumption is steady and not 'real-life' like it would be in a game... :/ Last edited by magicpants; Jun 17, 2005 at 09:59 PM.

Jun 17, 2005, 10:08 PM	#4
Geminiwave I Have lovely Breasts Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: In the closet... Posts: 5,395 Rep Power: 64	that 3v rail is getting a big low, thats for sure. Its quite possible that its a heat issue as well. Actually the bars across the screen are usually indicative of bad RAMDACs on the graphics card, but there is also a very real possibility that its the PSU. Try putting in a different PSU. __________________

Jun 18, 2005, 09:52 AM	Thread Starter #5
magicpants DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 24 Rep Power: 0	I'm doing the same thing now with speedfan and the artifact tester open. It seems to be fine for ages, then it'll suddenly start artifacting. Also, because of some tests I was doing - when i shut the PC off last night it was artifacting like crazy, I turn it on this morning and the POST screen was almost unreadable but it did say that the CHIP fan had a problem (I assume the chipset fan.) I figure this must be power related though as it looks to be spinning fine according to speedfan is running at 7670-8036 RPM. I'll try and get a new PSU today, I just want to be sure as I'm starting a new job and don't have any money to throw around at the moment. Thanks for your continuing advice. EDIT: 1 Thing, if it was bad RAMDAC's wouldn't the problem be far more consistent? I have gamed for hours in the past and had no trouble, its has only become more obvious recently. Obviously i'm hoping because I don't want to put my X800 in the bin. EDIT: It 'seems' to b fcking up when the 3.3v rail drops below about 3.2/3.22 so you might be right. I'll go down my local store and pick up a new unit today, please tell me which of these 3 would be best. I don't really want to get the third since its £100...... http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...4397&doy=18m6D 650w thingy http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...0687&doy=18m6D 500w but dual rail? http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...0708&doy=18m6D pricey... For reference I run 3 hard drives 2 sticks of ram, and X800 with artic cooling, an audigy, DVD-RW, floppy and 2+ USB devices. So i figure my power drain won't be that high - would the 500w be okay? I just found this too, a review for the blue storm http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/power/...e/ax500/p2.htm sounds promising. Comes supporting PCIE although the advert on the sellers website says nothing about it. The only other shop around sells the Jeantech PSU's and I'm not overly keen on them at the moment. Another dumb question.... can a GFX card not getting ENOUGH power cause it to overheat? Last edited by magicpants; Jun 18, 2005 at 11:25 AM.*

Jun 18, 2005, 01:53 PM	Thread Starter #6
magicpants DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 24 Rep Power: 0	Okay...i bought that Blue Storm PSU.... i'm still having problems so i figure it must be the graphics card. :'( Any more ideas?

Jun 18, 2005, 03:06 PM	Thread Starter #7
magicpants DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 24 Rep Power: 0	I just dismantled my card and cooler and cleaned off any excess paste, i noticed there was a little touching components near the memory chips - though this is the paste supplied with my Arctic Cooler 4 and afaik is non-conductive. After doing a bit of a stress test I noticed I started getting artifacts when ATT detected my Core at 60C and Environment at 55C I'm sure the core can go a lot hotter than that.... Im still confused as to why this card only fails under strain...it runs windows as far as browsing etc is concerned seemingly fine. Last edited by magicpants; Jun 18, 2005 at 03:45 PM.

Jun 18, 2005, 08:59 PM	Thread Starter #8
magicpants DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 24 Rep Power: 0	Okay... now i feel kinda silly, and bewildered at the same time. I was going through every component in my PC testing it as well as I could to ascertain whether it was DEFINITELY my GFX card that was bust... Upon removing my CPU I found that one of the pins was doubled over (bent). The first thing I did was of course, try to straighten it. The pin came off, which wasn't a suprise - so I did what anyone would do and put the CPU back in and hoped it would work on the off chance that the pin was never used anyway and was maybe just shorting with another pin (hence all my problems). I'll upload a picture when i can, but the pin on the CPU that has snapped off is (with the snubbed arrow corner pointing down and right) 14th column along and 2nd line up. If anyone has a diagram mapping Athlon 64 (socket 754) pins then I'd be interested to know what it does (or did ). I'm now running a PCI RAGE IIC graphics card as its the only other card I have lying around that isn't AGP. Can anyone please suggest an application that would stress my CPU, but that would run on this card? Obviously ATITool is out of the picture now. If I can get the CPU to 'fail' now then I'm happy that I just have a dead CPU and I'll buy a new one, but I don't want to go out and buy a new CPU when this leper of a CPU might work fine. I'm going to look myself but please if anyone can recommend software - do. My saga continues :/

Jun 18, 2005, 10:19 PM	#9
Necrosis HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 8,838 Rep Power: 131 System Specs	Hopefully it's just a misc. grounding pin. Hmm I would give a search for toast, and run another app in the back along with it to stress out the CPU.

Jun 19, 2005, 08:53 AM	Thread Starter #10
magicpants DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 24 Rep Power: 0	Okay.... well i found some apps - CPU Hi-t Professional Edition - No errors in any of the tests. Super Pi - To 32M Decimal Places, Error. I went to the pub whilst Super Pi was running, but I'll try some more today to double check EDIT: Toast ran with CPU Stability Tester 6 for 20 mins with no errors. I'm now running S&M 1.71 with its most rigorous tests. Another example of the error I was getting before when I had my ATi X800 XT 256mb PCI-E running, this is using AtiTool's Artifact tester and I was using ATT to monitor the card / ambient temps at the time http://www.narcissisticrage.net/images/corrupt.jpg EDIT: S&M completed ALL CPU tests successfully... I'll do SuperPI 32M once more Last edited by magicpants; Jun 19, 2005 at 11:01 AM.

Jun 19, 2005, 05:12 PM	Thread Starter #11
magicpants DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 24 Rep Power: 0	Okay, went out and bought a Nvidia 6600 PCIE card (which I intend to take back for a refund tomorrow) - stuck it in my machine whilst i went for a swim and left it running SuperPI - no error for 32 million this time. Im now running ATITool's artifact tester on this NV card... EDIT: Crap, NV card seems to work - runs ATITool for ages and even ran BF2 (very slowly at my old settings, lol). To double check I plugged my X800 in one last time, it was going funky before it even got into windows. Looks like I need to find the cash for a new gfx card cries Anyone want an 'almost' working X800 XT for cheap? Last edited by magicpants; Jun 19, 2005 at 06:06 PM.

Jun 19, 2005, 07:50 PM	#12
e v o HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,037 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	well, i would RMA it if you can, keep that 6600gt at least until you get the rma back (if you can) Ben __________________

Jun 19, 2005, 09:21 PM	Thread Starter #13
magicpants DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 24 Rep Power: 0	Its just a vanilla 6600, I'll be taking it back tomorrow because I'm moving house Tuesday (this couldn't have happened at a worse time). Thing about this card is that I bought it from a guy on e-bay, he got it from his friend who apparently got it from overclockers.co.uk - so I have nothing to go on but whats on the card here Things aren't looking good on that front, on the plus side it was 'only' £200 (very good for an x800 xt 256mb pcie in the UK). Another thing is.....whilst I was looking around for replacements I've noticed that the Nvidia 7800GTX is out in 3 days! I'm sure it'll cost a bomb, but I'm wondering if its going to be worth it. Anyway, thanks for your comments - if you have any RMA advice pray tell (can I get ATi to look at it even though I have no proof of purchase i.e receipt?).

Jun 19, 2005, 11:21 PM	#14
e v o HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,037 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	I'm not sure about that, in the future, i recommend never to buy computer parts from ebay. At least not major ones, cpu/mb/gpu. Deal sounds like it was 'too good to be true'. About the RMA, i dunno, you would have to ask someone around here more knowledgeable. Try to PM the ATI guy here or email ATI itself if you already havent Ben __________________

Jun 20, 2005, 12:24 AM	Thread Starter #15
magicpants DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 24 Rep Power: 0	Yeah, I've learnt my lesson - I'm definitely going to be more careful after this and not just go for those cheap deals. What is the name of the ATI guy please? I've seen him post as I've been a DH fan for a long time now, but to be honest I couldn't track his name down through searching just now.