Every affirmation is a denial

I had mentioned that there was a forum thread at the Overclockers UK webboard for the video card, but I never provided a link to the thread. The reason I didn't provide a link is that the entire thread has now been deleted from the board. A few other responses had appeared from differing forum users who had also received terrible after sales service. The thread was located here, but I suppose any sort of discussion that casts the company in a poor light isn't allowed on the boards. My intention in posting in that thread was mostly centred around informing any other owners of a product that was covered by the Overclockers UK warranty service what they might face. Furthermore, anyone who had purchased the same product as myself was possibly facing having to deal with this issue. In short, I described the RMA service for the product the thread was about. I have serious doubts that if the product had been covered by the manufacturer's warranty service, and I had then described that service on the messageboard that the thread would have been deleted.

To return to our "special" friend Andy, one final time: I should say that, in actuality, he's probably quite good at his job. This might sound like a surprising thing to say, but if you consider carefully what his job is it might become clearer. On the surface, it would seem that it is "tech support", but after my experiences I have come to realize that his role is not to support the customers -- it is to deflect them. It is to frustrate them, ignore them, misinform them and to, in short, be rid of them. So, in that capacity, he does a great job. The only conclusion I can draw from my experiences to date is that it must be company policy to make the RMA process as difficult as possible for the customer in order to save the costs and efforts of actually having to provide support services for some product lines. So, seizing upon any excuse that seems even mildly plausible in order to avoid proper RMA service would seem to be a tactic employed to further this end. Andy did his job -- his job requires a person of a particular character -- I'll let the reader decide what other "special" qualities one would need in order to do his job.


Back to the state of things: After receiving the final reply stating they would not have the card back I decided to take the matter to consumer protection and see what could be done. After contacting Consumer Direct I recieved a reply stating that I was covered under the sale of goods act that ensures goods supplied must be of satisfactory quality -- meaning durable and free from minor defects. Furthermore, that since the trader had effectively found no fault with the goods that it was up to me to prove that the fault has not been caused by myself. And to do this I would need to seek independent inspection of the video card. Okay, good clear advice on what a next step should be. But that's the rub really -- and where traders of this sort make their living. The consumer is in a position where he/she may now be faced with throwing "good money after bad". That is, the consumer is now faced with cutting losses or risking more money, time and hassle to see the matter resolved.

So, what next? I suppose there is also the possibility of contacting the credit card company and pursuing the matter via that route, as well. Also, I can try and find a computer parts retailer I can take the card to and have them independently test it. I can also leave it lie here and hope that, at the very least, others will heed (hehe, no pun intended...really) this tale and not spend their money at an establishment who would behave as I've described -- and replace the card myself. I'm still not sure, at this point, which of those options I will choose.

I do know that this issue isn't just about the retailer, though. Of course, it is the main stumbling block in this case, but there is an issue with some of 7xxx line of video cards and it would have been nice to actually have seen Nvidia acknowledge it. Some of their manufacturers stepped forward and took some responsibility in the matter, but as far as I can see Nvidia has been silent on the issue. I've seen numerous speculations on what the exact issue may be -- ranging from clocks set too high, bad/incorrect voltage regulators, bad/incorrect capacitors and more. There's also the question of Palit, my card's actual manufacturer, and the conditions in which they sold the cards in the first place. The retailer assumed branding, of a sort, along with warranty obligations, but why? Were the cards sold and/or purchased knowing that they might possibly go bad? It still seems to me that since the GS line is basically just a cut down GT that it would be quite easy for the fault to migrate to the GS line. For example, were older and then known to be faulty PCB's used for the GS line of cards in some circumstances? Those talking about the capacitor issue note that newer revisions of the GT line have had two capacitors changed on them. They focus on two capacitors that have "mint green" caps as being the culprit in the older revisions -- my card uses those capacitors. My own investigation shows that the card definitely has a video memory problem. That was what I had suspected, but it is good see some test that can confirm my suspicion. Whether the video memory chips themselves are the problem or the memory chips were damaged by one of the other possible causes is unknown to me. I suppose no one can say for sure unless someone from Nvidia or Palit decide to comment, and hehe, I find that very unlikely.

I should be clear that this is not some mindless bashing of one graphics card company over another -- I could care less which manufacturer I buy from. I only usually look to see who has the best offering for the best price at the time I'm looking to buy. The whole "mine is better than yours" or "it's the best kind because it's the one I have" mentality that is around is not worth my time.

I'm not sure this issue is over yet as it took about six months for my card to fail, so there's likely quite a few cards out there from x-mas purchases, etc. that will be nearing that age soon. It will be interesting to see if more reports begin to appear regarding the GS line or if the issue is much more localized to "a bad batch or two". In my research I found a huge thread on the WOW boards where a lot of people are seeing the same kind of corruption as myself. Now, a lot of blame is being put on the expansion for that game "ruining video cards" and I find that quite unlikely -- directly. That is, I could see an expansion upping demands on the graphics card which would then reveal a heretofore hidden fault, but I don't see how software could actually damage hardware under normal circumstances. You also have the usual incorrect "I have this problem too" replies which turn out to be something different, but the bulk of the issues look and sound like they are the same as mine. I don't play the game, so I have no idea what they did for the expansion, but I do know a lot of people do play the game and that a percentage of them are experiencing hardware faults very similar to the one I have experienced. It will be interesting to see if that list grows significantly over the next few months or if the "bump in the road" has been mostly passed over...