My ATI Radeon 9800Pro story!......cough..

[simple]

So im running two comps and its time to throw my ti4200 in my 2nd and buy a spankin new ferrari red Radeon 9700pro! 128mb's of ddr loveliness 325Mhz core.....yummy!

So i look locally and end up hitting Best Buy(yes..i know there morons,i hate them too)cause they matched www.pricewatch.com's price of $256.00 so i head over and pick it up, there it was in its oh so nifty looking retail box. I throw the girl my credit card, she swipes it...Approved! yes!

After going through a full body cavity search at the exit doors from there Barney Fife look alike who seemingly thinks everyone who walks through the front doors is there to snag there own personal copy of Harry Potter2 then b-line it for the parking lot without paying for it, all the while he makes $5.35 an hr and takes great pride in his job..
As i walk bull legged to my car i realize im the proud new owner of one bad *** vid card, im cool again! woopee!

I get it home, already uninstalled my ti4200.
I opened the box oh so carefully(ok i tore the f'r open)and there it was..its pretty, its furry, its soft! its oh so..uh hum, excuse me.

I throw it in, boot up, install newest cats(3.2 at the time)and all is well(to be honest the install took like 4 reboots and was a pain in the arse compared to nvidia's)so far.

I run 3dm01 and get a 13860 a much improved mark over my ti4200 which was 10700.
I run a few games and and i get a stuttering, its wierd to explain..like a hiccup every other second..im running all newest drivers that i can think of, red faction for instance runs like poop, it hiccups so bad that i wont play it.

I get tearing in EQ along with vertical graphic lines everywhere...UG..this cant be man!
Im playing swg beta and get anomalies and poly tearing every now and again here also.

Im starting to regret my purchase and begin to miss Nvidia's solid drivers, ive always used nvidia after my old voodoo2 SLI became extinct.
I dont want to take this monster card back even though im beginning to hate it for its lack of compatibility with games, i got a great deal on it and will have to pay MORE to go with a slower(more stable)ti4600.

So im living with it trying to configure this and that and pray the next set of Cat drivers fixes this bullshat.

A few weeks later i fire up AVP2 expansion pack this morn and get these WAY f'ed up vertical lines through the picture again only worse, i close it out and ***! there still on my desktop!

Reboot...omg there still there, remove display drivers, shutdown, reseat card, reboot.....geezus there still there!

Im thinkin...bad card.

I pack the f'r up and go back to Best Buy..go to the cutsomer service counter, tell the guy "its bad man" he stares back at me with that "im a clueless dumbass" look that all these ppl who work here seem to give you when you try to communicate with them.

He then informs me that its past the 14day return policy...
I then inform him that i bought a defective piece of hardware from his store not 30days ago and now had to drive my fat arse back to his store just to get another card that hopefully was not a "return and shrinkwrap and its brand new again" video card.

He then tries to refuse my return and i inform him that i would heave my *** over his counter and go apeshit on his dome if he said another word...he then tells me to go pick any card id like out and he would gladly exchange it.

I hate violence...anyhoo i go over to the shelf where the 9700's sit and to my glee there is...gasp! a Radeon 9800 Pro! just in! $399.00..geezus!

F'it i wont eat for a day, i buy it!
Get home, take it out of the box...hmm looks like my 9700pro did..
Put it in, fire it up, run dxdiag..it shows up as a...9700 pro?
Must be the drivers...or something, uninstall drivers, reboot, reinstall, same thing run 3dmark, shows up as a 9700 pro.

I then hit Sharky's site cause i saw a side by side pic of both cards..the 9800 has heat sinks on some of its modules,along with a smaller HS on its GPU its a tad longer too with more transisters..i look at my card, bingo it looks JUST like the 9700 in the pic.

I look on the back of my card and there is the little white factory sticker stating its a 9800 pro 128mb.

I begin to cry, yknow whats its like to see a 310 pound man cry? its ugly folks..

Anyhoo i come to the conclusion that this f'r is a 9700pro that was misstamped and sent out as a 9800, pretty smart aint i?

Conclusion: Ati bites
Best Buy bites
Nvidia's driver program rulez all.
Ill be returning this for a REAL 9800pro.
Im a Chump.

Best Buy is completely sold out of 9700's and 9800's in my area, ill be waiting until this Tues for there shipment and picking up my NEW 9800 Pro...cough, wish my unlucky arse luck.

[Colossus]

That sucks! I am glad I dont deal with retailers like that.

My vendor is rather nice and all, Since I deal in large volumes I dont get subjected to odd things like that (thank god it never happened yet) and I dont need to worry about fighting with him yet!

Well I do sometimes When he doesnt have the product I want that other vendors have!!!

But I have read a few stories like yours so far.. But atleast it was a 9700Pro and not a 9500 or something

[Fat Elvis]

Here is a little hint....

Whatever card you get will perform poorly.

It is not the cards fault, it is your fault.

You still have traces of nVidia drivers on your system and that really screws up the ATI cards. Your best bet is a complete reformat and install. It will work like a champ then.

[meat322]

one word ( NEWEGG )

[bilnfon]

Simple, sorry to hear you had problems, but YOU should not have packaged it up wrong at the factory - it's YOUR fault LOL.
Believe it or not, this is not an uncommon problem - not getting the right card in the right box. I know of at least two instances personally when I got more than what I paid for. The video card I am using now was supposed to be 64MB, which is what I paid for but when I installed it - 128MB. It was stamped/stickered 64MB from the manufacturer. I wish you would have had the same luck and got the 9800 while only paying for the 9700. I am sure someone was mad when they got the 64MB card I was supposed to get when they paid for 128MB.

[jamezzz122]

best buy price matches?...what do i have to do? just tell customer service?

[gurutoo]

Originally posted by Fat Elvis
Here is a little hint....

Whatever card you get will perform poorly.

It is not the cards fault, it is your fault.

You still have traces of nVidia drivers on your system and that really screws up the ATI cards. Your best bet is a complete reformat and install. It will work like a champ then.

Fat Elvis has a valid point about removing ALL traces of Nvidia drivers...

[PointlesS]

yeah I think it's due to the fact that nvidia drivers are still installed on the system and that's why the card keeps screwing up...

[simple]

The problem is im running an nforce2 chipset and i just cant go into the registry and start deleting things, i dont know what is what.

I really f'in hate formatting and reloading windows if i dont have to, but maybe your right..

[Colossus]

Do this...

Uninstall the current drivers... Both Control Panel and Video drivers..

Then reboot..

Let it detect it as Standard VGA.. Reboot...

Then go into the registry and search for nvidia... There should be a section with several keys under a section called Video.. I usually delete the ones that contain old drivers.. They should have all the info of all the cards you owned.

I believe it is:
HKLM\System\Control\Video

[bluesfusion]

Originally posted by simple
The problem is im running an nforce2 chipset and i just cant go into the registry and start deleting things, i dont know what is what.

I really f'in hate formatting and reloading windows if i dont have to, but maybe your right..

Chiz. You blamed ATI all over and all the while your problems are probably cause of user not cleaning out the old system properly. There is an app out there called 'Detonator Destroyer' which is supposed to clean out the remnants of the old nvidia drivers but even it is not 100% foolproof. Go and format the drive.

[dyne]

Originally posted by simple
The problem is im running an nforce2 chipset and i just cant go into the registry and start deleting things, i dont know what is what.

I really f'in hate formatting and reloading windows if i dont have to, but maybe your right..

so having an nforce board and getting a radeon isnt the best idea?

[Sharkyfan22]

so having an nforce board and getting a radeon isnt the best idea?

My nforce2/9700 system works great..