hi there all well my bro bit the bullet and upgraded his puter , he got 64 3500 amd matching board with AGP and i gig ddr 400 ram,gt 6600 albatron , everything was fine under windows, but any 3d application caused the comp to freeze then to restart. We changed vid cards and it ran all apps fine , so we took back the borked card and got it replaced quick smart as it did exactly that at CA we get home to find the replacment card is borked also (they didnt beleive us so another trip to CA) so its time for a refund and rethink on what card to get

Asus V9999GT--->Ausum card(i have the 256mb version and it kills)
Asus N6600GT Series(this one is PCIE but im sure there is an AGP version)
http://au.asus.com/products/vga/vgaindex.htm
if Asus dont have a AGP version of the 6600GT i think Leadtech do

last edited by Irhabi at 17:01:41 30/Dec/04

CA are gonna get my computer again pretty soon, tis a shame how downhill they have gone. I ordered a machine from them few weeks ago and anyway they said it was all ready and tested, so we rock up and they go

CA: hey we dont have the monitor bl guys
Us: but you rang saying it was ready to pick up
CA: Well the machine is ready lol
Us: Wheres our f***ing monitor?
CA: oh maybe 2morrow, anyway lets go take a look at new machine
Us: cool so does it run?
CA: Umm it needs vid card etc and a windows install
Us: Err we gave you all that stuff and told you to install windows on the 80gb, its all on the quote, so in other words you haven't even run the machine to see if it works nor have you installed any components we gave you?
CA: umm come back in 2hrs plz

So we pick it up with no monitor and shiz and take it home, random crashes all over the show, take it back again and they find out the vid card is stuffed, its under warranty so it's going back and should see it in 8 weeks. Now they gave me a f***ing 9200SE to put in my new AMD 4000+, I wasn't f***ing happy and the new card was dodgey and dropping signal, so back we go again, and we argued with them to give us a card equal to the one that was in it.

The machine is still crashing and from what I can tell it's faulty RAM, I'm sick of this s***, why the f*** don't they test the machines properly before they give them to customers?

Tyler is the only one there holding the show up, and we dealt with some skinny useless c*** that was just being a smartass about it all. So next week it's coming back guys.

get the same card, from somewhere else, umart for example. if it is still f***ed. then KYS

yar, whats with vid cards lately?

im hoping that the dramas ive been having lately were due to a sus vid card (radeon 9550, system wasnt for a gamer)

i havent heard from my "customer" in over a week, so i hope that means his pc is working and hes happy;

My 6800 is working flawlessly, how do you like dem apples?

Iv had 2/3 Albatron 6600GT video cards work for me. The first one caught fire in my machine, I bought a replacement and bought one for my dads machine and both have been great.

sux to be you guys, my albatron 6800gt rocks and has for months now

skinny useless c*** that was just being a smartass about it all

i could hazard a guess about who this is but it's been yonks since i visited ca, could be someone entirely different =)

your post was about as useful as a kick the balls, thanks einstein.

your post was about as useful as a kick the balls, thanks einstein Manissa.

fixed for giririsss

last edited by Irhabi at 17:15:03 30/Dec/04

take it back again and they find out the vid card is stuffed, its under warranty so it's going back and should see it in 8 weeks

Actually since its a new product (if its part of the system you just bought) then it should be replaced on the spot since its DOA (inside a week). If they dont have stock then you might be faced with a wait.....especially at this time of year.

Most wholesalers will be open again on the 4th so you should have a replacement fairly soon after that.

As for testing machines properly....most places (at least when I used to work in retail) used to just do an install of windows and then assume that all was good as long as it ran.....you dont really have that much time to do more. Your PC wouldnt have been the only one they had to build.....if the install went flawlessly (which when they actually did it probably did) then they will have assumed all was good.

^^Its going to cost them more time when they have to fix the f***er though...

Sif you'd bother getting someone to build you a machine when you can easily build one for yourself.
As for skinny useless c***s, I find most people in the computer industry are pretty useless, they may also be c***s.

last edited by SD Gundam at 19:49:10 30/Dec/04

It's free tho, and I'd rather they f*** it up than me. Anywho manshoon the card was from a previous machine, which had been tested because the fan needed lubricating, thats when I got the machine, CA ok'ed the card. I realise they were busy but I honestly don't give a rats, it's now costing them more money to fix what they could have done initially if they had of tested it.

Ah ok this would be why the RMA time is 8 weeks. Old card....old stock.

Testing a machine can only go so far.....you cant expect them to stress test the machine before they give it to you.....this would add far too much time to their assembly line.....essentially thats all they have. Staff employed to build PC's.

You want your PC ASAP.....cant waste time stress testing them all.

I didn't care when I got it, considering I wasted 4 hrs in travel time alone, I would have rathered they spend the extra time to run a quick dx9 stress test(takes like 5mins) and if it didn't fall over in that, then ok it.

I'm not exactly gonna say to them "Oh well don't worry I'll keep making trips back and forth while you f*** me up the arse on christmas eve" It took them 3 days to go from saying It's Ready-being f***ed- and then being ready again and now it still crashes.

Oh wait maybe I'm in the wrong here? you're right, I should go in there and make sure the machine runs fine *rolls eyes*, the thing crashes within 10mins sometimes. Not only that they hadn't even run it or installed windows or my other parts which I gave them *ALL OF WHICH WAS ON THE QUOTE*

I would wait an extra day if that means a company is going to stress test a pc I just paid heaps of money for

Also I wouldn't be worried about assebly time considering when the machine comes back it adds more time to it, if they did it in the first place, it wouldn't ok.

http://www.ultra-x.co.uk/phdpci.htm

Maybe you should all voice these concerns to CA/whoever. Im just speaking from experience of working for Umart...spoon you are right in expecting a PC that works good first time. I never said you shouldnt get that.

If it happens again (no matter who the retailer is) get them to stress test it in front of you.....Im sure that a lot would be willing to do so to ensure a happy customer.

The fact they called you and said it was ready when it wasnt is juts poor form on their part and they need to pick up their game on that.

that card is pretty neat shame about the price.

Off topic, Giririsss what fps do you get in UT2004?
If you haven't got UT2004, just any other game, Doom3, Half-life2, etc.

Manshoon, I ran a few games there to make sure the replacement card was working, but now it would seem the ram is buggered as it crashes at random intervals and the error I recieve in event viewer seems to support that idea. I got no floppy drive in this though so I can't memtest it myself, and it was gonna take them 2 hrs to do, but after they replaced the vid card they said not too worry bout it.

last edited by spoon at 21:23:13 30/Dec/04

get a hold of the UBD.....burn it to a CD and then memtest. From the sounds of it they are just being slack.....it does happen around christmas as the staff are more thinking about the break than anything else (hell I was).

Keep pushing them to do the right thing......if it keeps being poor take it up with Jason (the owner) if needs be. Im sure he will sort things out for ya.

I got no floppy drive in this though so I can't memtest it myself

most memtesting software can be burnt to bootable cd

I gotta give props to tyler, on xmas eve he was a champ to deal with and was willing to do everything possible to get things happening, anyway yeah I'll do the bootable cd memtest.

Couldn't be bothered reading the whole thread, from the first few posts it just seems to be a big whinge session.

I just got an Albatron 6600gt though for Christmas and its working beautifully. Maybe try changing your AGP from 8x to 4x? I had some problems with my 9600xt freezing and crashing in games when it was running at 8x but changing it to 4x fixed everything.

I don't mean to make excuses but if someone has the capacity to repair 40 systems per day then please enlighten me? For the last week this is what we have been getting.

Spoon Shoot me an email ben @ computeralliance dawt cowm

If you have a distance to come we will get the system picked up from you.

Who said anything about the capacity to repair that amount of machines? All I'm saying is that the extra time spent on the machine would have made me a happy customer, I'm more annoyed about being f***ed around when it was half built without an O/S, btw it's about a 25-30min trip but after how long it took for the monitor to arrive I think I'd rather bring it in myself. Which is another thing, the monitor suposedly got there wednesday night, the guy rings at like 8am and said it got picked up just then and it would be there at lunchtime, lunchtime rolls around and we had enough of the lies from you guys so we rang the courier, and he says he didn't pick it up from you guys till 11:30, we got it at 3PM.

After spending nearly 4k and all this I'm really not happy at all, after I get this crashing buisness sorted (I'll run a memtest 2morrow) I hopefully won't have to deal with you guys again on the service issue.

If you have Geil running memtest isn't going to show anything.

Shoot me an email about all the outstanding issues and I will make sure they are all met.

Thats the best I can do.

Yeah I'm running 2x512 Geil, I think last time I was there I spoke to john or something, has a scar above his lip? anyway he suggested running memtest so he obviously didn't pickup on it. I'll email you now.

email sent fyi

You sure its not your ram. a64 boards are very picky on the ram. Try some different slots.

For the best service I recommend this. Buy a short or long sleeve blue button up shirt and get A Current Affair stitched onto it around the top left corner of your chest. That way computer shops will think they're under investigation and will give you the best service ever!

Anyway, CA has always been good to me.

8-)

Yeah I rang them 1hr and a half ago, "oh sure troy will ring u back in a minute mate", maybe he just forgot?..right guys?

^^hahaha thats why i build my own machines...make sure its done rite, if anything f***s up i can just open it and see what the problem is with out having to worry about voiding the warentee(sp)

yar, i build my own machines as well (props to decimate for his small fingers)

this last machine ive built though has been a hassle from the start (reset button stuck in)

then something up with power supply (wouldnt turn on all the time)

then, random screen blank outs
dunno if ive fixed it yet (havent heard back, hoping new vid card fixed it)

ill just say now, how much i hate mobo to case plugs, could they be any smaller or fiddly?

next up, is my immense dislike for extra usb headers, please, someone come up with a better system so us big handed guys dont have to spend hours fiddling with tiny asian hand sized plugs :(

yeah i agree, cant go wrong picking up all the components and building it urself, it may take a good half hour to do but at least u work out everything

just built my last machine, works like a freakin dream a64 3200+ w/ ga-k8nsnxp, 2x 512mb geil pc3200, and a soon to be asus v9999ge 6800 o/c'd to ultra levels

I am using ASUS Radeon X800XT PE with 256mb DDR3, nothing problems with it :),

yeah mate your e-penis is this much bigger now ....

this thread was in no way a critisism of computer alliance could not be happier with the service and for khel its not usual to get 2 borked cards ????? wouldnt u take defective hardware back???????if your vid card wont do 8 times AGp maybe u should take it back and get what u paid for..

No i'd just buy a new one.

I don't like confrontation.

lololol @ nef still playing q3 ???

Haha, quake 3?

Its 2005 guy.

i just bought the same card, from CA, and it does exactly the same thing. i thought, whaats the chances of it happening to me?

...

Chances are pretty good .... apparently.

If you have Geil running memtest isn't going to show anything.

Really? Why is that?

I still reckon its something else, not the video card. I got no idea what, but it all sounds a bit too odd to just be random faulty cards. Considering the same thing is happening, and the other guy has already returned it and had exactly the same results with a couple of brand new cards. I find it hard to believe that many cards could be faulty in EXACTLY the same way.

khel its not usual to get 2 borked cards ????? wouldnt u take defective hardware back???????if your vid card wont do 8 times AGp maybe u should take it back and get what u paid for..

Yeah, but it might not be the video card that is causing the problem, it might be something else in your system is what I'm saying. I dont know enough about hardware to really know either way, but as I understand it theres no real performance hit involved in going from 8x to 4x, and from what I read when I was googling up stuff about my 9600xt dying at 8x, there seems to be a lot of people who have problems with this sort of thing. If running it at 4x gives you the same performance and a stable system, then why wouldn't you?

last edited by Khel at 18:39:05 02/Jan/05

I find it believable, its called a Manufacturing defect?

OCAU is probably a good place to ask about this. I think i saw something about the card not switching fan speed correctly when changing from 2d to 3d apps, iirc it could be fixed by forcing the card to always run the fan at top speed using an app like rivatuner (i think).

That or power issues. (assuming its not a dodgy batch)

with the 6600gt it has been made for pci express. theheatsink is 3x parts. heatsink and fan for gpu and then there is a another component with another piece of heatsink on it. that there is what is used to change the card to agp cause it was solly designed for pci express. i was speaking to the supplier of albatron and i pointed that to them and they also stated the same thing on what was killing it. its that component under that piece of heatsink.


my 2 cents

well thats nice then why make a piece of f***ing hardware, then sell if it they know it's faulty.

For those of you that have the card I would suggest try turning off fast write in BIOS and also make sure chipset drivers are updated. Majority of the systems I have seen it fault on was Intel chipset.

So far the card seems to work best in an AMD based system.

Also AI dare say the RAM may be clocked a tad too high and this is something that drivers will probably fix down the track.

mine is AMD.

So does anyone know how I would check the temperature on my card or control the fan speed? Or even see the fan speed?

khel newer motherboards don't work with that temp program you're talking about, mbm.. thats it couldn't remember the name

it worked with my a7v266, when i got my a7n8x deluxe it stopped working and gave me all random readings like what you are getting.

dodgymon i wasn't even going to bother about changing agp fast write, but i thought f*** it, i'll give it a go, and it f***ing worked.

W00t, what sort of performance difference will it make though?

ok it must be a heat problem.

i turned off fast write, and it worked for about an hour solid of hl2, then it did it again. i'm considering buying one of those massive thermaltake heatsink and fans that go right around the car.

Before you go and buy a third party cooler and possibly void your warranty try blowing a desk fan in there just to see if it is a heat issue. Either that or in an air con room.

Last thing you need is to void your warranty and for it not to fix your problems.

Also what drivers are you running?

From what I have seen is the 66.93 are not very stable for the 6600 GT.

I have also read that people that are using rivatuner to enable/disable fastwrite instead of their BIOS seem to be fixing the issue.

what sort of difference does fast write make ?

it seems to work perfectly in CS:S but doesn't last long in hl2... wtf

From what I understand fastwrite allows direct access to the video memory. I am not sure about the difference it would make but I doubt it would be much.

Fastwrites is often a problem with ATI cards (they recommend it be turned off) but not usually no nVidia.

We bought an Albatron 6600GT from Umart in December and it played up too. Basically it was a heat issue. I reckon for starters they have a crap heatsink - big chunks of aluminium instead of thin fins of aluminium. It looks cool but it doesn't run cool.

On top of that when I took it back to Umart the lady I spoke to said Albatron shipped a batch without thermal paste between the core and the GPU. Which might be just enough that the card will run when the weather is cool but once the days heat up the thing fails.

After some arguing we got the full refund on the faulty Albatron (since it was DOA).

BTW, Manshoon do you still work at Umart? Next time I rock up there I'll ask for Manshoon ;)

although this isnt directly about the albatron 6600gt, the 9200se ive been using for the past few months has only locked up under extreme heat conditions, and thats only happened twice during hl2, i guess that can be expected on a 9200se running it at 1024x768 with most settings on high.....