The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Not that I know anything but Russ I have an ATI card and a sceptre monitor and it worked correctly from the first time i finally got durn win 7 on the comp
heh I really suck at quoting sheesh

 

Yeah that's an extremely uncommon problem. I have had many ATi cards, old and new, plugged into everything from a lowly Sceptre X7g Naga 17" VGA all the way up to a dual link DVI Dell 3008WFP and not a single issue. Mind you I am a gamer and I play games with my ATi cards daily and I have never had any sort of graphical corruption or heat issues to speak of outside of isolated cases with a known cause.

A bad memory chip is your most likely cause if you are indeed having heat issues. Have you downloaded the latest Catalyst software suite for the card? Windows drivers are only meant to function until you can get the newest drivers installed. I believe the newest version is Cat 10.6. And unless you didn't install drivers at all, that 9500GT's drivers will show up in Program Files, Add/Remove and the registry. I have owned and used a GeForce 6, two GeForce 7s, three GeForce 8s, and a GeForce 9 and all of them have a Program Files folder, registry entries, and a listing in Add/Remove. On XP, Vista and 7. The only possible way you don't have these is because you're only using Windows' generic VGA driver. If you download and install the latest Forceware(which is still the name of Nvidia graphic drivers upon my last Nvidia driver DL last week), there is a full driver control panel, options for 3D Stereoscopic, and Ageia PhysX support all included in Program Files, the Registry, and Add/Remove. These are not optional either. If you installed the drivers correctly, you have them.

Also, the switch from Nvidia to Ati is not that huge a deal. I find uninstalling the drivers and a run or two of Driver Sweeper Pro in safe mode is enough to clear it completely and make installing a different brand card problem-free.

And just for the record, I find it quite the opposite. Nvidia cards are more likely to have failures, heat issues, and driver problems. Once, upon switching mobos, I had to reinstall Catalyst Control Center and the drivers. All I did was DL the newest package and install. Absolutely no issues to speak of and again I game and watch HD media extremely frequently so anything affecting function or performance would stick out like a sore thumb. On Nvidia's side I've had times where ForceWare would stop working entirely and nothing would fix it short of completely uninstalling the driver, running Driver Sweeper in safe mode, and reinstalling in safe mode with the newest version. Not to mention the myriad issues with HD TVs, video scaling, etc. Oh and let's not forget the famous BSOD citing "nv4_disp.dll" which has happened to me several times with every Nvidia card, generation, and driver I have ever used.

I mean, not to bash your own choices, but you make the assertion that you will never buy ATi again because you had issues with one card. Then you make the point that Nvidia cards simply "work". If you are doing it right, so do ATi cards

Honestly Russ, I am surprised you would come to such a conclusion from a single experience with a card that may possibly just be faulty to begin with. What happened to the scientific process and simple reasoning? ATi owners wouldn't use the cards at all if every single card had those issues

 

everyone has their preferences though. People stop using gpus, mobos, cpus, hdds, etc ect because one failed on them, or a couple, why is this different. If something works, for someone let them stick with it .

 

It takes multiple major failures for me to stop using a particular brand. Certain companies still make that list. Acer/Benq, Asus, Epson and a few others are examples. nvidia aren't on the list for that reason, I just typically don't find anything gained by buying something from nvidia worthy justification for giving money to one of the world's most corrupt organisations.

 

Not to mention Phillips I'm close to giving up on epson myself They're thirsty printers, and they don't last nearly as long as they should!

 

lol sam you make them out to be apple, or israel.

 

Apple aren't very nice as a company, but I think I'd still vote nvidia as more corrupt
Omega: Philips, as in the dutch electronics company? how so?

 

Well I also have lots of nice things to say about Nvidia, but not for their current generation. Example:

- First to support SM 3.0 and HDR
- First to support DXVA(GeForce7) not counting the S3 S27 Chrome which is an interesting limited production card from the days of the Ati X1000
- First to support dual card(not counting Voodoo PCI SLI)

But they have a lot of fundamental issues from the way they do business to the way they design their cards. I personally choose not to buy Nvidia at this point for many very specific reasons not the least of which being their absolute failure to deliver on the promises of Fermi.

If you have personal reason for choosing Nvidia, I say go right for it. There's nothing truly wrong with buying an Nvidia video card. It adds variety, drives the market, forwards technology etc. If they work for you there's no real reason not to.

Oh and about Apple:

- Twice the price for the same exact hardware because it has a Mac logo sticker
- Half the performance with the exact same hardware because you're running Mac OS
- Complete inability to play games outside of Source and WoW and again half the performance of a comparable PC
- Completely unintuitive OS designed to keep you from doing advanced functions because Macs are designed for soccer moms and liberal hippies(lol purely IMO)
- There are few viruses for Macs because nobody cares enough about them to bother making a virus
- Almost no program support

Again, if a Mac works for you, go ahead and use it. I won't argue with you if you have good reasoning.

Everyone has their own choices and their own reasons for making them. Above all else, I understand that.

 

9/10 products I buy from that "Dutch" company are doomed to failure. Their name is a curse. I bought blank media from them, which wasn't even manufactured by them, but it failed. I've had headphones fail, rca cables fail, a stereo fail.
This is just me of course. Sam has bad luck with Asus, I'm sure I'll find a Mobo manufacturer that doesn't seem to work for me I hear people speak badly of Sony. I've never had a sony product fail me. I guess my luck resides in sony LOL! This probably sounds a bit mental. But from my perspective, everyone has good luck, and bad luck with a particular company. Just one of those things that can't be explained scientifically. Unless it's somehow are own thoughts that sabotage our purchased goods

 

Believe it or not, the most fierce criticism of Sony comes from Japan. There the sony 'death clock' is infamous. Sony are, in my opinion, a company that made their image by selling quality products and now exploit that image by building mediocre quality products that don't deserve the previously understandable price tag they preserved.

Apart from a few segments of the LCD, no issues with the 12 year old philips hifi we had. The two micro systems of them I bought both had failed CD loaders, one after a few months (was RMA'ed, is so scarcely used it's unsurprising it still works), the second one after about 5 years. Not an unreasonable duration of time for a product to fail IMO, and the rest of the system still works perfectly. Never had any issue with the Philips headphones I had in the past. We've had Philips TVs too, one we retired I believe just due to it being old (about 10 years or so), the other after about 4-5 years due to a problem with the power to the tube.

 

Just for the record, one of the TVs I own is a 15+ year old 30" RCA with R/W/Y input as well as stereo out hookups. Still has some of the most excellent picture quality I have seen on a CRT TV and still works like the day it was new. Gets used almost all day every day with everything from movies to plain old cable and has never had an issue. I do believe the only thing to break was the remote control from so many years of use. I found an identical control but a universal when I worked at the electronics repair store. Oh yeah it's also built into a solid wood cabinet/entertainment center. Wouldn't be surprised to see it at $800-1000 when it was new.

I also have a high end Scott stereo receiver from my dad that was purchased for $350 used in 1978. I still have it, still use it. Beautiful audio quality and such high power output. It supplies maybe 75W of power but has distorted $800 400w speakers due to the sheer volume. Granted this is far above comfortable listening levels.

 

That was early for RCA. RCA connectors had only recently started appearing on TVs back in the early 90s (that I remember, is going back a bit far )
the 5-6 year old Panasonic 25" CRT we had worked perfectly when we returned it to the lessor after we won our 26" LCD in a prize draw. My 5 1/2 year old Toshiba 24" CRT still works perfectly too and has an excellent picture quality for a CRT.

 

Sam,
I suspect the memory chip got so hot because of something wrong with it. Don't really know.

I didn't say there was an executable in the bios of the video card. I said the video card bios makes a call to an executable file, which is loaded into the running processes. nvsvc32.exe, located in c:\windows\system32. There is also a NVSVC32.EXE-if9eed18.pf in c:\windows\prefetch. That's the total sum of the files associated with my 9500GT on the entire computer. It only appears in the running processes when the 9500GT is installed. It should not be removed from the computer, as nothing but the video card bios can activate it, placing it in the running processes. put an Ati card in it and the process isn't loaded. Other software may make calls to it if it's activated, I gather to set specific parameters associated with the software being used, such as screen resolution.

I don't know what to tell you as far as a design flaw in the monitor goes, but it only shows as an "Unknown Monitor" using DVI with an Ati card. It switches to a completely black screen after the windows screen runs. The blue Sceptre logo is lit, meaning that the monitor detects a video signal, but the backlight remains off. It has worked with the VGA connector for the on board 3200 graphics of my previous motherboard, but there is no 1680x1050 to be found in the available resolutions list. 1600x1200 is as close as you can get. Sometimes it will appear if you right click on the desktop, and select settings, but if you set it to 1680x1050, it may or may not be there the next time you boot up. If you move the mouse pointer to the left, the additional part of the screen will scroll to the right. Move it to the right and the screen will scroll to the left. Same thing for top or bottom. Windows shows it as a Plug and Play monitor, and sandra does the same. Everest shows the make and model, as you can see below, so I don't understand why the ATi video cards don't recognize that it's at least Plug and Play.



I didn't have any problems with it using the 7600GT I had before, and I have no problems using the 9500GT I have now. There's no error messages, or anything like that. With the Ati I can install AOE II, but as soon as you try to play the game, the screen goes black, with the backlight turned off. When I put the 9500GT back in it, it plays perfectly, with the same install of the software. I'm going to install the HD 4670 in Oxi, in a couple of minutes and see what it does in it. I'll be back!

Russ

 

1600x1200 is a standardised resolution. 1680x1050 is not, so it will only appear if EDID is working. Usually it can be forced with a correctly installed video driver, however.
You should always install the full catalyst software suite with an ATI card, not just the basic driver, it makes settings like that a lot easier to adjust.

 

Sam,
That's exactly what I did. I installed the full catalyst. I was able to select 1680x1050 without any problem with the HD4670, but DVDs looked like crap when played, even factory ones. It had this crinkly look to the picture, where the detail sort of fell apart. It wasn't sharp at all.

I just finished installing it in Oxi, and it looks fabulous! I also installed the 4GB of Ram I just bought for it. AOE II came right up with no problems, as did the screen resolution when I set it to 1440x900. The detail borders on Exquisite. It looked great with the 7300GS, but this is fabulous! Problem solved! Now I can RMA the 9500GT back to MSI for repair or replacement, and I can use the 7300GS, until it comes back. I requested the RMA for it yesterday! In the mean time, I can keep my eyes open for a better nVidia card for mine, at a good price.

My thanks to everyone, for their input.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Oman7,
If I buy a Sony anything it's junk. My Sony Digital Audio Control Center was "Acquired"! LOL!! I took it when his Aunt was packing it up because the Guy left the country, owing me money. 420w, Dolby PLII, Coax and Optical SPDIF inputs, 5.1 Dolby Surround, and has a killer 10" woofer. Cost me $80, and I play my home organ installed on the computer, through it. 32' bass notes will shake the walls, floor and ceiling. If you leave the door open it rattles the wood panels in the door! LOL!! You do not want to do that on an empty stomach, I can promise you! LOL!! Sony generally is overpriced and over rated. They trade on their previous reputation today, while selling mediocre junk!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Hmmm, well I haven't bought sony in quite some time. Perhaps they have changed. As sam said, they use there well built name, to sell mediocre products. I was merely stating my experience with them. I fully understand others having negative experiences

 

To be honest, everything is built to a price with major manufacturers. It's only products with design flaws that tend to be worse than mediocre, nothing exceeds mediocre except those products built locally by the team that designed them, rare these days!

 

Oman7,
You have to consider that my Surround sound is about 7-8 years old too! They built things a little better than they do today! Hell, look at Dell! They cheerfully repaired thousands of computers with parts they new to be defective, before they installed them. Gotta keep that Money rolling in somehow! LOL!! Some Company that's suing them right now, has over 2000 inoperable computers! All with the same type of problems, all caused by sub-standard capacitors that Dell knew would fail when they repaired them. I somehow don't thing the Judge will be amused, or see it Dell's way!

Russ

 

Unlike Dell to be honest, I still see a high build standard in their new machines. How do you know it was Dell who knowingly authorised bad replacement parts? Not saying it isn't true, just asking for source.
The main problem with Dell PCs is the laptops with nvidia graphics almost always go bad as nvidia's laptop chip reliability is pathetic.