Don't touch your BFG

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12 Axes

Limp Gawd
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Just a little friendly reminder to all those people with BFG cards. If you attempt to overclock your already overclocked card you will void your warranty. Also if you remove the stock cooler to put a different cooler on, say like a waterblock that some of thier cards come equiped with, you also void your warranty.

Just doing a little venting here. I bought a $600 7900GTX. From an american company, yes thats important to me. With a lifetime warranty. I failed to read the fine print. The card has started artifacting at stock speeds. So I called up BFG and they said they will not honor the warranty for the reasons listed above.

Just a tip here. I read through the fine print on EVGA and XFX's lifetime warranties. They don't care what you do with the card as long as there is no physical damage and you return it with all the stock hardware they honor their lifetime warranties. Happy shopping.
 
yeah EVGA and XFX all the way, who the hell keeps their card with the wimpy stock cooler on?
 
i still say the premium vendors need to start using premium coolers and most people wouldn't bother replacing their crappy reference coolers on reference cards, the only thin that makes these cards different from some tiny no name brand is the sticker/box and warranty, if the the warranty isnt going to backup installing a proper cooler..whats the point
 
CanadaOwnsJoo said:
i still say the premium vendors need to start using premium coolers and most people wouldn't bother replacing their crappy reference coolers on reference cards, the only thin that makes these cards different from some tiny no name brand is the sticker/box and warranty, if the the warranty isnt going to backup installing a proper cooler..whats the point
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Agree completely.

BFG's 9600GT OCX rocked a nice zerotherm cooler and got great temps; it was a great overclocker and punched way above its weight.
 
I don't know about typo, but the 7900GT/GTX had a bad batch at the beginning. If it started artifacting after using a new heatsink for a while, and it's artifacting at stock speeds, it may be from the initial defective batch. Ask them how they can ascertain that info.
 
Seriously, you're upset your couldn't warranty a 4 yr old card? It may have been a $600 card in 2005, but it might be worth $20 now.

Also, you always need to read the warranty.
 
Why did you admit to them that you overclocked the card? They can't tell unless you tell them. As far as removing the stock heatsink, well you should be able to put it back on unless you actually damaged something, in which case the warranty shouldn't apply..
 
What a horrible thread. 3-4 year old card, replaced stock HSF, OC'd and admitted to it, lol. You shouldn't have to read the fine print, it should be common sense.

Silly consumers and their silly complaints.
 
That's why I bought EVGA cards. I do change out the heatsink/fans at times and overclock.
After reading the warranty, it was an easy purchase choice.
 
I guess it's a matter of being truthful; you could simply elect to not tell BFG that you overclocked your graphics card and that would be that. With XFX and EVGA, it's a non-issue as it's covered by their warranties.

So choose what you want to do with BFG; if you choose to not tell them that you OC'ed or replaced the HSF at one point, then essentially, it's the same as EVGA or XFX's friendliness towards OC'ing and modifications.
 
joecuddles said:
What a horrible thread. 3-4 year old card, replaced stock HSF, OC'd and admitted to it, lol. You shouldn't have to read the fine print, it should be common sense.

Silly consumers and their silly complaints.
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QFT.

You modify it and/or run it outside of the designed spec, warranty void, that's been the case with virtually all companies, and rightfully so. You can't legitimately expect them to be responsible for some dork tweaking with their design.
 
Unless you have some of their TIM handy, simply removing the heatsink would show it was not in stock condition.
 
Kowan said:
That's why I bought EVGA cards. I do change out the heatsink/fans at times and overclock.
After reading the warranty, it was an easy purchase choice.
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It's the things like letting me overclock, swap coolers, the Step-up program, and even offering software to overclock and overvolt on their website that sold me over to EVGA. That's not even taking into consideration when I call them I get to talk to an English speaking American that doesn't have to look at a cue card to answer my questions. BFG used to be the only company that factory overclocked, catered to enthusiasts, and had good customer support, but that has changed. BFG OCs their video cards by around 15MHz now and expects us to be satisfied with it or void the warranty. I do like that BFG started offering the upgrade program. It's a step in the right direction. Now if they'd just get rid of the radioactive bald swimmer for their mascot...
 
Astral Abyss said:
It's the things like letting me overclock, swap coolers, the Step-up program, and even offering software to overclock and overvolt on their website that sold me over to EVGA. That's not even taking into consideration when I call them I get to talk to an English speaking American that doesn't have to look at a cue card to answer my questions. BFG used to be the only company that factory overclocked, catered to enthusiasts, and had good customer support, but that has changed. BFG OCs their video cards by around 15MHz now and expects us to be satisfied with it or void the warranty. I do like that BFG started offering the upgrade program. It's a step in the right direction. Now if they'd just get rid of the radioactive bald swimmer for their mascot...
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Just wanted to point out that when you speak to someone at a call center and they speak English they aren't necessarily American. Call centers are huge in Canada (especially my city) and almost all of the places I've worked for have dealt with Americans, a lot of times exclusively. Road Runner technical support is located in my town and deals with only American clients, for example. I'm not saying EVGA is located in Canada, but I just think it's a bit silly to include 'American' in that sentence. Saying that they're English speaking gets your point across just fine and chances are a lot of times they're Canadian.
 
I bought a card three years ago that had a "lifetime" warranty. I admitted I didn't read the fine print. Just trying to put the word out. If a warranty factors into your buying decision at all don't be fooled by BFG's "lifetime" warranty.

I don't believe I should be forced to decieve the company to get them to warranty the card. No part of the card was damaged by replacing the heatsink. I didn't do any volt mods or any such thing to alter the card. I merely moved the slider in the included overclock utility. I've never heard of that causing any permanent damage all by its self.
 
12 Axes said:
I bought a card three years ago that had a "lifetime" warranty. I admitted I didn't read the fine print. Just trying to put the word out. If a warranty factors into your buying decision at all don't be fooled by BFG's "lifetime" warranty.

I don't believe I should be forced to decieve the company to get them to warranty the card. No part of the card was damaged by replacing the heatsink. I didn't do any volt mods or any such thing to alter the card. I merely moved the slider in the included overclock utility. I've never heard of that causing any permanent damage all by its self.
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Altering the cooling solution definitely impacts the design. The warmer electronic parts are allowed to run, often the shorter life they will have. They know nothing of the quality of the heatsink/fan you have selected, they have tesed or evaluated the design, nor can you expect them to evaluate every third party design. There are cases where replacement heatsinks keep the main GPU cooler, but don't take into effect other components. My ASUS motherboard came with an extra fan to attach to the northbridge, why? For people who water cool, sure a water block keeps the CPU cool enough, but it doesn't provide airflow and cooling across all the other components on the board. Voltage regulators, north bridge, etc. So there may be a case that your aftermarket cooling only took into account part of the necessary cooling equation for a solid product.

They can't know if you flexed the board and physically weaked/compromised any traces, introducing impedence or capacitance. Excessive handling may have subjected it to more ESD.

Increasing clock speed increases power draw, increases heat dissipation, increases current being pulled across the traces of the card. This obviously impacts the design, and was not accounted for during R&D.
 
Also, lifetime doesn't necessarily mean lifetime (thats why you have to read it). PNY's warranty for example defines lifetime as only as long as they are producing the card. I didn't see that until after I bought two 8800GTs, but my fault if one of them ends up failing now.
 
Moot points honestly. Next time buy EVGA or XFX. Tell BFG how you feel with your wallet. They could give 2 shits otherwise.
 
darkpaw said:
Also, lifetime doesn't necessarily mean lifetime (thats why you have to read it). PNY's warranty for example defines lifetime as only as long as they are producing the card. I didn't see that until after I bought two 8800GTs, but my fault if one of them ends up failing now.
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Yeah, PNY's interpretation of lifetime leaves a bit to be desired...but usually so do their cards. BFG, eVGA, XFX, etc...have all done really well by consumers in my book so that's where my money goes.

At the end of the day though, it's up to you to read the terms before purchasing an item, and decide if there are any restrictions on them that would make you want to look elsewhere.

SilverSliver said:
Moot points honestly. Next time buy EVGA or XFX. Tell BFG how you feel with your wallet. They could give 2 shits otherwise.
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While the mighty dollar is the be all, end all for any company; I think it's clear that a lot of manufacturers know how reputation can affect sales. My personal opinion is that BFG does care, as I've seen them reach out to help customers where they otherwise weren't obligated to do so. While I think they would do well to equal or better the warranty provided by competitors, it hardly makes them evil if they don't; as long as they're up front about what coverage is provided.
 
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I honestly don't blame BFG for their warranty policies. Working in the industry I see a lot of dumb people doing dumber things. Everything from "My cpu is 1.8ghz so I tried to match that when I overclocked my card because I heard a 1:1 ratio is the only way to get 100% out of your card" to some idiot trying to return a motherboard and ram. There was an obvious burn mark on the ram and the slots. The board was an EVGA 680i and the ram a stick of Corsair DDR400 XMS.. can you guess what happened?

I support BFG in their lifetime warranty. They are warranting the card, not the actions of the owner. I wouldn't be going too over the line to say that when I worked at pcclub, 9/10 of the returns were from customer error. Either lack of knowledge (buying a pci-e card for agp) or just plain stupidity. Video cards costs are so inflated right now that I don't think we need companies to inflate it more to cover stupidity in their warranty.
 
joecuddles said:
Just wanted to point out that when you speak to someone at a call center and they speak English they aren't necessarily American. Call centers are huge in Canada (especially my city) and almost all of the places I've worked for have dealt with Americans, a lot of times exclusively. Road Runner technical support is located in my town and deals with only American clients, for example. I'm not saying EVGA is located in Canada, but I just think it's a bit silly to include 'American' in that sentence. Saying that they're English speaking gets your point across just fine and chances are a lot of times they're Canadian.
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pffft American = includes Canada.
 
Don't blame BFG on their warranty policies just because you didn't read the fine print.

And to be honest, your 7900GTX is worth 20-25 dollars at most. I think it's time to just buy a new video card that will outperform the 7900GTX. Plus, even if you did manage to send it in for an RMA. You wouldn't get a 7900GTX in return.
 
lloose said:
I honestly don't blame BFG for their warranty policies. Working in the industry I see a lot of dumb people doing dumber things. Everything from "My cpu is 1.8ghz so I tried to match that when I overclocked my card because I heard a 1:1 ratio is the only way to get 100% out of your card" to some idiot trying to return a motherboard and ram. There was an obvious burn mark on the ram and the slots. The board was an EVGA 680i and the ram a stick of Corsair DDR400 XMS.. can you guess what happened?

I support BFG in their lifetime warranty. They are warranting the card, not the actions of the owner. I wouldn't be going too over the line to say that when I worked at pcclub, 9/10 of the returns were from customer error. Either lack of knowledge (buying a pci-e card for agp) or just plain stupidity. Video cards costs are so inflated right now that I don't think we need companies to inflate it more to cover stupidity in their warranty.
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QFT.
 
12 Axes said:
I bought a card three years ago that had a "lifetime" warranty. I admitted I didn't read the fine print. Just trying to put the word out. If a warranty factors into your buying decision at all don't be fooled by BFG's "lifetime" warranty.

I don't believe I should be forced to decieve the company to get them to warranty the card. No part of the card was damaged by replacing the heatsink. I didn't do any volt mods or any such thing to alter the card. I merely moved the slider in the included overclock utility. I've never heard of that causing any permanent damage all by its self.
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The thing is BFG defines 'lifetime warranty' in the fine print. It's your own problem if you don't read it. BFG isn't responsible for how you interperet 'lifetime warranty', that's why the fine print exists. Hopefully all the whiners here have learned their lesson and in the future will be more responsible consumers and blame themselves when they make a mistake rather than the big bad corporation.

Oh4Sh0 said:
pffft American = includes Canada.
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Obvious troll is obvious.

Just as a general comment, I find that with about 95% of consumer complaints, the consumer is 150% the one to blame. Having worked in a lot of customer service related positions, the customer is almost never right. They either don't full understand what's going on or are just blindly finding somewhere else to take the blame. It's not very often I read about a consumer 'complaint' or grievance that is actually justified. This one is definitely not justified.
 
Kowan said:
Did you read the thread? Only the OP is complaining and admits he didn't read the warranty.
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Syntax is this important to you? Interesting. I mean I could understand if it affected what was said or had some sort of impact, but in this case it doesn't. I only skimmed this thread, because my brain can only handle so much stupidity at one time, I was worried I might expose myself to more.

Might I suggest something like Sodoku or Solitaire to fill your free time?
 
Oh4Sh0 said:
pffft American = includes Canada.
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Lol this is why you see Americans travel overseas wearing the little Canada flag pins and Canadian flags on their back packs... lol, keeps people from spitting in their dinner amongst other things :p

but I doubt their call center is up here, however when I call Dell Canada (Business) I get someone in Alberta, if you call the Generic Business # I get Texas, if you call the home user support hot line, i get a disaster and up up asking for someone who speaks English 50 times, someone who has read English for dummies and makes it their 8th language is not English dammit.

Either way I went EVGA this time around, since im not a fan of reference coolers and id like to keep a warranty.
 
joecuddles said:
Just wanted to point out that when you speak to someone at a call center and they speak English they aren't necessarily American. Call centers are huge in Canada (especially my city) and almost all of the places I've worked for have dealt with Americans, a lot of times exclusively. Road Runner technical support is located in my town and deals with only American clients, for example. I'm not saying EVGA is located in Canada, but I just think it's a bit silly to include 'American' in that sentence. Saying that they're English speaking gets your point across just fine and chances are a lot of times they're Canadian.
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Correct, they're usually Indian.

I suppose I should have said North American to keep our friends to the North happy. :) You're right though, I've dealt with many HP phone techs that are from Canada, don'tcha know.
 
Astral Abyss said:
Correct, they're usually Indian.

I suppose I should have said North American to keep our friends to the North happy. :) You're right though, I've dealt with many HP phone techs that are from Canada, don'tcha know.
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HP support is in the same building as Road Runner, haha ;)
 
CanadaOwnsJoo said:
Lol this is why you see Americans travel overseas wearing the little Canada flag pins and Canadian flags on their back packs... lol, keeps people from spitting in their dinner amongst other things :p
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Lol. That made my night even if I live in USA.
 
DTN107 said:
Lol. That made my night even if I live in USA.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6666338/

Haha, it's pretty funny stuff. When I was in Mexico a few years back I noticed the different treatment between Canadians and Americans In general people just seemed to get friendlier when we mentioned we were from Canada. Our bartender even wore a Canadian hat a tourist gave him every day he worked, haha.
 
Menelmarar said:
QFT.

You modify it and/or run it outside of the designed spec, warranty void, that's been the case with virtually all companies, and rightfully so. You can't legitimately expect them to be responsible for some dork tweaking with their design.
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His gripe is that they're suppose to be a premium brand and that their competitors have the same lifetime warranty while not limiting him on what he can do with his card. Not only that but they also punish you for being honest. Doh.
 
osrk said:
Not only that but they also punish you for being honest. Doh.
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There's no logic in this statement. They don't punish you for anything, and to say that the company is punishing you because you overclocked and were 'honest' (as if that some how erases the fact that you broke the warranty?) is simply ridiculous.
 
personally, i can't imagine someone honoring lifetime warranties that include doing whatever the hell you want to their product. have you read some newegg reviews lately? there are some seriously dumb ass people out there building pcs that shouldn't be.

that being said, it's pretty big nuts for xfx and evga to offer coverage under those circumstances. it says a lot about how they feel about their product and how much they value your business. kudos to both.
 
joecuddles said:
There's no logic in this statement. They don't punish you for anything, and to say that the company is punishing you because you overclocked and were 'honest' (as if that some how erases the fact that you broke the warranty?) is simply ridiculous.
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Because they can't really tell that you overclocked by 5-10%. What are the tell tale signs of overclocking by such a small percentage? Go ahead list them off. They could never tell unless you told them.
 
osrk said:
Because they can't really tell that you overclocked by 5-10%. What are the tell tale signs of overclocking by such a small percentage? Go ahead list them off. They could never tell unless you told them.
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So your point is... that they only know it's OC'd if you tell them? OK? What does that have to do with what I said?
 
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