BFG Support, a new perspective.

alex_law said:
My symptoms were, starting about a month ago, occasional lack of sync when powering up the computer. Then, on Saturday morning during some horrendous BF2 attack helicopter behaviour on my part, poof! The display artifacted to the point of not being able to recognize anything. Subsequent reboots showed flashing characters and lines all over the BIOS and so on.

This is in a case with seven fans, customized to have a large fan blowing on the card itself, in a cool, dust-free room.

I'm not sure whether it's a BFG problem or not - it almost seems that this generation of cards pushed the envelope too far. I don't recall any previous generations having power/cooling requirements anything like these.
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Damn! Sounds exactly like what happened to mine. Do I detect a pattern?
 
Either way, I will be posting a progress report.

BFG will receive my faulty card on Wednesday.
 
Do BFG's fail more or do you just hear about BFG's failign more due to volume on market/threads like this that pop up every month or so?
 
Worminater said:
Do BFG's fail more or do you just hear about BFG's failign more due to volume on market/threads like this that pop up every month or so?
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i think you just hear more about it then others
 
Look at most of the threads in this forum. A large majority fall into either

a) My graphics are borked, help me fix it...
b) Which card to I buy?

How often do you see a thread that says "I love my card, been great for years". Exactly...you usually don't. Those people are off playing games......
 
Does anyone know which vendor sells the most nVidia cards???? Is it BFG??? it would make sense that the ones who sell the most would have their fair share of problems??? No one in this thread is owning up to OCing their card. I have had 5 or 6 BFG cards and none of them has ever borked. I havent OC d them. :D I have a Ti4600 that still works really well.
 
magoo said:
Does anyone know which vendor sells the most nVidia cards???? Is it BFG??? it would make sense that the ones who sell the most would have their fair share of problems??? No one in this thread is owning up to OCing their card. I have had 5 or 6 BFG cards and none of them has ever borked. I havent OC d them. :D I have a Ti4600 that still works really well.
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The BFG 6800 that borked on me was not OC'd (other than the factory OC which is the whole point of getting a BFG to begin with). In fact, it is the only graphics card I've ever had problems with. I still have the original Canopus 3dfx card I purchased in '97 to play Quake 2. Yes, it still works. Since '97 I've purchased many 3D cards, some were good, some sucked and were returned. The keepers still sit in my spare parts box, all working perfectly for what they were intended. Remember the original SLI? ;)

Point is, believe it or not, some graphics cards smoke without being OC'd. And, as it stands now, I would still purchase a BFG card, confident it would provide years of service - albeit in one of my kids computers due to my upgrading addiction...
 
My bfg fx5900u is working fine and has been working fine since I bought it when they first came out, figured id fill that void. Although if something did happen to it I wouldnt think replacing it with a 6800gt as that great of a deal. Replacing high end in its day with second hand refurbished mid range stuff doesnt sound all that appealing.
 
Guys don't knock it...You could just as easily have owned a VISIONTEK card. Here's my experience.... I purchased a Ti4600 (with lifetime warranty) back when those were the card to have. I used it until it started locking up. It was at that time I noticed the fan was'nt spinning. Not wanting to VOID the warranty by changing it myself (even though I had the expertise)...I called the company. I was informed that the company had changed hands and that the original warranty would not be honored. I subsequently went to my local Fry's electronics and for $18 purchased a Vantec fan kit. That card is still used to this day in my buddies computer, to play some of the latest games. It was a mistake on Visiontek's part, as I went on to purchase several highend cards including a 9700PRO, 9800PRO, 6800ULTRA O/C and most recently a 7800GT. Think of the potential sales they've lost in just my business alone. The 'funny' thing is I was happy with the card right up until the customer service snafu. I would never buy anything with their name again. It's the principal (lifetime MUST mean lifetime.)
The moral of this post is this: If they're willing to try and fix the situation, at least give them a chance to....some companies just are not willing at all. Lifetime warranty for some companies mean nothing.
 
Sharkzf6 said:
The BFG 6800 that borked on me was not OC'd (other than the factory OC which is the whole point of getting a BFG to begin with). In fact, it is the only graphics card I've ever had problems with. I still have the original Canopus 3dfx card I purchased in '97 to play Quake 2. Yes, it still works. Since '97 I've purchased many 3D cards, some were good, some sucked and were returned. The keepers still sit in my spare parts box, all working perfectly for what they were intended. Remember the original SLI? ;)

Point is, believe it or not, some graphics cards smoke without being OC'd. And, as it stands now, I would still purchase a BFG card, confident it would provide years of service - albeit in one of my kids computers due to my upgrading addiction...
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Sorry about your problem....I wasnt acqusing you of anything.....I was just wondering out load about OCs in general. I would also still buy BFG products because Ive always had exceptional function and good customer service.
 
Well my card's supposed to be here tommorrow...So we'll see about that...I'll take some pics tonight of the fuck up they sent me....Looks like the cards been dropped in a mud puddle
 
UPDATE: Well, today I recieved the FX 5700. Nope it is not a 5700 Ultra, it is a 5700 regular. So sure enough, after RMAing a video card, getting not one, but two different non-functioning ti4200 replacements, I was told I would get a wonderful "upgrade" to a 5700, which is infact slower than my ti4200 was. A month late and a slower card later, I have something that works, so I am done playing games with BFG for an inexpensive card like this.

There it is folks, a begining to end story of how my BFG RMA went.

*begins praying to the nvidia gods that his 6800gt has no problems*
 
Pray hard because my 6800gt died after two months...And no overclocking other than what BFG set in the bios....I personally think that heatsink might have something to do with it...They should've stuck with the design on the ultra....How many times do you hear of problems with the BFG 6800u? (Don't flame me, haven't done my research :( )
 
Lord of Shadows said:
My bfg fx5900u is working fine and has been working fine since I bought it when they first came out, figured id fill that void. Although if something did happen to it I wouldnt think replacing it with a 6800gt as that great of a deal. Replacing high end in its day with second hand refurbished mid range stuff doesnt sound all that appealing.
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Uh…dude, surely you realize the 6800 GT 256MB (that’s typically what they send when replacing) is a much faster card than a 5900 Ultra - when it comes to playing DX9 games anyway. ;)

Actually, I would be shocked if it wasn’t faster period… :eek:
 
Sharkzf6 said:
Uh…dude, surely you realize the 6800 GT 256MB (that’s typically what they send when replacing) is a much faster card than a 5900 Ultra - when it comes to playing DX9 games anyway. ;)

Actually, I would be shocked if it wasn’t faster period… :eek:
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Actually, I am pretty sure when replacing a 5900 Ultra, they replace it with a 5900 Ultra. If they are replacing ti4200's still (or atleast trying to), you can bet their FX lineup is the same.

This isn't an upgrade service, it's a repair/replacement service.
 
My symptoms were, starting about a month ago, occasional lack of sync when powering up the computer. Then, on Saturday morning during some horrendous BF2 attack helicopter behaviour on my part, poof! The display artifacted to the point of not being able to recognize anything. Subsequent reboots showed flashing characters and lines all over the BIOS and so on.
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this is almost exactly what happened to my 6800. I RMA'ed it got a 6800GT. That card artifacted the first time I played DOD:S the day I got it. Then it artifacted in windows even. RMA'ed that one and got and upgraded my PSU from 480 watt antec to a 500 watt antec with dual 12 volt. Third card worked fine in games but had horrible video artifacting problems playing any kind of media, even in cutscenes for games like Fallout. They had a fit of a time RMA'ing that card and said it was my problem even though it was a different problem for this card it had to be my fault. It took me well over 3 hours on the phone and a higher up said he would rma it but refused to do advanced (so I had spent upwards of 30 some dollars shipping cards and paying for replacement) and he made it sound like he was doing me a favor just by giving me the warrenty I should get. So I was sad since the first two went so smooth and I was recommending them as a good company and then they turned into a devil company (I'm not even going to get into the fact that one of their tech support lady hung up on me because she didn't know the difference between a motherboard chipset and a chipset driver so I gave her the wrong information and she ended up hanging up on me!)
 
DigitalEmperor said:
<snip> This isn't an upgrade service, it's a repair/replacement service.
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No shit! I don’t remember anyone stating this is an upgrade service. The point is, the guy implies he doesn’t consider a 6800 as good a card as the 5900U. I happen to disagree. And, for what it’s worth, both times I RMA’d with BFG I received a 6800GT 256, seems like a pattern to me.
 
wahoyaho said:
sorry i didn't mean for that to sound negative but now i look back at it, it kind of is. but maybe they should give you a 6600 at least if they are giving 6800gt to 5900s.

by lifetime warranty did they mean your life time or the life time of the card? if it's the prior, then they definitely should have some at least still working in stock :x
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They shouldn't be giving anything to anyone of that reason.. Any company has the same process. Legally they have to give you something of the same dollar value of the product you are giving back to them.

So, in the case that the 5900s are coming back as 6800gt's, the 5900 was the best of the FX line, which was garbage all around. BFG likely doesn't have much of any overstock of the GeForce 5 series, so they are required to send the customer off something equal to it. The 5900 was close to top of it's line, the 6800gt is the next logical choice.

The ti4200 however, was the lowest of the line (for ti range i mean). So they are legally required to send something within the same range. In this case a 5700 is quite fitting.
 
BFG is processing over 1,000 RMAs a week. Less than 10% actually come down to cards that have real issues. But I certainly think that that you put "complaints" into perspective with the volume. It is bascially the same story for any business that starts doing huge volumes. There are going to be folks that are pissed off. Some rightly, some otherwise, some for who knows why.

But when it is all said and done, be glad there was someone there to solve your problem at all.
 
Sharkzf6 said:
Good God! 1000 a week?! 10% of that is a hundred actual broken cards. Doesn’t that seem like a high rate of failure? Maybe BFG’s attempt to provide “out-of-the-box” OC’d cards to retail customers is backfiring…
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If they'r eprocessing 1000 RMAs you can only imagine the volume of cards out there total... and when it comes down to it, even if there are only 10,000 cards out there, and 100 are being RMAd you're looking at 1% failure rate.

And when it comes down to it how many of those 100 are user errors vs. manufacturing errors that they're probably STILL replacing just to keep the customer happy?
 
Well, I promised I'd follow up, so:

I shipped my card to BFG on Monday via UPS ground (a two day journey) and a replacement arrived on Friday, so they must have processed the RMA the day it arrived (Wednesday). That's impressively fast. The replacement card didn't arrive in full retail packaging - just the plastic inner - so I'm assuming it's a refurb, but it looks very clean.

I installed the card and it's idling at about 49C core, 32C system. In BF2, it doesn't seem to go above 70C core. My room temperature is probably 68-70 fahrenheit. I'd say that seems pretty good. I have great airflow, though.

No artifacts so far, so all seems good. I'm not counting on any piece of hardware until it's been burned in for a week, but so far I'm very happy.

I'll update if things turn sour, but I thought it was worth posting a positive story.
 
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