Dealing with Swiftech's Support

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Well, as I posted before, Swifty's MCW50-T, which is advertised to fit the entire 9000 series, does not fit my 9600 Pro. Well, after a couple emails to their support, they stated that "No ideas without specific information. From your explanations, it seems that this board is a non-standard retention system." Well, he was asking for it..... I measured out and drew to scale an exact diagram of my card with full measurements []. Then tonight I got some pics too.... Here's the later part of the mails I sent in:

"This board uses the standard ATI mounting setup, but it is slightly lower. This is a characteristic of ALL 9600 boards, at least from the data I've gathered. This is the system used by ATI on their boards, with which you claim compatibility. I'm not sure exactly what kind of specific information you want, but I would assume that as a manufacturer of cooling solutions you would have hardware samples of the video cards you intend your block to cool, or at the very least technical diagrams. However, if that if not the case, I have made a 1:1 scale drawing which reflects the measurements of my 9600 Pro. I have no formal training in drawing technical diagrams, but I believe that this accurately shows the dimensions of my video card.

I have put a great deal of trust in Swiftech; every part of my watercooling system has come from your company. However, if basic issues such as the ability of a waterblock to fit the card that it is advertised to fit cannot be resolved, I will be going with a more reliable company in the future, and advising others to do the same.

Your customer,
[me] "

Here's the diagram:

Then later on, after not getting a reply today, and getting some pics:

"I've gotten a digital camera and taken a few pics. Forgive me, they're a bit blurry, this was using a borrowed camera which was not really intended for close ups. The first pic is from the top just to show that it is mounted correctly. The second shows how the neoprene just barely goes over the AGP connects, enough that I cannot get it to fit in the slot. The third demonstrates the same point, except from a side view. I'm tempted to cut the neoprene a little and make it fit, but this would probably increase the chance of condensation, and also void my warranty.

A timely response would be much appreciated, because as of now my main system is drained out and waiting for the addition of the gpu block, and I'm stuck using an old computer. It is too much of a pain to fill and drain with the Fill/bleed kit you guys make for me to want to do it any more than I absolutely have to.

Your customer,
[me]"

Pic 1:

Pic 2:

Pic 3:

Hopefully I'll get a usefull reply tomorrow.... if not, then I will try to contact Bill Adams through a PM at Procooling (I read a lot there, but don't post... I'm not knowledgable enough on most matters to say anything that would be of value to the pros over there).

 

[stumpy]

Sounds like a pain, hopefully they give you a decent answer...

 

[BillA]

no one here has any record of your e-mail
send it to Gabe@swiftnets.com.spam (delete the ".spam")

be cool

Addendum: for those curious about the video card industry

despite numerous and repeated requests, ATI and Nividia will NOT provide us with drawings - neither before a product's release or afterward

Swiftech does NOT purchase a sample of each new video card, nor do we intend to start doing so with product life cycles of 6mos

for the high-end boards in particular, we design and offer special mounting kits - sometimes we will sell 2 or 3 sets !

-> so rather than trying to give Swiftech the redass, why not ask the other readers if they have any experience with that board ?

 

[kronchev]

swiftech has screwed over a lot of people with GPU blocks

 

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From BillA: no one here has any record of your e-mail, send it to gabe@swiftnets.com.spam

Well, I've been in contact with that address since Monday, using the address servererrorATgmailDOTcom. Gabe is now working on getting me a refund through SVC (Update: Just got the RMA ). I didn't post the first couple messages, since they were kind of irrelevant, just the standard gathering info questions. I also already asked other users about that board, although it was unfortunately after my own failures with it.

From Swiftech Website: ...compatibility with ATI® Radeon™ 9000 & up, and NVidia® GForce™ families of products. Swiftech guarantees compatibility with ATI and nVidia reference models only.

Sorry if I'm a bit angry, but really you shouldn't advertise compatibility with the full series of cards if you haven't tested the full series. I didn't post any questions to others before because I assumed that when Swiftech claimed compatability with the 9000 series, they meant it. And to my knowledge the 9600 Pro I have does not deviate from the reference design. Being told that I had my card was non-standard seemd about just the right point for tech support to deny responsibility and subtely tell me it's my problem, so that's when I decided to come out and tell people about it. I have nothing against Swiftech, every watercooling component in my PC came is a Swifty, I'm not trying to give them, "the redass". But I was seeing a possible stopping point in tech support, so i decided it would be better to bring this issue to the attention of others.

I also made the mistake of draining my WC system out before checking on the compatibility of the block, and it was a royal pain in the ass (The instructions provided with the H2O kit are lacking and mor importantly, inaccurate..... there's no way blowing on the inlet without opening the discharge valve will do anything, and unless you've got some amazing lung capacity, this alone will not clear the system... but that's a different story), and I'm holding off until I get a working gpu block in there to fill again. So I'm without a decent PC for the timebeing, and am just frustrated and impatient in general.

I was really hoping for a fix, as this is in my opinion the best TEC gpu block out there, but I will settle for a return and for a lesser, but more compatible product from another company (Although the Silverprop TEC block has about the same performance, it's too expensive for me). To me it seems that Swiftech makes some great products, but this false advertising kinda swings me the wrong way, so most likely I will be going with other companies in the future.