EVGA Warranty Question (strangest video card problem ever)

M

Matrices

Supreme [H]ardness
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Feb 5, 2003
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My luck fucking sucks.

It took me hours to get my GTX 470 SLI up and running last night, I come home today, and...it's broken again.

Finally narrowed down the issue:

EITHER card works fine when used alone. However, one of the cards will NOT boot if there is ANY other card in the system. In other words, 'bad' card almost always refuses to boot if I put my old GTX 260 or the 'good' GTX 470 in the second slot, but it works fine by itself. If I put the 'bad' card in the second slot, the system may or may not boot up, but if it does, it will never show up in device manager. How fucking weird is that? The other GTX 470 works fine when I use it alongside either of my GTX 260s.

Anyway, I have an EVGA RMA question: it seems that to do an RMA, I need to register the card. Then I get a new card, and I need to register that one. Now when I bought these cards, it was just to see whether I wanted to keep them or get 5850s instead, with the assumption that I could just sell them on the forums, unregistered, with warranty intact. Now if I register this card myself, RMA it, and get a replacement back, will I be able to sell the replacement card with the warranty intact if I don't register it?
 
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If it's a replacement you have to register it. They won't let anyone else register it. It's just another step they hope you'll forget to do so they won't have to give you warranty service, not a loophole you can use to offer warranty service to a second owner. Selling cards that need to be RMAed is rarely a good idea. Buying a registered EVGA card is a worse idea. Of course, that doesn't mean people don't do it all the time. They certainly do.

If you want to get 5850s instead, return them to wherever you got them and get 5850s. If you want to keep them, RMA both of them to avoid accidentally keeping a bad card -- and if that doesn't work, sounds like your board might have issues.
 
When you send off your old card it has to be unregistered. When you receive the new one THAT card will be replacing the old one, just make sure you register it with yourself because upon registration it'll show up as an RMA'd card in your products page with the lifetime warranty. Someone else CANNOT register the new RMA card with their credentials.

Best thing I can tell you is to register ASAP and offer to assist with RMA's when needed.
 
Great, so I'm basically screwed if I end up not liking the GTX 470s. Whole point of buying was to test these out and resell them and let the new owner register for lifetime warranty if I didn't like them. Now I've got a bad card and I can't submit an RMA for it without registering it and filing for a support ticket. So if I want to resell now, it has no warranty unless I want to my waste my time being someone else's RMA boy.

Fucking A. Well, guess I'm stuck with these cards then.
 
Also, seriously what the fuck kind of defect could there be in a card that makes it work (or at least boot up) fine when it's by itself, but completely broken when it's put in with another card?
 
I would have said.... motherboard issue... or something else....... not a GTX 470 issue...
 
And you'd be right, except that the other GTX 470 I bought works fine when I pair it with a GTX 260, and the bad GTX 470 never shows up in device manager when I put it in as a secondary card.

If both my GTX 470s exhibited the problem (or either of my GTX 260s all these months) that'd be another thing.
 
And to make things even more fun for me, this is the moronic reply I received from EVGA:

This problem is probably due to a lack of power. to use the 470 with a 260 you would need a 850w PSU with at least 60 amps on your 12v rails. I show that you have only a 750w PSU. Please test your setup with a 850w or greater power supply.
Click to expand...

You heard it here first, guys: you need an 850 watt power supply just for your system to boot with a GTX 470 and a GTX 260 (even though, as I already explained to them in my e-mail, the other GTX 470 boots up with a GTX 260 just fine, and even though GTX 470 SLI system under load doesn't use even 600 watts).

e: E-mailed a manager, and promptly got a reply from a different manager saying they'll replace the card and pay for me to ship this one back to them.
 
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I kind of had a similar problem. I had this 7950GX2 that works fine with the WDMM drivers, but as soon as I install the nVidia drivers, it won't boot into Windows. I could get it to boot into Windows by using VGA Mode, but that's no use for me. ASUS sent it back saying it was fixed, but the same problem occurs all the time. I also called the tech support and got a similar moronic reply as you did (I think a 500W EarthWatts should've been fine for this card). I ended up just leaving the card in my closet (it's still there, actually). I'm pretty sure the power supply wasn't the problem and it was all the card's fault. I also tried the card on another motherboard and a Cooler Master 600W power supply. Did the same thing. It makes me so mad just thinking about this -- money down the drain fuck ASUS.
 
Yeah, fuck that noise. That is why the first thing I did was e-mail a manager and I literally told him that his subordinate's explanation was "plainly ridiculous". Don't know how those Taiwanese-based companies respond, but EVGA does seem to come through in the end (will see).
 
Matrices, please update this thread when you get your replacement GTX 470 so we can be sure it was a defective GPU and not a different issue.

The reason everything I have is made by EVGA and Corsair is because they are basically the only American based support companies. The rest of my stuff is Intel and Western Digital. My case is an Italian company and my cooler (used to be Corsair, but Banchetto will no properly accomodate) is Taiwanese.

I have no issue with Asus except for the fact that any issues that come up involves communication problems and delays caused by distance. I would rather deal with someone who speaks and comprehends English fluently.
 
I don't know why anyone who has taken the 30 seconds required to read the OP would assume it is a PSU issue.

If you think 2 GTX 470s can overload a quality 750w unit, you're way off base. Doesn't even max out a 650w unit.

Again, for the third time...if it was a PSU issue, why is one 470 fine and the other one not fine? Yes, the PSU buzzes under high load, but that is a separate problem for which I'm RMAing it, and it's not even abnormal if you do a basic Google search, it's just an annoyance.

You could say this was a PSU related problem if neither 470 worked properly, but that's not the case.

Anyway, by the time I receive my RMA, I will have swapped the 750 with the 1k unit and shipped it off for RMA. But yes, dealing with American support company is much better than non-American based companies.
 
Careful with the HX1000. You need to load it properly across the rails - one of the reasons I dislike that unit.

If you had an HX750 <- IMO a much better unit. My HX850 can sustain 950W anyway...

If I ever get 2x GTX 480s I'll be upgrading to an Enermax Galaxy 1250, unless Corsair comes out with something new (single rail, high powered unit).
 
MJZ said:
Careful with the HX1000. You need to load it properly across the rails - one of the reasons I dislike that unit.

If you had an HX750 <- IMO a much better unit. My HX850 can sustain 950W anyway...

If I ever get 2x GTX 480s I'll be upgrading to an Enermax Galaxy 1250, unless Corsair comes out with something new (single rail, high powered unit).
Click to expand...

Can you elaborate? It has 3 cables that can plug into video cards. One I think is attached, and the other two are modular. I assumed each cable was on its own rail. You saying I should plug the 6 and 8-pin connectors into the video card from different cable strands?
 
Matrices said:
Can you elaborate? It has 3 cables that can plug into video cards. One I think is attached, and the other two are modular. I assumed each cable was on its own rail. You saying I should plug the 6 and 8-pin connectors into the video card from different cable strands?
Click to expand...

For some reason, the Corsair website and forums are down.

Go to the Corsair PSU section of their forums and read the sticky on the HX1000 pin out.

And if you stick around there long enough, you'll find out that the TX series has problems with Asus motherboards, a lot of people having coil whine etc... hell, 1/2 my system is Corsair but they don't make perfect products by a long shot. I'd still support them though because they back up their products with more than just words.
 
Hey, if you want to have options with your new purchase, you should have

1. bought from a place that allows returns in the first X days. Then you could return it if you didn't like it.

2. bought XFX.

You got yourself into this situation. Either live with your purchase, or take the hit selling without a warranty. It's your damn fool fault you got caught trying to exploit a loophole, so quit whining.
 
defaultluser said:
Hey, if you want to have options with your new purchase, you should have

1. bought from a place that allows returns in the first X days. Then you could return it if you didn't like it.

2. bought XFX.

You got yourself into this situation. Either live with your purchase, or take the hit selling without a warranty. It's your damn fool fault you got caught trying to exploit a loophole, so quit whining.
Click to expand...

1. Most places have 15% restocking fee
2. XFX does not make GTX 480/470
 
Heh, yeah. The genius doesn't seem to understand what a "loophole" is either; every other day someone on the forums is selling an EVGA product that is unregistered precisely so that the second buyer can get warranty. Where is the loophole if no one is being "exploited"?

No worries, though. My heatware speaks for itself, so if I need to be point of RMA, I can do that. Probably sticking with these cards anyway; looks like ATI cards can't do custom refresh rates, which Crysis needs to run properly on some televisions like my plasma.
 
Matrices said:
Probably sticking with these cards anyway; looks like ATI cards can't do custom refresh rates, which Crysis needs to run properly on some televisions like my plasma.
Click to expand...

The ATI cards supports all those resolutions even forced. Thing is that you need to have an extremely rare resolution if there is no support in CCC. You can add/force HD resolutions like 1080i25/30 or 1080p24/50/60 (add them through the hdtv support tab). Most of them are auto through EDID and all the settings are premade.

A long time ago, you needed drivers like Omega to get the extra resolutions, but now its just to select them. Custom resolution options are redundant these days. Now its plug, set and play without hassling with non-vesa standards and such.

The build in overscan/underscan support is also very nice in CCC if needed.
 
Matrices said:
Heh, yeah. The genius doesn't seem to understand what a "loophole" is either; every other day someone on the forums is selling an EVGA product that is unregistered precisely so that the second buyer can get warranty. Where is the loophole if no one is being "exploited"?

No worries, though. My heatware speaks for itself, so if I need to be point of RMA, I can do that. Probably sticking with these cards anyway; looks like ATI cards can't do custom refresh rates, which Crysis needs to run properly on some televisions like my plasma.
Click to expand...

I question the second hand EVGA registration. I have a ton of EVGA products registered and each one requires a copy of the invoice. I am not sure how they would treat an invoice sent to them with a different billing name, address, and possibly shipping name and address.
 
I have the same question, to be honest. It's not clear, since you don't need to upload your invoice to submit RMA, and while I got an automated message asking me to upload it, I don't know whether that was because I had just registered it or because I had just RMA'd it.
 
These are the things I thought of when reading this thread...

If it was me, I'd worry about getting a working card 1st, and future resale of the card 2nd. If I buy a product with the thought of reselling it,I look into all possible contingencies and outcomes in the future before buying, since the chance of getting a lemon is always a possibility, and seems to always be higher when I need a working part the most. Wouldn't the best course here be to exchange it from the place you bought it? 30 days and all that... Then again, if you already passed the 30 days, you can't blame anyone but yourself for sitting on it.
 
Matrices said:
I have the same question, to be honest. It's not clear, since you don't need to upload your invoice to submit RMA, and while I got an automated message asking me to upload it, I don't know whether that was because I had just registered it or because I had just RMA'd it.
Click to expand...

You will not get approved.

"RMA Approval

Once EVGA receives your RMA request the RMA will be reviewed by our department within one (1) business day. In order to approve your RMA EVGA will need a copy of the purchase invoice or receipt for the product you need replaced. This invoice can be uploaded to your product page.
To learn more about how to upload your invoice, please see our FAQ: http://www.evga.com/support/faq/afmviewfaq.aspx?faqid=58652"
 
I've run into this issue before too. A friend of mine sent in an RMA and it was denied because there was no invoice. He bought it 2nd hand unregistered (he was the first to register it). They shipped it right back to him.
 
Interesting - but leaves unanswered the main question - will they honor RMA if you submit invoice that is someone else's name and address? I mean, for all they know, the guy could be a friend and I bought him the card for his birthday or something.
 
Matrices said:
Interesting - but leaves unanswered the main question - will they honor RMA if you submit invoice that is someone else's name and address? I mean, for all they know, the guy could be a friend and I bought him the card for his birthday or something.
Click to expand...

Correct, but many warranty clauses will give warranty only to the original purchaser, making any sort of "gift, buying for friend, etc" situation irrelevant.

Here is EVGA's from their website:

"EVGA is recognized through customer loyalty and the highest levels in customer satisfaction. We continuously work to make sure that each purchase results in a customer for life! This is part of the EVGA Difference - known for offering value and performance, as well as top notch customer service.
In keeping with our valued ideology, we are pleased to offer our customers the EVGA Limited Lifetime Warranty Program.

Products registered within 30 days of purchase will also be eligible for our EVGA Advanced RMA (EAR) Program. For details on the advanced RMA program please visit http://www.evga.com/ear/

Please Note: As EVGA strives to honor the best limited lifetime warranty in the business we have made, and will continue to make, policy changes. Make sure you read this document carefully and check back for updates.

For our retail Graphics Card and Mainboard products that carry a limited lifetime warranty and were purchased on or after June 22, 2005, EVGA will provide a limited lifetime warranty to the original purchaser of each retail product and that the product will not suffer, in material or workmanship, from any defect that adversely affects the performance of the product. This limited lifetime warranty is valid for the life of the retail product, so long as the original purchaser owns the product, based upon the following conditions:
All EVGA Products purchased ON or AFTER November 1, 2006 MUST be registered within 30 days from ORIGINAL DATE OF PURCHASE to receive our limited lifetime warranty. (All products not registered within 30 days will ONLY receive a 1 year limited warranty.)

Removal and or Defacing of Serial/Part number sticker(s) on ANY EVGA products WILL void ALL warranties.

Products received by EVGA for RMA replacement that include third party attachments (CPU Heatsink Backplate, Memory chip heatsinks, etc) will have the package returned to the sender. EVGA may choose to remove the 3rd party attachments to continue processing the RMA at its own discretion.

ALL Defective products sent in for RMA replacement MUST INCLUDE A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL INVOICE / RECEIPT.

Products sent in for RMA will be repaired or replaced with a product of equal or greater performance.

Products purchased second hand or from an auction site do not carry any warranty.

EVGA does not offer refund on products not purchased directly from EVGA*. Refund claims would need to be processed through the vendor that sold the product, congruent to their return policy.

* [EVGA offers product refund only on products purchased directly through EVGA within 30 days of purchase.]
There is no physical damage to the PCB, GPU/chipset, or components that are caused by: Damage due to improper installation, damage during modification of any kind, damage during any type of aftermarket cooling installation, and water damage of any kind.

The product is returned to EVGA in the original factory configuration and condition. All aftermarket modification must be reversed before sending in the product for replacement.
EVGA reserves the right to claim for shipping fees along with a service charge* from the customer for any incomplete or modified product that is returned and requires repair or replacement, or when the customer is not entitled to any coverage under this limited lifetime warranty.

The EVGA limited lifetime warranty is only eligible for products purchased in North America.
The EVGA limited lifetime warranty is only eligible for part numbers ending in: -A1, -A2, -A3, -A4, -AR, -AX, -CR, -CX, -DX, -FR, -FX, -SG, -SX.
EVGA does not ship replacements to PO Box addresses.
All products shipping from EVGA's RMA department are thoroughly tested recertified products
EVGA will cover all return shipping back to our US and Canadian customers for the RMA replacement with free ground shipping through UPS.*
Customers located at military addresses (APO, etc) addresses, or outside the United States or Canada, will be responsible for return shipping.*
*Shipments being sent outside of the United States are sent through FedEx or UPS as Standard shipping. All RMA replacements to countries outside the United States will state Warranty Replacement on the package to assist in avoiding any Brokerage Fees through customs. EVGA is NOT responsible for any fees charged by the destination countries government body or brokers due to brokerage fees.
Shipments to military addresses will be shipped using the United States Postal Service.

EVGA reserves the right to claim for shipping fees along with a service charge* from the customer for any incomplete or modified product that is returned and requires repair or replacement, or when the customer is not entitled to any coverage under this limited lifetime warranty.

Please feel free to call us first for any needed support at (888) 880-EVGA (3842) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
We stand behind the products we sell, for their value, quality, and reliability.
Don't forget - EVGA offers the VGA Industry exclusive Step-Up Program.

* EVGA reserves the right to change this policy without advance notice. Service charge is variable based upon the actual material cost to replace missing or modified parts back to their original factory condition."
 
Makes sense, thanks.

Oh well, this way I know I didn't lose out at all by having to register a card to RMA it myself. :)
 
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