I think if there is some newsworthy item that will greatly affect my purchasing decision, it should go in hot deals, especially if it has to do with a known hardware defect.
Not as elaborate as chasm22 but effective.Originally posted by: AmdInside
I think if there is some newsworthy item that will greatly affect my purchasing decision, it should go in hot deals, especially if it has to do with a known hardware defect.
Originally posted by: ridefree
Get your ATI newz here!
In certain cases, after installing the RADEON 9700 PRO 128MB in an AGP 8x capable motherboard, the system will not post, or boot up.
Friends, do not let friends buy defective video cards!:Q
Originally posted by: Coraanu
Good, maybe we'll see some in Newegg refurbs!
Originally posted by: chasm22
Hey Mod; WTF! is this thread and others like it doing in Hot Deals? Last time I looked the forum was suppossed to be a place to; "Post the hottest prices and deals you've found on the net...". How does this thread qualify? If anything, it might go under the Brag and Moan thread, but in reality it should be placed in General Hardware or under a thread that was initiated for just this topic in the Anand Tech News forum. Why initiate a thread there and let this thread exist here in the wrong forum? Maybe we should all start posting our own little "Hot! News" threads. I think I'll start a Hot! News thread about Fujitsu shipping 10 million faulty drives. Or how about Maxtor cutting the warranty on its IDE hard drives from 3 years to 1 year. To me these topics are as newsworthy as what ridefree has posted. I'll put money on it that there ain't 10 million radeon 9700 pro's out there. And I bet a lot more people will be affected by the maxtor announcement. But, to put it simply, news isn't what this forum is about. Like I said before, there is the Anandtech news forum for that.
This forum is for hot deals.
Originally posted by: nexialist
Visiontek is out of business?
Since when? web sit is still up and running.
Like Creative never admitted it was the SBLive series of cards that was out of PCI spec? Isn't it interesting that nearly EVERY motherboard manufacture released an update to workaround this issue, and VIA released a software fix, but creative NEVER released anything to fix this? In fact, for 2 years while this issue went on they never ONCE released a driver update for thier Sblive! product. (For Win 98 anyway). They STILL have not released a driver for SBlive in win98 newer than 2000. Now I doubt they will update it at all.Originally posted by: SilentRunning
My understanding is that some people have gotten the cards to work by updating the bios on their motherboards. Just because a manufacturer admits they are looking into an issue concerning their product does not mean that it in itself is defective. And if they can modify their product to work with the existing 8x AGP motherboards it still does not mean that they failed to meet the AGP 8X specs. It could be that the motherboards are out of spec such as the infamous epox motherboards which the geforce4 cards would not fit because they did not follow the agp specs.
The only radeon I ever tried caused tons of problems with my system. I rarely hear nvidia's new products having so many issues. But radeon's have always had issues. What about when they released that one radeon (original? 7000?) with basically beta drivers, no AA smoothvision, etc? It took them months after cards were selling retail to fix that.Originally posted by: Orbius
Guess what the 9700 still blows Nvidia out of the water right now, you'd be better off accepting that fact than taking pleasure at a small problem, thats already been fixed.
You've been waiting to use NVidiots for awhile now haven't you.Originally posted by: Gilby
Can we lock this? Various unsupported and exaggerated rants by NVidiots do not a hot deal make.
I wonder how long ATI will need to turn these boards around?. I also wonder what you will use to display video while ATI is turning the 9700 around? Anyone remember the ATI Wonder? :|and having to send your card back for replacement is an even bigger pain, even if it is free.
That must be me!You watched too much "The Best of" from Food Network
cnicol, guess who didn't know there was a Video Forum?could also work in the General Hardware....or video sections as well!
Originally posted by: DevistaterLike Creative never admitted it was the SBLive series of cards that was out of PCI spec? Isn't it interesting that nearly EVERY motherboard manufacture released an update to workaround this issue, and VIA released a software fix, but creative NEVER released anything to fix this? In fact, for 2 years while this issue went on they never ONCE released a driver update for thier Sblive! product. (For Win 98 anyway). They STILL have not released a driver for SBlive in win98 newer than 2000. Now I doubt they will update it at all.Originally posted by: SilentRunning
My understanding is that some people have gotten the cards to work by updating the bios on their motherboards. Just because a manufacturer admits they are looking into an issue concerning their product does not mean that it in itself is defective. And if they can modify their product to work with the existing 8x AGP motherboards it still does not mean that they failed to meet the AGP 8X specs. It could be that the motherboards are out of spec such as the infamous epox motherboards which the geforce4 cards would not fit because they did not follow the agp specs.
I removed that part of the post because I didn't think it was relevant to my point about Creative/SB. I was mainly ranting about the SB live in that quote, I have personal experiance with that, and I do NOT have personal experiance with the 9700 ATI card. In fact I didn't even mention ATI once there in the quote you put up. I did imply some things though, some intentional, some unintentional. However, I quoted your entire post this time since you disagreed with my editing.Originally posted by: SilentRunning
Originally posted by: DevistaterLike Creative never admitted it was the SBLive series of cards that was out of PCI spec? Isn't it interesting that nearly EVERY motherboard manufacture released an update to workaround this issue, and VIA released a software fix, but creative NEVER released anything to fix this? In fact, for 2 years while this issue went on they never ONCE released a driver update for thier Sblive! product. (For Win 98 anyway). They STILL have not released a driver for SBlive in win98 newer than 2000. Now I doubt they will update it at all.Originally posted by: SilentRunning
My understanding is that some people have gotten the cards to work by updating the bios on their motherboards. Just because a manufacturer admits they are looking into an issue concerning their product does not mean that it in itself is defective. And if they can modify their product to work with the existing 8x AGP motherboards it still does not mean that they failed to meet the AGP 8X specs. It could be that the motherboards are out of spec such as the infamous epox motherboards which the geforce4 cards would not fit because they did not follow the agp specs.
Seeing that this has now been moved to the appropriate forum I will respond.
My point is that you should not jump to the conclusion that the Radeon 9700 is defective because it doesn't work in AGP 8X motherboards, it could be the motherboards that are defective. Why would someone flat out state the the video card is the culprit when both the video card and the motherboards are new technology.
People say that ATI should have tested the card in all motherboards and their response was that they tested it in the reference motherboards and it worked (which makes me question how well the motherboard manufacturer followed the reference guidelines). Now can't the motherboard manufacturers be held to the same standard. Which AGP 8X graphic cards did they test with their motherboards before they shipped them?
Since Epox is already known not to have follow the AGP physical specification for their AGP slot in the past, why is it not possible that they or other motherboard manufacturers failed to comply with the electrical specifications for AGP.
Now as for your point about the SBlive card. My understanding is the one of the test criteria for the PCI standard is a test for bus parking. The SBlive assumes working bus parking, Intel chips implement bus parking, and the Via chips did not implement it properly. So how does that make the SBlive out of spec for PCI?
Furthermore Via did not release the initial fix for the issue it was a third party that released the latency patch.
And thanks for leaving out the following from my initial post:
So while it might be reasonable to urge caution in a purchasing decision, stating that the ATI cards are defective at this point in time is out of line.
I think I offer a fair assessment of the situation which is that at this point and time we do not know who or what is at fault: ATI, the motherboard manufacturers, or the specifications. This is always the case with new technology.
I didn't STATE they were defective. If I implied that it was 100% certain they were at fault, I'm sorry. However, my past experiance with ATI and thier history makes me more prone to consider that they are possibly at fault."So while it might be reasonable to urge caution in a purchasing decision, stating that the ATI cards are defective at this point in time is out of line."
Hardocp also mentions that they personally have only found the ASUS kt400 board to have this problem. So I could be wrong, I thought that it happened with more than one board. Or maybe H hasn't tested enough 8x boards yet, I dunno.The problem is caused by a combination of power supply and motherboard +5V voltage ramp curves creating a situation where certain process corners in the ASIC will intermittently return an incorrect value for the ASIC ID after a cold boot.
Fix:
* Short-term solution is diligent screening prior to shipping.
* Long-term there are 2 options:
1. A modification to the motherboard BIOS (system BIOS) to create an extra read of the ASIC ID, the return value of which is ignored. The second read of the ASIC ID will then return the correct value
2. A board modification to monitor the read of the ASIC ID using programmable logic which will generate a NAK command back to the Northbridge controller while allowing the Radeon 9700 Pro to act as if the read command were executed successfully in order to cause the Northbridge to reissue the read command.
* Expected availability of HW fix: early September 2002.