Uhh, what's going on here, ATI?

[retro]

OK, so my friend has 9 of the 16 9700 Pros that his shop bought fail. He gets rather annoyed with the last, and pulls the heatsink off in a fit of rage.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v85/retroap/ati1.jpg

OK, so this looks like a standard 9700 Pro, right? Sure, but what about the other side.....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v85/retroap/ati2.jpg

Err, is this normal? Have ATI taken to using parts made by the opposition? Is it just me, or does that chip say FX 5200 ??? :smt009

[Borman]

WTF. Ive never seen that before. Id contact wherever they got the parts from

[Taemos]

That's incredibly wierd.

[Mark30001]

It's probably a bootleg! :D

ATI cooling fan... nVidia chips... err, WTF?! :smt030

Did you BTW take a peek at the actual video card, or did you just check out the pics only? The pics could have been altered...
===================================

This is how the botton should look like:
http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/1850/176246hv.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Taemos]

Was it made in Hong Kong? ^_^

Unless you've seen them in person, my guess is he's just playing a joke on you. I've never seen anything like that before.

[Primergy]

There have been several issues in the hardware buisness.
Its kinda hardware-pirating. Truckloads of chips and (pre)assmebled hardware got stolen somewhere in china/taiwan and ppl. sold the crap raw or after modifying it.

[retro]

I took the pics!!!!

Here is a picture I took yesterday of my friend with the card.

*EDIT* Picture removed by request! *

If you ask Legit, Tachikoma, Paulo, Gleavepaul, or anyone else that was at ECTS/EGN last year, they will tell you that that is board member Gavindo!

Sorry, not my fault I have a good camera that takes good quality pictures! It is Paulo's! :P

Here's another, unaltered hi-res picture. If you doubt its source, feel free to download the image, ask Paulo what camera I have, and check the EXIF data.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v85/retroap/atifx.jpg

[Mark30001]

Whoever tweaked that chip prolly couldn't decide if they wanted to install an nVidia or ATI, so they put them all together thinking they'd have double the power! :smt082

[retro]

Hehe!! 9700 Pro and FX5200 aren't really on a par though, unfortunately!!!

Yeah, dunno what's going on... but they die quite quickly!

[Mark30001]

Yeah! I'm still stuck with my nVidia 420 MX :(. Everything on my PC is advanced, the sound card, except my vid card.

[sayin999]

same here, i definetly need to get an nvida 6800

[Survival Tobita]

It looks like they took the memory chips off of a GeForce FX5200 and stuck them on the 9700 PCB. Except the chips most likely don't run at the same exact speeds and latencies and it was probably crappily done to boot. It's almost dumber than this: http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTEyNjExMzE1M25saG1RZG1RZW9fMV8xX 2wuanBn

[Jasonkhowell]

Were they boxed, or already open/used?

[Primergy]

yea, I wnt to see the box or whatever they came in.. some wierd distributor?!
Who threw that on the market :p
...since ATI doesnt produce anymore (I think the last one the made with a "built by ATI" Label was the Radeon/AIW 8500?!)

[madhatter256]

Where did your friend, buy these from?

The RAM chips on the top side, where the GPU is, look sanded down, you should be able to make out the Samsung name on those since thats what ATI used on the 9700s.

As for the back ones with the labeling. They look as if someone printed that on them by themselves I guess, one of them looks off center.

[madhatter256]

It looks like they took the memory chips off of a GeForce FX5200 and stuck them on the 9700 PCB. Except the chips most likely don't run at the same exact speeds and latencies and it was probably crappily done to boot. It's almost dumber than this: http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTEyNjExMzE1M25saG1RZG1RZW9fMV8xX 2wuanBn


The memory chips on the FX5200 aren't labeled that, they are labeled with the company name that manufactured the memory chips, Nvidia only makes the GPUs, Samsung, or Hynix or any other company makes the memory chips, then the manufacturer takes the nvidia gpu and those chips and puts them onto a board.

[Topic Archive]

Rofl, quality, thanks for sharing retro hehe, how much do they retail for?

...Not to use, purely from the collectable, lmao perspective :)

[Paulo]

Yeah i want one of these babies....

[ASSEMbler]

The chinese mfg probably had an overstock of parts for the nvidia line, and decided to try to recover investment on the parts by putting the memory on the other product line.

[Paulo]

WEnt to look for reviews of the fx5200 and i cant even find any that have chips that shape let alone with the logos. All the memory chips ive seen are rectangular shape and they only have 4 of them.

[retro]

They were in plain white boxes, stated as refurbished (by ATI, I believe they said).

The company was in Glasgow I believe, but we can't find them now!!

I think it might be this seller (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ATI-RADEON-9700-PRO-128MB-4-8X-AGP-DVI-GRPHIC-CARD_W0QQitemZ6801563268QQcategoryZ27387QQrdZ1QQcm dZViewItem) on eBay... but not certain. This seller had a Dutch buy it now auction that ended this morning with 8 cards.... so they obviously have lots!!

[ASSEMbler]

My nvidia cards have had square ram on them.

example

http://www.hardspell.com/newsimage/2004-12-27-9-48-13-508683989.jpg

clearly just repurposed memory, and not a gpu sized chip.

[Paulo]

But thats not a fx5200 or is it? also memory doesnt come stamped with nvidia and stuff.

[Topic Archive]

They were in plain white boxes, stated as refurbished (by ATI, I believe they said).

...Lol, so maybe they were originally nVidia boards, which ATI butchered to plonk on their own bit's?

:smt043

[Gavindo]

well il let u no how i get on as i am contacting them this week as i want thae cards changed any way as they seem to all be going wrong, one buy one, i have 16 in total and i have 9 that have gone wrong so far,

[RyanGamerGoneGrazy]

can anyone make out that serial number on the one chip, in the high res photo?
well lets see..made in china.....yea, thats bout sums it up

[ASSEMbler]

But thats not a fx5200 or is it? also memory doesnt come stamped with nvidia and stuff.

Not first party memory, but we're talking super low quality chinese models aren't we.

[madhatter256]

The FX5200 gpu is not even that small. The Videocard makers, usually use samsung, or hynix, for memory.

[Zilog Jones]

Erm, guys, can't you read? That chip says "GeForce FX GO 5200", i.e. it's supposed to be for a laptop graphics board, which makes even LESS sense!

This is certainly the dodgiest PC hardware I have ever seen! XD

[retro]

Quite, Zilog! The Go range is indeed for laptops!

Interesting quirks... one says 32M the other says 64M. The RAM doesn't appear to be running at the correct speed for a 9700 pro. And yeah... 9700 pro with heatsinks?

The company was in Scotland, not Glasgow, though. They have been contacted, and said they would offer a refund or switch for 9800 pros! ATI have yet to respond properly.

[hl718]

ATI's response will probably be something like, "Sorry you bought pirated boards mate, but we didn't make em and we didn't sell em. Next time buy from an authorized distributor." ;)

-hl718

[Topic Archive]

...Well, you have to respect who ever made it, the very fact that it boot's up and runs (for a short time) is quite a useful experiment result in itself.

...I wonder if you developed a specific driver for it whether it would last longer/perform better/blow up quicker?

[hl718]

My guess is that the boards are probably cobbled together from rejected parts. GPUs that failed the batch test. Memory that didn't pass muster, etc. Since the resulting board doesn't meet spec it's only a matter of time before it dies (probably overclocking the GPU and memory chips even when running at "stock" speeds). You wouldn't need a special driver as the GPU is still a Radeon GPU. The heat sinks on the memory chips on the back of the board were either put there to cover the fact that the chips were pulled from a rejected GeForce batch or because the chips can't keep speed and were overheating (or both). About the only way you can probably get those board to work semi-reliably is to clock them down under "stock" speeds--at that will still be a crap shoot.

-hl718

[retro]

Well, I believe they were sold as refurbished...although the invoice says new!!

They have locations in the UK and US, so watch out!!

I think it is basically a board that has been refurbished, with "new" RAM put on. Unfortunately, they put laptop GeForce RAM on that doesn't run at the correct speed! The same goes for a board that we found without nVidia RAM - it was hynix (not stamped) for a 9700... so it was underclocked. As such, it IS a Radeon, runs off their drivers, but it has been poorly remade and so will (and did) die again!!

[Qjimbo]

Woah that is wierd. Would explain why it looked so beaten up though :p