Oh dear....

[alienware]

Motherboard is dead

That's really screwed me too because I don't have any thermal paste left.

Argh it gets worse. I just phoned Scan to RMA it and they tell me if no fault is found with the board I'll get slapped with a £15+ VAT fee.

What scares me is I am pretty sure it's the Phenom 9950 causing the flatline. Problem is I don't have an old CPU to throw in there to see if it is that.

Ugh. I'm really skint now too, wish I hadn't done this

Only other DDR2 Xfire board they have is £90

 

[Diablo]

You tried all the usual take the CMOS battery out, unplug, leave 10 mins trick?

How do you know its the CPU that's the problem/

 

[alienware]

Well if it's not the CPU then it's screwed. I've tried everything mate.

Pulled all the power, 4 pin, 8 pin, 20 pin, 24 pin, reset cmos every time, 5 different GPUs, OCZ ram only, Patriot ram only, ETC ETC ETC.

If it's not the board dead then it's because the bios on it doesn't support the 9950 (and I strongly suspect that, so Im about to take one up the ass).

I don't even have an old AM2 CPU that it will support to throw in and see. That's what is the most frustrating. And now I'm going to be down another chuffing tenner just to put the old one back in because I don't have any thermal paste left

 

[Diablo]

If the CPU isn't supported and it says it is, you have grounds for money back. You should be able to pickup some thermal goop for less than a tenner, depending on your location.(Shipping to mars is quite expensive though)

 

[alienware]

The Sapphire PURE CrossFireX 770 is designed for AMD Phenom™ true quad-core processors and next generation graphics.

So it doesn't support mine or doesn't work.

The problem is this is not what I am being told on the phone for 10p a minute. I am being told if they find no fault with it (and they likely won't because they will put in an older CPU) then I pay £15 + vat. Which is what? about £18. Over 1/3 of what I paid for the board.

That leaves me down about £28 (last TP I got was Arctic freeze for about £7) and a Radeon I can't use.

I did get them to say that if I paid to send it back then I could have a full refund, but that still leaves me out of pocket. And I'm terrified of buying another one (have found a couple, one MSI in particular looks nice) and finding out the same thing.

Ideally I need to borrow an old Athlon, because people want a bloody king's ransom for them on Ebay. Ugh. This is the last thing I need tbh (stress).

 

[alienware]

Sorry for double posting. Would have been a bit of a mash editing it in.

Well I will never use Scan again as long as I live. That's for sure.

I looked on the box and it clearly shows support pics (the AMD logos) for the Phenom CPU. I don't care if it doesn't support mine out of the box, it says Phenom FX. So, that leads me to strongly believe that it's broken and simply doesn't work, and I am paying to send it back which is basically illegal.

The threats of £15+ VAT are just BS, so they can have their board back and stick it firmly up their khyber.

I realised that the Paypal account is not linked to my bank acc. Basically when I bought everything lately (physx, 3870x2) I used paypal which goes out of Mum's account. I withdrew it and put it to one side to take to her when I go over there next. She's away on hols ATM. Any way, I found out that Ginger 6 take Paypal, so I have ordered a board on there.

Which board? simple. Asrock Alive ! Xfire ESTA2 REV 3.0. Same one I have now.

I checked the production code on my Phenom 9950 and it appears it is a 125w model, which is exactly the same as the 940 I run in here. It is also listed from bios 1.0, and the board comes shipped with 3.0 on it out of the box.

Why is it that pissant cheapo companies like Asrock can make this very very clear on their site yet expensive companies like Sapphire can not?

Any way, it was £35 and I got some Antec paste for £1.50 (3 sachets). I have that private beta bios and all in shipped overnight it came to £44. I mean really, that's £12 less that this poopants Sapphire and I pretty much know for sure it'll work immediately, unlike this crap now. I know my way around it too, and on paper it matches the Sapphire perfectly. The only reason I ordered that poxy Sapphire was because I thought my Phenom was 140w but it's 100000% 125w as the production code is completely different.

Good part is I have ran a 125w quad in one, ran my ram in one and know the board inside out.

So hopefully it's catastrophe averted. Refund will actually leave me up money tbh.

 

[thestepster]

u really do have the worst look mate

 

[lasher]

Yeah careful next time you go to the loo matey, don't want that dropping off!

 

[alienware]

Well in future I will stick to Asrock. Honestly, this Sapphire thing is just terrible. Took it out of the box and all of the VRM sinks started falling off. I was hoping the VRMs would heat up and make them adhere better but I guess not.

Then on the phone the guy at Scan said "yeah, those boards are pretty terrible". FFS, why are you selling them then? Then after he tells me they're terrible he tells me that I have to pay to return ship it (and swallow the cost) or pay £15.

Disgusting IMO. I was so furious I went to Sapphire "please note any RMA with us will need to be shipped to Hong Kong at your expense".

I feel like emailing them and saying "look plumnuts, I ain't paying to send my motherboard to a relation of King Kong".

 

[AMDFTW]

can you not get your money back

 

[alienware]

Yes, but only as a working refund

So they are assuming it's because of the bios that it's not working, and weren't even considering it may be donald.

Any way, they're basically telling me that if they get it back and it works I'm going to be charged £15+ vat for the couriers. In the end I sort of agreed to just sending it back at my own cost and losing the original £7 odd. But then last night I got pretty cross tbh. So I went to their site...

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Sapp...E-20-(x16)-DDR2-1066-SATA-3Gb-s-SATA-RAID-ATX

The Sapphire PURE CrossFireX 770 is designed for AMD Phenom™ true quad-core processors and next generation graphics

So then I got the box out.

And then I got the manual out, same thing. Opened the manual, first page -

The Sapphire PURE CrossFireX 770 is designed for AMD Phenom™ true quad-core processors and next generation graphics

So I went to Sapphire and created a support ticket. Explaining how the board was dead and asked if it should even fire with my CPU in.

The reply?

Please flash the bios.

Eh? did you not even hear what I said? the board is DOA.

So I phoned Scan back and told them of my findings. They then said "Well nowhere does it say it supports your specific processor with the bios on there". So I said "yeah, and nowhere does it say it won't... Not as described law, any one?"

So they're sending a courier for it tomorrow. If it does indeed work with an older CPU in? I don't care. All over their site, all over the box, all over Sapphire's site it says

The Sapphire PURE CrossFireX 770 is designed for AMD Phenom™ true quad-core processors and next generation graphics

So it's a simple clear cut case of not as described. I already have CAB number (citizen's advice) so if they don't refund me in full or remove money from it for the return shipping? I'll go for the jugular. I wouldn't mind, but this has left me without a second PC. That means no TV, a mess all over the place and a serious inconvinience. I'm not complaining about that, but if they attempt to skank me out of any cash? Then it'll be all out war.

 

[Diablo]

That's deffo a not working as advertised clause. Hope it all goes smoothly. I've only ever had difficulty with scan once, regarding a copy of Powerdvd 8 ultra they were selling for £20, when they admitted they were out of stock they upgraded me to 9 gratis. Good luck with them.

 

[alienware]

Well in my hunt for more evidence I just found this.. It's a review from a well known site.

Test Setup:

* Processor: AMD Phenom 9850 "Black Box" (200x12.5)

* Motherboard: Sapphire PC-AM2RX780

* Memory: Mushkin Redline XP2 8000 2 x 2 GB 5-5-5-12

* Video Card: PowerColor Radeon HD 4850 w/ Catalyst 8.8

* Power Supply: Mushkin 800w Modular Power Supply

* Hard Drive: 1 x Seagate 7200.11 750GB SATA w/32MB Cache

* Optical Drive: Lite-On 8x DVD+/-RW

* OS: Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

It's buggered dude. I just know it is. The CPU isn't getting warm, the VRMS were cold as ice and the back of it is covered in flux mess.

I wish I'd have done more homework, 'cos everywhere I look Sapphire's mobos get truly slated. Viva Asrock !

UPDATE !

Sapphire have now admitted that this board will run the 9950 on *any* bios. So Scan are being utter utter barstools.

That's it then, I am never ordering from them again

 

[alienware]

Sorry for the double post bump, but it's time to bring this to a conclusion before I end up in debt.

The Asrock worked a charm, flashed on the Beta bios and even got a meaty overclock out of the 9950 (3ghz easy @ 128w). Spent the entire day installing software and running benchmarks on the single card, results were pretty good.

About ten minutes ago I put in the second card and the fans just rev up and down and I don't get a signal to the monitor. So, it seems that my PSU is simply not enough to get them to work.

So it was all a waste of time and money it would seem

Gutted

I even spent about nine hours yesterday designing custom graphs for the results.

Ho hum, wasn't meant to be I suppose.