fried system !!!!!!!!

[Allnamestaken]

Looks like the power on header is loose in one of the pics in the thread.

 

[Dervious]

I disagree. This is the problem with electronics, anything can go wrong at any time. I've still got a sub £400 home server that I've been running for 4 years 24/7 and it hasn't failed once. On the flip side I've spent over £400 on a single piece of hardware that failed me after 6 months. That's just the way these things go.

It's true that anything electronic can fail at any time. As an ex-TV repair engineer, I have experience of electronics repair to component level, and have repaired a wide range of equipment, from very cheap to quite expensive. I can tell you from this experience that the cheaper items, more often than not, were made from cheaper components. That's why I had numerous Amstrad, Matsui etc items in for repair, but far less Sony and Panasonic. It was down to cost, the cheaper items were made with cheaper components - the common one was failure of electrolytic capacitors, rated at 85c, where a slightly more expensive 105c capacitor would have lasted a lot longer. You will get exceptions, but if a product is designed properly and built with better quality parts, it will be less likely to fail.

Personally I would say the more you spend on something, obviously the longer you would expect it to last. There is nothing wrong with that logic, however buying electronics you need to prepare yourself for that chance that things can go boom at any time. It would be ignorant to expect otherwise.

Agreed. It is not ignorant to expect a fairly expensive electronic item, from a reputable manufacturer to last a reasonable amount of time beyond the standard 12 month warranty period. It is ignorant to deny that the law (fair or otherwise) does cover the consumer in the event that a fairly expensive electronic item develops a fault within a relatively short period of time.

The law you are discussing seems quite unfair. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I'm more than happy to be covered by Warranty for it's duration and have faith that it's the retailers responsibility to take care of any issues. Once that period is over, you are on your own.

I also think that the law does seem a bit unfair. However, you are not alone after the standard warranty period, if you wish to use the sale of goods act.

People like gritts really wind me up. They have such a false sense of entitlement that is without basis and consequently makes them act devoid of respect or responsibility. Props to OCUK for dealing with this in the best way possible.

I agree that gritts seemed to be a rather unpleasant individual, who didn't approach the problem in the correct manner. However, despite his "attitude" OCUK did deal with the matter very well.

 

[arknor]

We'll be the first to admit that in the past we've sat at the lower end of the scale, offering only what Trading Standards themselves said was our responsibility but that all changed with the change of management on 2012.

unfortunately that was not my experience recently which actually shocked me considering the support this guy got.

• I wanted to return a gigabyte 280x cos it was to damn loud for me and not what I had expected considering my previous gpu's were all windforce. [it was 80c during gaming with the fan at 98% and sounded like a hairdryer/delta 80mm fan]
• I had used the amd bf4 code so was told I was unable to return the card.
• I then offered to let OCUK deduct £32.99 the price you sold bf4 premium for which I thought was a very fair offer.
• OCUK's reply to me was that it would cost me £40+vat if I wanted to return the card even though you sold bf4 for £32.99.

.

even one of your members of staff in my customer support thread thought there had been a mistake and I should only be charged the same price you sell bf4, he was then told to leave all replies to XXXXX
in the end I got a full refund but it didn't seem like I would have without a certain trading standard Q&A which I would never have even found if you had just deducted the £32.99 I offered in the first place.

for 26k posts and orders dating back to around 2001/2002 I thought it was a very poor showing for my first ever RMA attempt and it almost put me off ever ordering from ocuk again. (I did order today a £280 gpu and a £260 monitor this morning though)


This post will not be allowed to remain I'd imagine even though it's an honest experience of what happened to me?
you can verify my side of the story here if you have access to the support section. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18561022
I even sent the haribos back with the card incase you tried to charge me for eating them

 

[Allnamestaken]

I have had nothing but good service from OCUK and its members in the years I have been part of the community!

I have spent countless thousands (no gf LOL) through this site and would do again and again! Why? outstanding customer service!

 

[strumpusplunket]

Did we ever find out what was actually wrong with the OP's PC? I want closure on this!

I saw it hinted by one of the OcUK guys it was the graphics card, but it didn't seem definite. Can't help intense curiosity about this, especially given the bizarre story from that PC shop in... wherever in Scotland it was.

 

[bainbridge]

After reading the first and last page of this thread I'm very glad I build my own systems (parts bought from ocuk shop).

Saying that I did have an OCUK component fail on me - a PSU I ran the pants off for 6 years

 

[Neoni]

Did we ever find out what was actually wrong with the OP's PC? I want closure on this!

I saw it hinted by one of the OcUK guys it was the graphics card, but it didn't seem definite. Can't help intense curiosity about this, especially given the bizarre story from that PC shop in... wherever in Scotland it was.

Yes, read the thread.

The GPU had died completely, everything else was fine.



Also: What a **** of a man, please don't come back to these forums, OcUK go above and beyond with customer service, and you still act the royal ****, well done.

Good job OcUK!

HOORAH!

 

[Dervious]

Yes, read the thread.

The GPU had died completely, everything else was fine.



Also: What a **** of a man, please don't come back to these forums, OcUK go above and beyond with customer service, and you still act the royal ****, well done.

Good job OcUK!

HOORAH!

He would have been better off if he'd taken his PC to a reputable computer shop and paid for a written report on the fault (maybe even get two opinions, to make sure that he had the correct information). Had he got proof that the graphics card was at fault, he could have asked OCUK to remedy the problem. A graphics card should last longer than 18 months (unless it is a particularly cheap one, in which case he'd have been better off just accepting that he has to buy a new one).

The sale of good act suggests that he would have quite a strong case for expecting the retailer to repair or replace the card, unless the card had been mistreated.

 

[GiraffePencils]

He would have been better off if he'd taken his PC to a reputable computer shop

Unfortunately he took it to silicone lol

I bought a fan once, wouldn't buy a can of air from them these days.

 

[Dervious]

After reading the first and last page of this thread I'm very glad I build my own systems (parts bought from ocuk shop).

Saying that I did have an OCUK component fail on me - a PSU I ran the pants off for 6 years

Building your own system can be a blessing and a curse.

If you build your own system (as a one off), and you happen to recieve a faulty component, or have a component fail after a period of time, you have to a) identify which component is faulty (not always easy) and b) send that component back to the retailer or possibly the manufacturer for testing and repair. If you send back a component that's found to work when tested, you'll often have to pay a testing fee, and for postage costs. When you get that part back, you'll still have a faulty PC, so you'll be out of pocket and still have a problem.

I have personal experience of this, a story which would test the skill and patience of anyone, and proves that a self build can be a curse.

 

[Pabl0]

I think it's pretty simple to diagnose a problem with a computer (hardware wise) with so much being documented on the Internet..

 

[Dervious]

I think it's pretty simple to diagnose a problem with a computer (hardware wise) with so much being documented on the Internet..

In many cases, yes.

In some cases (intermittent problems, or compatibility problems), no.

I might just document the whole, sorry tale. It still gives me nightmares.

In fact, we could "play a game". I could explain the problem, and you (and others) can advise me what to do. I'll answer what happens when I try your suggestions (as long as I tried your suggestions, which I think is very likely).

I'll start by saying that a couple of years ago I had a Windows 7 AMD based system (overlocked "properly") with a HD4850 that was working perfectly. I bought an NVIDIA GTX460 from OCUK. Installed it and it worked fine until it was placed under load. Within a minute or two of running a game or benchmark it locked up (image froze).

If you want to play along, and either make suggestions, or ask questions, I'll answer them honestly and to the best of my ability to remember what happened. It's a really "interesting" story.

Before anyone suggests "send it back to OCUK", I thought I'd test it in a couple of friend's systems that I'd built, just to make sure the card was at fault. This was because I made a call to OCUK about the matter, and was told "send it back, we'll test it, if it's faulty, we'll replace it. If we don't find a fault, there'll be a testing fee". The card worked perfectly in the other machines. Was my PSU up to the job ? Maybe it was a driver issue ? Was the card faulty ? What do I do next ? (I now realise the best thing to have done would have been to DSR it, but I didn't consider that option at the time).

 

[Dervious]

Come on Pabl0, I'm sure you'll find this an easy one to diagnose .

 

[ScottiB]

I have personal experience of this, a story which would test the skill and patience of anyone, and proves that a self build can be a curse.

I've just spent the best part of two days trying to diagnose a system stability issue and that was made all the easier because I was surrounded by spare components. God knows how long it would've taken if I was an end user without such access.

 

[Dervious]

OK. I'll ask the question to myself.......

"Could be something to do with your old AMD drivers, are you sure you uninstalled them properly ?".

Yes, I uninstalled them, and used CCleaner to clear out the registry. When that didn't cure the problem, I did a clean install of Windows. The fault was still present. (At the time I was running an Intel SSD, but I did the clean install onto a mechanical drive - thus ruling the SSD out of the equation, not that I thought that it could cause such a problem anyway).

I bet you're now thinking "must be something else in the system". What do I try next ?

 

[Dervious]

I've just spent the best part of two days trying to diagnose a system stability issue and that was made all the easier because I was surrounded by spare components. God knows how long it would've taken if I was an end user without such access.

Ah !

This sounds familiar ! I too had access to a lot of components (not as many as you , but my friends PC's were suitable donors).

 

[Dervious]

OK, I'll continue.

Replaced PSU (although mine was well up to spec, and ran my HD4850 perfectly). Fault still present.

Replaced RAM. Nope.

CPU ? (I'd already ruled out the overclock, but I thought it was worth a try). I had a spare CPU (not as fast as the one I was running). Still the same.

Tried Gigabyte's drivers and several versions directly from Nvidia. Not the drivers. I even tried an install of XP (yes, I was getting desperate). The system still froze running benchmarks and games.

After all that, I took the GTX460 back to my firend's house and hammered it (not literally), just to make sure. It ran perfectly, even with a mild overclock.

During all of this, I put the HD4850 back into my machine a few times, and it ran perfectly. There's now only one thing that I haven't changed, and that's the motherboard. At the time, it was exactly 12 months old. I contacted the supplier (not OCUK), and they gave me the same answer as OCUK... "if you send it in, we'll test it, and if it's found not to be faulty, it'll be returned with a testing fee". I asked if they would test it with a GTX460. "We can't guarantee that we will do that sir". Hmmm.

I was convinced that there must be something up with my motherboard, maybe a compatibility issue, or a problem with the PCIe slot. Yes, I tried different versions of the BIOS, and any BIOS settings that I thought might help.

 

[Dervious]

Gigabyte motherboard, and a Gigabyte GTX460. Might be worth a word with Gigabyte !

They suggested I send both items in, but I was fairly convinced that the MB was the culprit. So, not wanting to be without a PC, I ordered a cheap, temporary board. Another Gigabyte board, which I fitted and tested the graphics card with. The system ran perfectly. Confidently, I sent away my motherboard for testing.

A few days later, Gigabyte got in touch... "nothing wrong with your motherboard, we've tested it with several GTX cards, including a GTX460".



"But I`ve tested the graphics card with 3 different boards now, and it works fine in all of them."

They sent the board back (luckily without a fee), and I tried it once more (maybe it's put itself right - maybe not). It was "maybe not", so off went the graphics card and the motherboard back to Gigabyte. Within a few days I got good news "it's the graphics card, we're sending you a replacement".

 

[Silent_Scone]

Not sure how much this has derailed since the OP. But doesn't take much to work out logically. Worst case OCUK had braided the 24pin and put one in the wrong way. There is no way it would have worked all this time.

No way can you blame OCUk.

End thread.

 

[Dervious]

The replacement GTX460 arrived with my motherboard.

Before rebuilding my system (again), I decided to try the card in the temporary motherboard that I'd been using.

Switch on, no video output, but if I remember correctly Windows still booted up.

I used a bit of languiage, but decided that I should try the new card with my original motherboard. Rebuilt the system, success !

However, I wasn't very confident in the card, as it failed to work with the temporary motherboard. Oh well, it was working properly, at last.

About 12 months later I upgraded to my current system. The GTX460 refused to display any output. Off it went to Gigabyte again and they repaired it. Soon after that, I decided to switch back to AMD, and got a HD7950, which is great. I decided to sell my GTX460 to a friend who I'd recently built a system for. Again, it refused to display any output in his machine.

It's collecting dust now, and is proof that fault finding a PC can be a very confusing and frustrating experience. It's also a reason to consider buying a pre-built system, especialy if you don't have access to spare parts, or are expeienced in PC fault finding. You would be very unlucky to get a fault like this, but if you do, it is a bit of a nightmare !