----- Original Message -----
From: "Graydon"
Subject: Re: OT: Graphics cards
On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 09:53:08AM +0100, mike wilson scripsit: [snip]
Asking around, it seems that these sort of faults are quite common in
self build projects so it makes me think that the big box creators are
getting the 100% good stuff and all the rest goes to the retail parts
companies,
The big box creators -- Dell, HP, etc. -- get custom parts intensely
optimized for margin. At the consumer PC level, it's definitely *NOT*
the good stuff.
You need to buy self build parts either from some place that has high
sustained volume ( = they don't screw up their parts handling much) or
which charges a bit more and does lots of custom build work for picky
customers like architects and photographers ( = they're building their
business on a quality reputation, not low cost).
If you don't do that, generally what you've got is a part that's been
handled roughly, and that leads to the sort of cracked trace problem
that gives undiagnosable (without upwards of a quarter million dollars
in scopes, anyway) intermittent faults.
A follow up on this, Windows itself does start normally, but the driver for
the video card doesn't start. The card was pulled and the contacts cleaned
during the OS install of a couple of weeks ago.
The computer was built by NCIX Technologies about 1.5 years ago and has
given me very good service up to now, although it has always been rather
high strung. There is no onboard video on the motherboard and only two card
slots in use, one for the video card and one for the RAID controller. The
video card start-up problem began well after the RAID card was installed, so
I don't think it is the culprit.
I do have an old computer with a decent video card which I can try trading
out to see if the problem goes away, but I don't think it is a PCIx16 card,
so I can't actually test the slot.
The boys who do my computer maintenance for me tell me that it is a very
busy little computer.
Thanks
William Robb
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