Remember kids, if you're going Linux, use an nVidia GPU (and don't buy from OCuk)

[Nox]

There's no profit in post sales (support/customer services) for any company, they are funded out of sales. So... you just get to choose between a company that has good support/customer services but charges and extra £5, or one with neither, but you save yourself £5. Most people will go for the latter - you want good customer service, it will cost you.

Nox

[aidanjt]

They'll just flog it off in B-Grade stock and just knock off a tenner, where I pay £20 for restocking fee anyway *shrug*

The only thing they've got to lose is customers with this attitude.

[shaithis]

"Not fit for purpose"

Is a great phrase that should get you going, especially as they do not state OS compatability on their website.

I would screenshot the entire product info from their web before they update it as well

Check your rights

[Nox]

yeah, they will break even, maybe make a fiver out of you with the restocking etc etc. In your shoes I would either go down the distance selling act route or ebay. should get back about the same either way but one is no headache, its just not 'right'

Nox

[aidanjt]

Well, I got another reply:

We cannot accept this item back sir. I apologise for the inconvenience this may cause.

Did they even bother reading what I wrote to them?

Meh, screw 'em, I'll flog the old one on eBay and buy this laddy from scan, less hassle for me. They could have got extra money from me with this transaction, instead they lost me and everyone I help as customers. Morons.

[Steve B]

put it on the for sale forums here, you might get some interest!

[aidanjt]

@Steve B: Good advice, I done just that. So there's an AGP x1950 Pro up for grabs if anyone's interested.

[mike306dt]

Why don't you persue it? If you have a right to send it back, then do so.

[aidanjt]

Sure I do, but they'll drag their heals, it'll take months to resolve the problem forcibly, and I'll be no better off.

[Kezzer]

with respect,

You did buy this card knowing the status of the ati drivers and how most people in the whole community have problems and slate the drivers ?

If you spend most of your time in Linux would it not have been wiser to pick a tried and tested card. While I am not impressed with OCuk at all, do you not think its harsh to punish a retailer who sold you the card in good faith, made no advertisment of its Linux support, yet because of this you feel it appropriate to return it to them ?

It makes you wonder if e-tailers, and to some extent re-tailers are getting more agressive and deffensive on things like returns and refunds if this is the way their customers do business (thats not pointing a finger at aidantj this situation just highlights it). Faults yes, miss-sale - yes no issue, but taking a known "dodgy supported" card/product then being shocked when it does't work and making the reatailer cop the bill for this (not sure how much this actually effects them) seems a bit harsh.

I'd tend to agree with you. A retailer (or e-tailer) can't cover every single OS there is out there for that particular card. If that were the case then they would have many more issues with many more customers.

Also yes, everyone knows that ATi cards are a nightmare under *nix. Stick with nVidia in the future

[aidanjt]

I don't expect them to cover every single OS out there, just the OSes supported by the chip manufacturer, that being, Windows and Linux. Since the page advertising the product didn't say Supports Windows (only), that implies support for Linux also.

Yes, it's well known that fglrx are less than perfect drivers, but they should at least give direct rendering, in this case they didn't, so the card is useless to me.

[ikonia]

does that mean that you'd expect the card should be supported in Mac OS, OS2, Minix for example.

Your right in what your saying that the ATI drivers should be better, and should do X/Y/Z - but then thats a complaint with ATI - no overclockers. And there IS linux support for it, it just happens your having problems getting DRI working with it, so from the point of view of "it doesn't say its not supported so it is" - OC could argue "it is supported we didn't say fully"

Just highlighting the other side. Plus - shame on you, as I said early you should know better, the whole community know these drivers are weak

[b0redom]

Yeah, I think you'd have a hard time justifying it if you took it to Visa etc. I'm no lover of OcUK - I've been burned too, but the card does work under Linux, it's just not optimised.

Why do you want such a monster card in a Linux box anyway?

[aidanjt]

does that mean that you'd expect the card should be supported in Mac OS, OS2, Minix for example.

No, ATi doesn't officially support Mac OS, OS2, Minix, etc. They do officially support Linux. That's a silly example. Is it 'unreasonable' to ask retailers to deal with customer complaints about products they buy not working just because it isn't windows, despite hardware manufacturer support? I hardly think so.

Your right in what your saying that the ATI drivers should be better, and should do X/Y/Z - but then thats a complaint with ATI - no overclockers. And there IS linux support for it, it just happens your having problems getting DRI working with it, so from the point of view of "it doesn't say its not supported so it is" - OC could argue "it is supported we didn't say fully"

The driver a mutually inclusive part of the hardware, it ties the hardware into the operating system, DRI is needed to get 3D acceleration in Linux, ATi claims to support this, it doesn't work with the card, therefore it's an overpriced 2D card, not a Graphics processing unit as advertised. OC made no support claims therefore they're going by what upstream supports, which is Windows and Linux. I'm confused about what part of this you don't understand.

Just highlighting the other side. Plus - shame on you, as I said early you should know better, the whole community know these drivers are weak

I did know better, and I was willing to tolerate the odd bugs here and there and lack of features (AIGLX for e.g.), however I wont tolerate non-operational.

So yeah, stupid me for thinking ATi will have DRI working on their flagship chip that's been around for almost a year.

[aidanjt]

Yeah, I think you'd have a hard time justifying it if you took it to Visa etc. I'm no lover of OcUK - I've been burned too, but the card does work under Linux, it's just not optimised.

This card doesn't do DRI under Linux, so it doesn't work. period.

Why do you want such a monster card in a Linux box anyway?

Gaming in Linux and Windows + beryl?

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but Linux has sling shotted in development in the last 2 years.

[ikonia]

aidanjt, I hope you've not taken the comments personally, as I said I'm just trying to highlight the shops side of it.

They as a business never said it would support/not support Linux - you believed it would because of claims ATI made, to which I fully support you that it "should". It doesn't work - and I agree its a worthless over priced card.

The only point I was trying to suggest is that as much as I dislike the service from OCuk, it seems a little harsh to return the card based on the grounds that it isn't as well support as it should be from the manufacturer. We all know the ati drivers suck, more so on the leading edge cards (it took nvidia a while to catch up with the 8800 when that came out). There is no way you should be out of pocket on this, but should the reatiler suffer for this (then again I'm only assuming this is a sufference).

From my point of view, I think your doing the right thing selling it, just seems like the "right" thing to do.

as a side note as I was only pointing out that OC made no reference to windows or linux support so - you've taken the ATI support list (windows/Linux) as whats supported, so therefore you can't really complaint to OC as they never advertised it as supported, that complaint must really, and rightly so go to ATI for being rubbish.

A further side issue - I'd be interested in knowing if you tried it on multiple distros, more so if they used different versions of X