Sniffles Plague Gainward Ti 4200 Boards

Bad batch of capacitors spoils some Gainward boards; vendor offers to swap.

Joel Strauch, special to PCWorld.com

Cold weather brings a bad forecast for Gainward, which is experiencing problems with some graphics boards, but the company is trying to clear the skies for complaining customers.

The problems affect some users of the Gainward Ti 4200-based graphics boards, including the Gainward Ultra/650XP Golden Sample. Their troubles range from a "pink screen of death" or a checkerboard pattern on screen to a serious lockup that requires unplugging the system to reboot. It appears in both the 64MB and 128MB configurations of the board.

The cause is a batch of faulty capacitors that cease functioning properly when the board gets too cold, according to Gainward. But the problem isn't occurring only for customers in cold weather locales; some boards probably arrived with the problem.

Cause Identified

"We first heard about it six months ago," says Jason Wu, a Gainward spokesperson. "There were a lot of responses from New Zealand, since it was winter down there. At first, Taiwan had a very difficult time duplicating the scenario, then later we realized it had something to do with the weather."

When temperatures dropped with recent cold snaps in the United States, complaints of problems with Gainward Ti 4200s went up. A 60-page thread thrashes out the problems in the video card forum at Amdmb.com.

That's where Randall Atchley went when his newly built system, containing a Gainward Ti 4200, started acting up.

"The problem originally starts when you're running a 3D application like Quake or Counter-Strike," Atchley says. "That's when it just crapped out."

Repair Attempted

Gainward is offering to pay shipping charges for boards returned by customers who have this problem with their Ti 4200s.

"We offer a full three-year warranty on all of our cards--essentially a lifetime warranty for a video card," Gainward's Wu says. "It appears at this point that most of the boards with faulty capacitors have been replaced, although a lot of the [returns] still have to wash out."

One of those is Atchley's. He originally purchased a 128MB Golden Sample Ti 4200, but when he returned it for a replacement, he received a generic 64MB board.

"You should have seen the look on my face when I saw some 64MB card instead of the 128MB. And the Golden Sample is supposed to be some hand-picked best of the best!" he says. "I didn't expected to get downgraded."

Wu admits some problems remain, but says Atchley's experience is uncommon. He promises to resolve that matter.

Advice for Customers

Wu points out the Ti 4200 is no longer on the market, so customers buying a new graphics board shouldn't run into this problem. Amdmb.com has acted as an emissary for him, since Gainward's Taiwan headquarters wasn't keen on making an official statement.

"Jason has been very good to us despite all that has been happening," says Jonathan "Jerky" Hung, Amdmb.com video card forum moderator. "There are still a few unhappy users on our forum, but for the most part, people are happy to finally get a working card. However, most are disappointed that Gainward has not said anything official about the problem."

Even so, Wu wants to assure customers that Gainward is trying to remedy the situation. He urges users with a problematic Gainward Ti 4200 board to call 800/539-2273 for information on how to ship the board back to Gainward for a free repair or replacement.

For some users, like Atchley, it may be too late.

"They could come to my house in a Cadillac and give me ten cards. I wouldn't want them," he says. "I just want what I had and I want it to work."

Hung says he isn't sure how this incident will affect Gainward's reputation. "But I suspect many people will be cautious in the future," he says.