Are Chaintech Video Cards Crap?

You may have noticed my earlier post "GF4 Ti-4800SE Question" on 11/28
asking why this cards performance was so low. Now, after trying everything
I could think of to find out on my own via the internet, I have come to the
conclusion that Chaintech's web site is really screwed up. I can't download
a manual, view FAQ's for this board or even contact technical support. The
manual I got with the board is just about useless as all it does is show
screenshots of the driver installation. Does anyone else have this board? I
don't even know if it's defective or if I have something set wrong. Could
someone please help me so I can figure this out before I run out of time to
return it? So you won't have to look up my other post, I have pasted it
here. Thanks in advance for any help, Joe BTW: The video driver version I
have installed is 5.2.1.6
Also, my ATI drivers won't uninstall but everything looks right in device
manager for Nvidia.

I just bought and installed this Chaintech video card (replaced a $40.00 ATI
Rage Fury Pro 2000) and am very disappointed with the performance so far.
Perhaps I don't have it configured right? My system basically is a AMD XP
2200+, 1024MB DDR RAM, a 17" Mag 720V(squared) CRT monitor and Win XP Pro.
The max monitor resolution is 1280x 1024 but when I go over 800x600,
everything looks unnaturally small. I was expecting a great improvement but
right now I see horizontal lines (very faint) trickling down my screen. The
only resolution that looks decent is 800x600. This is a real let down.
Am I doing something wrong? Surely this can't be all there is to it.
Thanks for any advice. Joe

sorry cant help you with your particualr card, but i used to have a
chaintech gf2 ultra, and i can only say that it was an excellent card, great
overclocking very stable.....perhaps now chaintechs quality has lowered, or
perhaps it is just the model you bought

hth

"JW" wrote in message
m...
You may have noticed my earlier post "GF4 Ti-4800SE Question" on 11/28
asking why this cards performance was so low. Now, after trying
everything
I could think of to find out on my own via the internet, I have come to
the
conclusion that Chaintech's web site is really screwed up. I can't
download
a manual, view FAQ's for this board or even contact technical support.
The
manual I got with the board is just about useless as all it does is show
screenshots of the driver installation. Does anyone else have this board?
I
don't even know if it's defective or if I have something set wrong. Could
someone please help me so I can figure this out before I run out of time
to
return it? So you won't have to look up my other post, I have pasted it
here. Thanks in advance for any help, Joe BTW: The video driver version
I
have installed is 5.2.1.6
Also, my ATI drivers won't uninstall but everything looks right in device
manager for Nvidia.

I just bought and installed this Chaintech video card (replaced a $40.00
ATI
Rage Fury Pro 2000) and am very disappointed with the performance so far.
Perhaps I don't have it configured right? My system basically is a AMD XP
2200+, 1024MB DDR RAM, a 17" Mag 720V(squared) CRT monitor and Win XP Pro.
The max monitor resolution is 1280x 1024 but when I go over 800x600,
everything looks unnaturally small. I was expecting a great improvement
but
right now I see horizontal lines (very faint) trickling down my screen.
The
only resolution that looks decent is 800x600. This is a real let down.
Am I doing something wrong? Surely this can't be all there is to it.
Thanks for any advice. Joe

I had one and return it for the same reason: graphic lines or waves. Well,
trickling, to be more exact. Performance was however ok. Now, I got a
second one and again, same problem restarted.

Turns out it was the power supply on my rig that was too weak. It ran a
G3ti500 well, but this 4800 suck more power, or my power supply was kapput
(one or the other) because I changed it to a 450W and all is great.
Performance is very nice and graphic is exceptional. I use the 4.5.x.x.
drivers as they seems more stable and better with my current game.

Oh, also, make sure your sound card does not share the same IRQ then this
card. Change the slot, if you can. This helped me during my diagnostic.

Also, to test, take out most of the cards you have and see if this helps.
Again it did for me because my 2 nic, my SB live and my TI4800 Chaintech
were sucking power.

Cheers and goosd luck

Let me know if this helped

"JW" wrote in message om...
You may have noticed my earlier post "GF4 Ti-4800SE Question" on 11/28
asking why this cards performance was so low. Now, after trying everything
I could think of to find out on my own via the internet, I have come to the
conclusion that Chaintech's web site is really screwed up. I can't download
a manual, view FAQ's for this board or even contact technical support. The
manual I got with the board is just about useless as all it does is show
screenshots of the driver installation. Does anyone else have this board? I
don't even know if it's defective or if I have something set wrong. Could
someone please help me so I can figure this out before I run out of time to
return it? So you won't have to look up my other post, I have pasted it
here. Thanks in advance for any help, Joe BTW: The video driver version I
have installed is 5.2.1.6
Also, my ATI drivers won't uninstall but everything looks right in device
manager for Nvidia.

I just bought and installed this Chaintech video card (replaced a $40.00 ATI
Rage Fury Pro 2000) and am very disappointed with the performance so far.
Perhaps I don't have it configured right? My system basically is a AMD XP
2200+, 1024MB DDR RAM, a 17" Mag 720V(squared) CRT monitor and Win XP Pro.
The max monitor resolution is 1280x 1024 but when I go over 800x600,
everything looks unnaturally small. I was expecting a great improvement but
right now I see horizontal lines (very faint) trickling down my screen. The
only resolution that looks decent is 800x600. This is a real let down.
Am I doing something wrong? Surely this can't be all there is to it.
Thanks for any advice. Joe

I hope you did install your motherboard drivers... since if you
haven't, your card is running in PCI mode and ...well.. THAT indeed is
slow!

Truly the card should just work fine...maybe the 2d output is a bit
problematic..dunno... I have never had a chaintech!

JW wrote:

You may have noticed my earlier post "GF4 Ti-4800SE Question" on 11/28
asking why this cards performance was so low. Now, after trying everything
I could think of to find out on my own via the internet, I have come to the
conclusion that Chaintech's web site is really screwed up. I can't download
a manual, view FAQ's for this board or even contact technical support. The
manual I got with the board is just about useless as all it does is show
screenshots of the driver installation. Does anyone else have this board? I
don't even know if it's defective or if I have something set wrong. Could
someone please help me so I can figure this out before I run out of time to
return it? So you won't have to look up my other post, I have pasted it
here. Thanks in advance for any help, Joe BTW: The video driver version I
have installed is 5.2.1.6
Also, my ATI drivers won't uninstall but everything looks right in device
manager for Nvidia.

I just bought and installed this Chaintech video card (replaced a $40.00 ATI
Rage Fury Pro 2000) and am very disappointed with the performance so far.
Perhaps I don't have it configured right? My system basically is a AMD XP
2200+, 1024MB DDR RAM, a 17" Mag 720V(squared) CRT monitor and Win XP Pro.
The max monitor resolution is 1280x 1024 but when I go over 800x600,
everything looks unnaturally small. I was expecting a great improvement but
right now I see horizontal lines (very faint) trickling down my screen. The
only resolution that looks decent is 800x600. This is a real let down.
Am I doing something wrong? Surely this can't be all there is to it.
Thanks for any advice. Joe




I'm not familiar with that particular ATI card, so I can't say much for
it. But a TI-4800 should have been very fast under almost any
circumstance, especially the 8x AGP version.

You should consider that you may have outstanding motherboard chipset
issues. Often without the proper drivers (like the Via Hyperions), your
performance will be very very slow or have strange errors like data
corruption over the IDE bus during large file transfers.

Of course, your standards for what is fast might mean a 9800Pro on an
overclocked 3.2ghz P4 system is slow.

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 22:53:33 GMT, "JW" wrote:

From my experience, Chaintech products in general are crap. I'm a
reseller and started buying Chaintech motherboards earlier this year.
Out of seven motherboards (Apogee Deluxe), five crapped out completely
within three months. The two that didn't now have dead on-board ethernet
controllers, which I fixed by installing add-on NICs. Luckily the
warranties were through my distributor who offered to replace the bad
motherboards with BioStar boards because he had so many bad Chaintech
boards.

I did contact Chaintechs' tech support once, which was absolutely
horrible. I doubt anyone there speaks or reads English. I'll never buy
Chaintech again. They have one good point, they're cheap. But you get
what you pay for.

NRJ
You may have noticed my earlier post "GF4 Ti-4800SE Question" on 11/28
asking why this cards performance was so low. Now, after trying everything
I could think of to find out on my own via the internet, I have come to the
conclusion that Chaintech's web site is really screwed up. I can't download
a manual, view FAQ's for this board or even contact technical support. The
manual I got with the board is just about useless as all it does is show
screenshots of the driver installation. Does anyone else have this board? I
don't even know if it's defective or if I have something set wrong. Could
someone please help me so I can figure this out before I run out of time to
return it? So you won't have to look up my other post, I have pasted it
here. Thanks in advance for any help, Joe BTW: The video driver version I
have installed is 5.2.1.6
Also, my ATI drivers won't uninstall but everything looks right in device
manager for Nvidia.

I just bought and installed this Chaintech video card (replaced a $40.00 ATI
Rage Fury Pro 2000) and am very disappointed with the performance so far.
Perhaps I don't have it configured right? My system basically is a AMD XP
2200+, 1024MB DDR RAM, a 17" Mag 720V(squared) CRT monitor and Win XP Pro.
The max monitor resolution is 1280x 1024 but when I go over 800x600,
everything looks unnaturally small. I was expecting a great improvement but
right now I see horizontal lines (very faint) trickling down my screen. The
only resolution that looks decent is 800x600. This is a real let down.
Am I doing something wrong? Surely this can't be all there is to it.
Thanks for any advice. Joe

Man am i glad I saw this post. Now I know what is causing the trickling in
my computer too. I started to suspect my powersupply might be going when I
started to get power errors but also I seems to be getting possible drops in
power during normal usage which is causing a weird shifting of parts of the
screen.

--
Robert Pendell

I did contact Chaintechs' tech support once, which was absolutely
horrible. I doubt anyone there speaks or reads English. I'll never buy
Chaintech again. They have one good point, they're cheap. But you get
what you pay for.

NRJ

If you just want a cheap motherboard...you might as well buy pcchips.

IF you want an inexpensive gaming motherboard I would say go with the
nforce2 chipset.

The fan on my Chaintech FX 5200 128Mb card failed after 2-3 months.
The perfomance over my old card is marginal.
All wanted was a cheap card with basic DirectX 9 support.
That's what I got.