The nvidia 7600GT: I'm looking for some specific info from other users

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

I don't think this is unique to Overclockers. The vast majority of companies that sell computer hardware online will refuse to give you refunds if the part is incompatible with your system, rather than faulty in and of itself. There's probably a caveat emptor in their terms and conditions.

It makes sense, really-they sold you a working part, it's not their fault it doesn't work in your system.

[Lucjan]

Newegg.com I think accepts any return in a certain time period. I'm not sure about the quality of their equipment though. Anybody have any idea?

[frogbeastegg]

Got a reply, an actual reply from a real person this time. They say as long as it's sensibly packaged it will be fine. So I shall give it a go.

Overclockers has a good reputation, and one of the people I used to work with used them a lot and had nothing but good to say. In this case I had a choice of online or not at all; no proper shops stocked the card. Buying from them went smoothly; the goods were dispatched promptly, arrived the next day, and were well packaged. It was so good I ordered my pair of new hard drives from them as well, and again had no issues.

The card has both an analog and DVI output; do they both suffer from apparently faulty sockets?

I haven't got an analog cable any more; my LCD needs DVI to get the best picture.

Might be a good idea to try the 7600 on another system if you can find a willing "victim".

Alas, none of the people I know with computers are willing to risk havign their computer killed to such a degree they have to use jumpers to reset the BIOS to get it to begin to boot up again.

It makes sense, really-they sold you a working part, it's not their fault it doesn't work in your system

Hmm, yes ... and no. Most proper shops would recognise the goodwill and good service value of swapping parts in such circumstances, provided the card was returned in saleable condition and any difference, postage etc was paid.

I am as sure as I can be that this card is faulty. I just see the potential for frog abuse. If they say it isn't faulty they can force me to keep it, meaning they gain more money and don't have to deal with sending faulty goods back to the manufacturer, and all without me being able to do anything much. I don't have much faith in this testing business either; some tech problems simply can't be picked up in a couple of hours simple trial.

[Husar]

It makes sense, really-they sold you a working part, it's not their fault it doesn't work in your system.

That depends, the part can be faulty only under certain circumstances.
I didn't send them a detailled report about several games where errors ocurred only for them to test with a program that ran just fine for me as well. And sometimes I really don't know why any video card would be "incompatible" with a certain system as long as the slots and drivers fit the card, never saw something like "doesn't run on AMD systems" on a video card package.

[Crandaeolon]

I haven't got an analog cable any more; my LCD needs DVI to get the best picture.

The objective of this exercise would be to find out if either the circuitry controlling output or the DVI socket are faulty, both of which would make you eligible for a replacement. But, if the problem is in the cable, you might lose money and be back at square one.

It's within the realm of possibility that your cable works with one card and not the other. Nvidia's record with high-frequency DVI signals was somewhat spotty in 5th and 6th generation GeForces, though the 7th generation has supposedly fixed the issues. 1920x1080 and 1600x1200 were potentially troublesome resolutions IIRC, or anything that drives DVI at close to its maximum frequency (usually with a single DVI link, since dual-link resolutions are pretty huge.) Poor cables can affect connectivity, and differences between brands (or low-end and high-end models) can result in one brand working and another not working on the same cable.

But, I suppose this is a non-issue if you can't get a cable or have already sent the card, as you said you might do. Here's to hoping that all turns out well.

Alas, none of the people I know with computers are willing to risk havign their computer killed to such a degree they have to use jumpers to reset the BIOS to get it to begin to boot up again.

Someone with a motherboard model proven to work with 7600gt should be a relatively safe bet. (There should be compatibility lists on various hardware sites.) Still, faulty hardware can of course wreck things badly, so the sentiment is understandable. It's just that something about your case seems to hint about underlying problems that might be BIOS- or motherboard-related.