Are 9800SE 256mb that bad ?

[liam]

My friend has just bought a Tiny 3.4Ghz Pentium HT with 1GB Memory and a
9800SE 256Mb PC to replace his old Geforce P3.
Anyway this is the 3rd PC from Tiny as the 1st one kept crashing, the second
one had a broken Sata Power connector and he called me to have a look at it
as it kept crashing out playing Half Life 2 with what he said was the VPU
error.
I updtated him to the latest Cat 4.12 Beta's and played a bit of Half Life
and all seemed well, ran the CS: Source Stress Test and was amazed that on
default settings at 1024*768 he was only getting 43 fps. He played a bit
more of half life 2 then the screen went black and he had to reboot the PC.
Updated him to Omega Drivers with Soft Mod and checked Stress Test again and
it had gone up to 63fps which was quite amazing as my AMD2100+ 768MB 9800Pro
128Mb gets 68fps @ 1024*768 with all but AA turn to max. So my old AMD2100
beats his P4 3.4 ?
Any way it still crashed out to a black screen whilst playing HAlf Life 2
and he even said it did it running disk defrag ?

Any ideas on the problem... ????

 

[wazza]

My friend has just bought a Tiny 3.4Ghz Pentium HT with 1GB Memory and a
9800SE 256Mb PC to replace his old Geforce P3.
Anyway this is the 3rd PC from Tiny as the 1st one kept crashing, the
second one had a broken Sata Power connector and he called me to have a
look at it as it kept crashing out playing Half Life 2 with what he said
was the VPU error.
I updtated him to the latest Cat 4.12 Beta's and played a bit of Half Life
and all seemed well, ran the CS: Source Stress Test and was amazed that on
default settings at 1024*768 he was only getting 43 fps. He played a bit
more of half life 2 then the screen went black and he had to reboot the
PC.
Updated him to Omega Drivers with Soft Mod and checked Stress Test again
and it had gone up to 63fps which was quite amazing as my AMD2100+ 768MB
9800Pro 128Mb gets 68fps @ 1024*768 with all but AA turn to max. So my old
AMD2100 beats his P4 3.4 ?
Any way it still crashed out to a black screen whilst playing HAlf Life 2
and he even said it did it running disk defrag ?

Any ideas on the problem... ????

Maybe his PSU isn't up to par, or he just has anlther dud card.
The SE series are cut down versions, and from my reading the 9800SE is on
par with a 9600pro.
See if he can test the card in another machine.

 

[Julian Richards]

Maybe his PSU isn't up to par, or he just has anlther dud card.
The SE series are cut down versions, and from my reading the 9800SE is on
par with a 9600pro.
See if he can test the card in another machine.

Boo! Let's hear it for the SE. If you can get the pipelines open you
can get into pro/XT territory especially with an Arctic cooler. My
first one was a dud (although tests by the dealer supposedly showed it
working). It had one of the four (not eight) pipelines bust. The
replacement can use all eight.

You are right to recommend that he try another machine, preferrably
one with a bit of surplus power (few extras or a meaty PSU).
Underclocking may show where the problem lies.
--

Julian Richards
computer "at" richardsuk.f9.co.uk

XP Home
L7S7A2 motherboard
Powercolor 9800 SE 8 pipelines 438/364 with Omega drivers
1 GB RAM
10 GB + 80 GB HDs
CD+DVD/CDRW drives

 

[Eddy]

My friend has just bought a Tiny 3.4Ghz Pentium HT with 1GB Memory and a
9800SE 256Mb PC to replace his old Geforce P3.
Anyway this is the 3rd PC from Tiny as the 1st one kept crashing, the
second one had a broken Sata Power connector and he called me to have a
look at it as it kept crashing out playing Half Life 2 with what he said
was the VPU error.
I updtated him to the latest Cat 4.12 Beta's and played a bit of Half Life
and all seemed well, ran the CS: Source Stress Test and was amazed that on
default settings at 1024*768 he was only getting 43 fps. He played a bit
more of half life 2 then the screen went black and he had to reboot the
PC.
Updated him to Omega Drivers with Soft Mod and checked Stress Test again
and it had gone up to 63fps which was quite amazing as my AMD2100+ 768MB
9800Pro 128Mb gets 68fps @ 1024*768 with all but AA turn to max. So my old
AMD2100 beats his P4 3.4 ?
Any way it still crashed out to a black screen whilst playing HAlf Life 2
and he even said it did it running disk defrag ?

Any ideas on the problem... ????

There is one major problem here, TINY!, I have had a few friends that bought
tiny, and all of them got a refund, cheap parts, badly configured, pieces of
crap, processor speed, mem speed, gfx card, all mean nothing if it is all
slapped into a slow piece of crap motherboard, which 9 times out of 10 tiny
do, I would also point you to the Power supply, it sounds like it is not
giving the gfx card enough juice, another point where tiny cut, cheap and
nasty power supply!.

Eddy

 

[liam]

There is one major problem here, TINY!, I have had a few friends that
bought tiny, and all of them got a refund, cheap parts, badly configured,
pieces of crap, processor speed, mem speed, gfx card, all mean nothing if
it is all slapped into a slow piece of crap motherboard, which 9 times out
of 10 tiny do, I would also point you to the Power supply, it sounds like
it is not giving the gfx card enough juice, another point where tiny cut,
cheap and nasty power supply!.

Eddy

So what PSU should he be looking for something 350W plus ?

This is the one he has had...
http://www.tiny.com/packages.php?prodid=11482

 

[Thomas]

So what PSU should he be looking for something 350W plus ?

This is the one he has had...
http://www.tiny.com/packages.php?prodid=11482

OMG
"300W Power Supply with UK 13Amp power lead"

A *QUALITY* 300 Watts might give enough power. It's incredible such a
company includes a 300 Watts Generic... I recommend a quality 350+ watts
model, or a generic 450 or something...

Thomas

 

[Eddy]

So what PSU should he be looking for something 350W plus ?

This is the one he has had...
http://www.tiny.com/packages.php?prodid=11482

Yes that should be enough, but get a quality one, like Antec, Enermax to
name two, you see the big problem with generic PSU's is that the stated
output is never what it will actually give out, a 300w could only give
between 250 to about 280/90w

Eddy

 

[wazza]

Boo! Let's hear it for the SE. If you can get the pipelines open you
can get into pro/XT territory especially with an Arctic cooler. My
first one was a dud (although tests by the dealer supposedly showed it
working). It had one of the four (not eight) pipelines bust. The
replacement can use all eight.

Seems like too much of a lottery for me. I would rather buy and get what I
expect rather than buying on the promise of "maybe" better performance. I
could pretty well guarantee that for every happy 9800SE user there are a
dozen or more unhappy ones.
(IMHO or course)

 

[Sham B]

Yeah, Tiny used to be a good brand until they got swallowed up by Time. Time use the 'Tiny' name to
avoid associations with their original name, because Time computers simply stopped selling because
they had such a bad reputation.

Never buy either Time or Tiny. They sell through advertising in magazines read by people who know
nothing about computers, and then sell them substandard stuff. Usually, they put one good
component/feature in (lots of memory, or fast processor) then pad it all out with cheap stuff -
intergrated video card, crap PSU, HDs that have a 1 year guarantee instead of the ones that have 3
years, etc, etc. Most of the additional 'free' features they list (modem, firewire, etc) are just
cheap integrated features on an aging mobo or 20 pound webcams. If you try to add your own stuff,
you see that the mobo is usually not made for upgrading (some of them I have seen only have 2 PCI
slots in total - I didnt think they even made em like that until I saw a Tiny/Time!).

Their target market is people who use word processors and who use the high end features
occasionally, so most of the time they get away with it. First thing to check is what he's actually
got. I think you'll find a cheap PSU and a lack of ventilation in the case (causing ther card to
overheat) may be your biggest problems. Also, check what the default BIOS settings are - they may be
all over the place, and designed to slow the computer and make it more stable rather than play
games.

S

 

[demdike]

Yeah, Tiny used to be a good brand until they got swallowed up by

Time. Time use the 'Tiny' name to

avoid associations with their original name, because Time computers simply stopped selling because
they had such a bad reputation.

Never buy either Time or Tiny. They sell through advertising in

magazines read by people who know

nothing about computers, and then sell them substandard stuff. Usually, they put one good
component/feature in (lots of memory, or fast processor) then pad it all out with cheap stuff -
intergrated video card, crap PSU, HDs that have a 1 year guarantee

instead of the ones that have 3

years, etc, etc. Most of the additional 'free' features they list

(modem, firewire, etc) are just

cheap integrated features on an aging mobo or 20 pound webcams. If you try to add your own stuff,
you see that the mobo is usually not made for upgrading (some of them I have seen only have 2 PCI
slots in total - I didnt think they even made em like that until I saw a Tiny/Time!).

Their target market is people who use word processors and who use the high end features
occasionally, so most of the time they get away with it. First thing to check is what he's actually
got. I think you'll find a cheap PSU and a lack of ventilation in the case (causing ther card to
overheat) may be your biggest problems. Also, check what the default

BIOS settings are - they may be

all over the place, and designed to slow the computer and make it more stable rather than play
games.

S

OK this is probably where I get flamed, but what Sham B says is in a
good part bollocks. To take a few examples:
1)"Tiny used to be a good brand until they got swallowed up by Time" So
why did Tiny go bust while Time are still alive? The historic Tiny
machines were so poor that Time spent several million £ on warranty
repairs. That was done just to regain confidence in the brand name,
which seems to have worked judging from the current tiny.com sales.
2)"Time use the 'Tiny' name to avoid associations with their original
name, because Time computers simply stopped selling". Crap go to
www.timecomputers.com or www.thecomputershop.co.uk
Time are simply using "Tiny" as a direct web/mail order budget brand
name - and it happens that customers like the concept. Customers LIKE
ordering on the web - look at Amazon. If you want to buy a Time-branded
computer go to Tesco or Woolworths or Office World or any one of 30 or
so other retail stores. You can walk out the door with one cash and
carry.
3)"they sell through advertising in magazines read by people who know
nothing about computers". Have you read any of the computer mags
recently? Tiny.com only advertise in those and the daily newspapers.
4)"intergrated video card" - wrong they nearly all have a Radeon 9x00
series card of some kind installed. Admittedly on most of the
motherboards there is ALSO onboard graphics as well which you can use
if you want to rip the Radeon out.
5)"HD which have a 1-year warranty" - for the last two years or so
thats all that Seagate and the others gave to OEMs. Seagate extended it
a few months ago.
6)"Most of the additional 'free' features they list (modem, firewire,
etc) are just cheap integrated features" - nope, never done integrated
modems. And whats wrong with integrated firewire? It makes sense!
I could go on, but its getting boring. Please, before slagging someone
off, please get facts right.
Demdike