Just recieved my VIPER HDK. Having problems.

[Jack1237]

Hi,

I just recieved my viper HDK from your gladiator range. i powered it on for the first time and it was perfect.

however, the pc crashed within around 15 minutes and the monitor distorted and had multiple colours and dots on it.

and now it wont boot, well, it does, but nothing turns on - mouse, keyboard, and it wont connect to the monitor which it previously was.....

some help would be much appreciated.

thanks, Jack.

[Pancake]

Sounds like a dogey graphics card, i would repost this in customer services

[Jack1237]

Sounds like a dogey graphics card, i would repost this in customer services

ive reposted in there, and yeah, i think it is myself, but the thing is, its been tested at aria? i dont understand why it would crash like that....

[michaelkenward]

ive reposted in there, and yeah, i think it is myself, but the thing is, its been tested at aria? i dont understand why it would crash like that....
Look at far too many similar messages hereabouts. Messages turn up daily along the lines "My new Aria custom build keeps crashing".

These reports don't get much mileage because people usually post them in areas that exclude mere mortals. They might learn a lot were they to also put their sob stories somewhere that allows the experts here to respond. (I exclude myself from that category.)

Aria seems to be asking for trouble when it offers that sort of service.

I would rather rely on my own build. At least I know who to blame then.

But I don't overclock.

[NickCPC]

Just to address your points Michael, as I'm sure you remember the decision to restrict CS forums to mods, admins and staff and the OP only was taken so that staff who read the threads can more quickly find posts about the actual issues. The community proved itself on many occasions to be extremely useful at troubleshooting, but staff found it difficult to wade through the inevitable sea of replies to some threads.

However, the compromise of welcoming loyal forum members to post in the Feedback forum was made. I also personally try and redirect customers to post in community-accessible forums when I feel it's appropriate and sensible.

The other point to remember is the forums are now more of a secondary form of contact to CS than 6 months ago - issues can simply be dealt with much faster on the phone than on a forum, where replies can to and fro less frequently than once a day.

Your mentality is very understandable, but obviously not everyone has that level of confidence and/or competence which is why Aria offer the option of building PCs for customers. From what I hear, the QA/QC process is really quite rigorous and PCs aren't allowed to leave until they are deemed fully operational and stable, but we've seen plenty of cumulative evidence on the forums of haphazard couriers which seem to be a very major reason for issues, but of course it can end up being one or more of a multitude of possible reasons for product failure.

To the OP, firstly sorry to hear you're having issues. As Sean said it sounds like a potentially faulty card which could be stopping your system from posting - can you check that the power cables going into it are fully/properly clipped in? Do you see any warning lights on the motherboard at all? If possible, it might be an idea to try the HD6970 in another PC if you can borrow one and see if it is at fault in there too.

[michaelkenward]

I do not complain about having any section closed to any old Tom, **** or Harry.

It makes a lot of sense to me to restrict access to people who can fix things at Aria's end.

I did say that people who post in those bits should also try other places as they can get good advice on how to sort out problems.

I have seen quite a few questions where I know that other people could provide sensible advice. Good grief, it isn't often, I admit, but there are even times when even I could point them in the right directions.

The people who post these complaints/questions are often newcomers who won't think to ask elsewhere. They may not even realise that they have asked a question in an area that others cannot reach, and may therefore assume that they have come up with a bafflingly difficult problem that no one can answer.

It is good to know that you suggest to people with problems that they might like to post elsewhere. Might be a good idea to make those suggestions more explicit in the replies that appear in the "closed" sections.

PS Don't you love the way the forum software hates the diminutive form of Richard?

[NickCPC]

Haha - being brutally honest there's not many times I can help out on CS either, not unlike yourself; but thanks for the feedback and I'll try and take it on board.

I completely understand the point you're making though with the newcomers... everyone has to start somewhere though while learning to communicate via forums and each individual board's etiquette, and personally I feel the learning curve associated with forums can be daunting. If you've never used one before and you see a sea of replies from a clearly close-knit community, it can be pretty difficult feeling confident and you'd rather just get on with getting your message across as best as you can to whoever you feel it would be most appropriate to address, and we have to be sensitive to that. But yeah, as above, thanks for the feedback - who knows, maybe the CS forum setup may be revisted when we move to vBulletin 4 some distant day in the future.

Contextually-aware word filtering would be an excellent forum software innovation, but I doubt it's coming any time soon unfortunately!

[sibeer]

I am sure Aria must be doing something right with the systems they sell as otherwise they wouldn't bother. If you look at the small gap between the component and the system costs they haven't got much to play with for build costs, never mind RMA's and trouble shooting.

[Jack1237]

I am sure Aria must be doing something right with the systems they sell as otherwise they wouldn't bother. If you look at the small gap between the component and the system costs they haven't got much to play with for build costs, never mind RMA's and trouble shooting.

yeah, i got my rma number and stuffs, getting it sent back in the next few days ;)