QA glitch allows defective ATI Radeon cards to slip out

According to "sources" at AMD, the firm's official graphics card diagnostic and validation software was recently discovered "to have a bug that failed to detect defective ATI Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 graphics cards." The problem was actually discovered by various "channel vendors" who supposedly pointed out an error in the BIOS application process, and it was noted that Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte were all bitten by the mishap. Thankfully, the glitch can seemingly be rectified by "reapplying the BIOS," but now some 20,000 to 30,000 units are already being shipping back in order to be mended before reaching consumers' hands; interestingly, there's no mention of a remedy for the "small number" of end users that may actually own one of these marred boards. Nevertheless, AMD has responded by stating that this ordeal was simply "an isolated incident," and assured us all that "measures were taken to solve the issue as soon as it was detected."

[Via TGDaily]

[Alexander @ Aug 1st 2007 6:17PM]

The nail in the coffin...

[Blake Kachman @ Aug 1st 2007 6:22PM]

God I wish...

[Max @ Aug 1st 2007 6:44PM]

since when is this news? ive bought 4 ati cards altogether and 3 were lemons the first lemon was 3 years ago

[Blake Kachman @ Aug 1st 2007 6:52PM]

I've heard of some outrageous things before but buying a video card and they sent you fruit? I hope you sent that shit back!

[Max @ Aug 1st 2007 9:56PM]

lol i know man its messed, they were all moldys and stuff (that was sarcasium right? cause lemon is slang for a problematic product)

[ethana2 @ Aug 2nd 2007 12:09AM]

Does three lemons mean you win or lose?
Sorry. Couldn't pass it up.

By the way, does anybody spam with actual mail anymore? I got some package from a "Ted Kazcinsinki" or something. That's not Nigerian, is it? Feels like it might be an ATX PSU by the weight...

[paloooz @ Aug 1st 2007 6:48PM]

I suppose this is the QA department that checks for performance, too ...

[paul34 @ Aug 1st 2007 7:05PM]

what?! No nVidia fanboys?!

Come on guys, I'm disappointed in you. Show your anti-ATi spirit!

[toppgun @ Aug 1st 2007 7:12PM]

I am all for competition. They fight for me to buy their product.

Currently I am waiting for the Nvidia 9 series or the AMD 3 series release and benchmarks to upgrade from my 7900GT.

[ethana2 @ Aug 2nd 2007 12:12AM]

All you have to do to get me riled against ATi is say something slanderous, like

"They don't ship good Linux drivers for their cards."

I'd have to say that's the main factor for me... besides process size and c/v throttling features.

[randy @ Aug 1st 2007 7:08PM]

"being shipping back in order to be mended" ?

what? (where is the Engadget QA?)

[nonamo @ Aug 1st 2007 7:17PM]

This wouldnt happen to nvidia....

NOOOO.... they'd knowingly let bugged cards into the wild, without recalling them.

:P

[ethana2 @ Aug 2nd 2007 12:24AM]

I'm almost fine with that, assuming they'd release the source code for those drivers as well. ;)

If those were simply mass co processors, one core wouldn't matter as much... Call it the, oh, Dang, Radeon is taken. Celleradion? Nevermind.

[Revrant2394 @ Aug 1st 2007 7:26PM]

You wish, yeah, I mean, without the competition it'd be great to be stuck with another Geforce FX 5800, right?

[Joshewah777 @ Aug 1st 2007 9:06PM]

Wow, ATi can't catch a break this time around. Nothing but failures and underperformance. Back in the 9700 PRO days they were curb-stomping nVidia.

[ethana2 @ Aug 2nd 2007 12:36AM]

I look forward to the day when I can help design my own graphics solution and watch it curb-stomp EVERYBODY.

Open Source Hardware is on its way.

My solution, btw: 45nm PCIe64x Stream coprocessor with soft OpenGL 3 implementation.
1 GB of system GDDR-X(whatever they're up to) for effective L3 and vRAM.
Separate PCIe to D-SUB/DVI card for simple framebuffer and RAMDAC

Any thoughts? [e-mail]