The story of the boy and the graphics card.
So I’ve done my computer upgrading in anticipation of half life 2. Got myself the TDK 1616DLN DVD Writer for S$155 and a Radeon 9800Pro graphics card for S$399. Cost me S$544 altogether but i’m planning on earning back at least S$140 from the sale of my previous graphics card. I’m so pleased with myself.
But it was not to be, for after Azmi had installed the new graphics card into his computer and tried playing a game, his monitor flashed repeatedly with thick white horizontal bars. His brand new graphics card was faulty! “Blast it!”, he grumbled to himself. Now he had to take it back to the shop for a replacement. He was not only angry at the thoguht of having to travel back to Sim Lim Square and get a replacement, but also angry at himself for not doing his research properly.
Azmi had looked high and low for the Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card which had been recommended by many at the Hardwarezone Forums. Almost every shop he went to didn’t seem to have it in stock. But when he came to this one shop on the 6th floor, there he saw it, sitting on the display shelf calling to him, “Buy me.. buuyy meeee…”.
Azmi coolly went up to the counter and pointed at the box sitting on the shelf behind the sales staff. He said to the guy behind the counter, “That Sapphire Radeon 9800…”.
“It costs S$399.00″.
“I’ll take it.”
“Ok. Cash or Nets?”
“Nets.”
“Would you like to examine the contents of the box.”
“Sure. Whatever.”
Azmi noticed that the small Sapphire stickers which were used to seal the box had come off. He enquired about it to the sales staff, “The box has been opened before?”
“Oh no, it just got forced open due to the pressure of it being stacked upright on the display shelf.”
Good enough for me, thought Azmi. And the deal was done.
But Azmi, in his efforts to be all cool and nonchalant about the purchase, failed to notice the warranty sticker on the back of the graphics card. It was dated ‘Sep 2004′. What does it mean, u ask? Well, I’ll tell you what it means. It means there’s a high chance that the card was purchased by someone in September(which is why the warranty sticker is marked as such) and that this card was returned by said person probably due to it being faulty then too. The horror of it all. Azmi was furious at himself for not catching it the first time. He paid S$399 expecting a brand new graphics card, not a 2 month old returned one.
Another nigling detail on Azmi’s mind was that this card’s warranty was by the distributor called B & H. It’s a 1 year warranty. Whereas the other distributor’s warranty is for two years and this is the card that he should have been looking for.
So the moral of the story is… always, ALWAYS do THOROUGH research before buying ANYTHING. Not just research on the product itself, but which are the best places to buy and warranty issues, etc…
The End.
This entry was posted on Friday, November 12th, 2004 at 2:34:30 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
