appiah4 wrote:

candle_86 wrote:

already did, it's marked R350. But its also unstable as all get out

It is market R350 but I'm not so sure that it actually is an R350 😀

Well I have no way to confirm that its a real R350, rivatuner and aida64 report 8pp while GPUz crashes. But Aida64 reports 8pp/4vs, 8 rops, 256bit bus, and 400mhz DDR ram. I just want a working GPU, I'm hoping i can fix my 6800GT, if not I'll be stuck on this MX420 for awhile, I spent an allotment I had from a large refund check, the rest went into savings, buying another card isn't possible atm and it makes my AXP worthless to me with an MX420 🤣.

Seller got back to me, I'm sending it back for a full refund

appiah4 wrote:

candle_86 wrote:

20180507_222342.jpg

Thats the card I got sent

That card is not built on a Radeon 9800 PCB, not even a 9700 PCB. It is actually the worst Frankenstein PCB I've ever seen.

Can you please lift the cooler and check the GPU for me?

How can you tell it's a fake? I just recently bought one from eBay and want to make sure I didn't get ripped off.
https://m.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Radeon-9800-Pro-12 … d=2080350520012
Seems to work fine but I haven't really done more than load up drivers and see if Delta Force would run.

same excat sale i got mine from, check its clock speeds and ram, if the ram doesn't say -28 but says -36 its a fake

candle_86 wrote:

same excat sale i got mine from, check its clock speeds and ram, if the ram doesn't say -28 but says -36 its a fake

How do I go about checking those, do I need to run Powerstrip or something ? Its in a win98se machine.
I took some pics of the card with close ups of the ram chips. Is that where I should be looking for -28? If so mine are -33's.

3.3ns was installed on non-pro Radeon 9700/9800.

TigerBill wrote:

How do I go about checking those, do I need to run Powerstrip or something ? Its in a win98se machine. I took some pics of the c […]
Show full quote

candle_86 wrote:

same excat sale i got mine from, check its clock speeds and ram, if the ram doesn't say -28 but says -36 its a fake

How do I go about checking those, do I need to run Powerstrip or something ? Its in a win98se machine.
I took some pics of the card with close ups of the ram chips. Is that where I should be looking for -28? If so mine are -33's.

20180517_234428.jpg

That is a 300MHz rated chip, the 9800PRO was not equipped with these RAM. Even if it works at PRO speeds, it is overclocked, and likely BIOS modded before sale.

I have a very similar 9800 (Non-Pro) with a 9700 PCB and cooler, these seem to be MUCH later cards thrown together from what was lying about.

Mine works, but was sold as a 9800 so I don't complain. If you bought it as a 9800PRO, return it. Out of curiosity, please share a full photo of your card?

appiah4 wrote:

If you bought it as a 9800PRO, return it. Out of curiosity, please share a full photo of your card?

https://imgur.com/gallery/GuOIliy

candle_86, How did you word that email you had with the seller? Never had to do this and would like to start off with something that worked.

TigerBill wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

If you bought it as a 9800PRO, return it. Out of curiosity, please share a full photo of your card?

https://imgur.com/gallery/GuOIliy

candle_86, How did you word that email you had with the seller? Never had to do this and would like to start off with something that worked.

Very interesting. The layout resembles a Radeon 9800 PCB but the components are very different and a lot more sparse in places. Several capacitors have been consolidated, the VRM has been changed to a solid state but lower rated noname part. The back of the card has several places marked for application of Dell OEM part id and serial labels, but they are unpopulated.

Further investigation leads me to this image which is from this ebay listing titled Dell 6T996 ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. The card is 128MB and seems to have proper BGA RAM. Yours is 256MB and has lower clocked BGA RAM.

As an OEM card, it is almost surely dated to the relevant time period (2003/2004). The silkscreen on your card marks it as being manufactured in the year 2015. The only logical explanation is that someone found a batch of GPUs somewhere, acquired the blueprints to Dell's OEM boards (which were probably much cheaper than the original ATI reference ones) and put together Radeon 9800s with whatever they had at hand. In China.

Return it.

TigerBill wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

If you bought it as a 9800PRO, return it. Out of curiosity, please share a full photo of your card?

https://imgur.com/gallery/GuOIliy

candle_86, How did you word that email you had with the seller? Never had to do this and would like to start off with something that worked.

Sure, here is my email

This is not a Radeon 9800 Pro, stock clocks are 324/200, they should be 380/330. I tried to set the clocks to what a 9800 Pro should be and it won't run at those speeds. Do you have a 9800 Pro that is a real 9800 Pro?The ram on this card is K4D263238G-VC36, rated for 275, its 3.6ns ram, all real 9800 Pro's should have at least 2.8ns ram. Can you please check to see if you have a card with the correct ram spec. I understand you may not have meant to sell a counterfit 9800 Pro but this is counterfit.

That's my email to them

Sent a message to the seller asking for an exchange for an authentic 9800 Pro or a full refund. Now we wait.

This whole ordeal makes me suspicious of all the other stuff I've recently bought from eBay/Craigslist (including several other GPU's). Still debating if I want to take pics of all of them and post them here for people to identify them for me.

Thanks for all the input everyone. Candle sorry to hijack your thread.

Those cards just don't look right, regardless of reported specs. ATi never used stickers that looked that cheap (one color printing), and the logo is wrong. There should be a red rectangle around the letters, not a solid red background. Also, the caps on their high end cards were always the flatter type (polymer caps? I don't know for sure), not the standard tall aluminum electrolytics that are on most devices from this era.

Looks like 9600..

Well the seller accepted the return.

Found another one on Craigslist that I can pick up for the same price as that fake one. Would everyone mind taking a look at it to make sure it legit before I send money ? Had the seller take pics this time.
https://imgur.com/a/HPYAQnC

that looks right

TigerBill wrote:

Found another one on Craigslist that I can pick up for the same price as that fake one. Would everyone mind taking a look at it to make sure it legit before I send money ? Had the seller take pics this time.
https://imgur.com/a/HPYAQnC

Got the card from the Craiglist seller yesterday. Haven't tried it but I did notice something that I missed in the photos. Looks like some of the caps are starting to bulge. Now that I look again I see it, I was too focused on the ram chips first time around.

Do I need to worry about them and should I consider replacing them?