Reply 43940 of 55080, by Meatball
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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-04-15, 13:51:Meatball wrote on 2022-04-15, 13:43:I usually take the leap on expensive untested equipment if it looks good and the seller has a good track record. You cannot hid […]
TrashPanda wrote on 2022-04-15, 07:34:I've bought a number of GPUs untested and so far gotten lucky enough to have them all work just fine, if the seller has decent enough photos it helps to identify possibly bad GPUs but for me .. I honestly dont mind the gamble so long as the buy in price isn't something stupid. $20 - $30 bucks isn't terrible, 35 euro is a bit steep for most untested GPUs but for a 3DFX card its just low enough to be a decent gamble and not feel terrible if it doesnt work. Banshees can be repaird pretty easy if there is no physical damage to the PCB.
I can say that my biggest gamble was a HD4870x2 for 150 AUD, the seller tried testing it but didn't have a PSU capable of powering the GPU up, was interesting times testing when it arrived but the old girl roared into life when hooked up to a PSU with a high AMP 12v rail. (in my experience 4870x2s wont even post if they cannot get the required minimum power from the PSU)
Honestly the noisiest GPU I have ever used but the thing is a pure joy to see working and just eating whatever old games you throw at it. (I still prefer 4890s in Xfire however)
I usually take the leap on expensive untested equipment if it looks good and the seller has a good track record. You cannot hide behind the “parts only” crap description on eBay, which is why I pay the premium prices.
Ironically, in the 2 last years, I’ve only had tested equipment fail, and usually on first boot; 1 sound card, 1 scsi cdrom, and 4 video:
Soundblaster Live!
NEC SCSI
Voodoo3 3000
S3 Trio 3D
Rage XL
Voodoo1 Pure3D (locks up on 3D initialization)I got my money back or seller exchanged on all of them. That’s good service.
I find the Parts only tags to be hilarious .. do they not know that such tags mean very little and offer no protection to the seller, here in Australia our consumers laws cannot be overridden by anything or any other countries laws, you want to sell stuff here in Australia or to Aussies then you abide by our consumer laws so for us here eBay will always refund if there is any issue with the item(s).
That said .. I as a buyer accept that if its listed as parts only or untested then its really on me if it doesnt work or fails at POST, I could get a refund but I usually wont even bother unless its obvious that the seller is being shady on purpose or it was listed as tested and working, as good as our consumer protection laws are here it doesnt mean I should abuse them just to screw over honest sellers.
I agree. As a seller myself, I want to be treated the same as I treat sellers. With that said, there certainly are sellers even on this board, which have what is perceived to be valuable items. There's a high probability they can test these items, but they don't. Why? I surmise it is because they don't want to take the risk the pot of gold turns out to be a lump of coal, thereby only being to sell it at a fraction of the price; putting 100% of the risk on the buyer. It doesn't work, though. Fortunately for them, most of the items they are selling turn out to work.
But not all sellers are like that. There's plenty of great ones (and on this board, also) who take care of the situation. I know it's tough with awful buyers out there, too. I also guess some of these sellers put "parts only" to scare aware the riff-raff and buyers who aren't confident in their technical know-how.
