rob was here.

Today I recieved the following message from the "MSI eSupport Team":

Please apply for an RMA Service for the VGA Card. If it is out of parts and labor warranty, we need to charge CAD $ 45.00 + taxes for repair/replace. Thanks.

Ouch! 45 bucks... plus the taxes!... plus the shipping! After some investigation I found out that the parts+labour warrenty lasts 2 years, which I'm just over. However, parts are covered for all 3 years. I included that in my retort:

Hello again!

The serial number of the card starts with 0409, which indicates the card was build September 2004. As I've breached the 2 year part of the warrenty, how much does this mean I will have to pay in total, if I decide to RMA the entire card?

I will apply for an RMA service for the VGA card right now just to get the ball rolling, so you'll have my serial number and required information.

Also, I noticed on your website it says the following:

"Yes, customer can apply for parts (e.g. cooling fan, BIOS chip...etc) from MSI. For within warranty products, FREE for the parts and minium of CAD $ 10.00 shipping and handleing will be charged. For out of warranty products, minium of CAD $ 10.00 shipping and handleing plus the cost of the parts will be charged."

Following that thread of thought, how much would it be to get a cooling fan sent to me? just $ 10.00 shipping? It sounds like that is what the website is saying, since the third year of a CGA warrenty includes the parts! :) :)

I would like to do whatever is the cheapest between RMA'ing the whole card or purchasing a cooling fan and having it sent to me.
Could you please tell me which is the cheaper option: RMAing the card back to MSI or to have a fan sent to me? If the cost of the fan is covered by the 3rd year of the warrenty, then shipping it to me sounds like a viable option.

I'm not getting discouraged. I'm going to fight to spend just $10.00 to get the ol' feller up and running again.

I haven't been online very much the past few days. This is because the fan on my videocard stopped working, causing my videocard to overheat and not work right. So my computer has been perpetually in "off mode". As per usual in my life, when a product breaks, I shoot straight for the manufacturer in a desperate plea to get free stuff. So far my batting average is 0.0, but I'm hopeful this time around.

Here's the email I sent MSI's canada contact:

Hello There! I purchased a MSI video card about 2 years ago. It's a RX9800 Pro 128MB-DDR videocard, model number 8956-050. Overall, the card performed very very well for the past 2 years, and I'm very pleased with the quality of MSI.

Unfortunately, yesterday marked the end of the video card's mighty reign, as I found the graphics on the screen became "messed up", as the kids say. After a close inspection of the inside of my computer, I noticed the graphics card was exceptionally hot, and furthermore, the cooling fan on the GPU's heatsink was not spinning. I turned the computer off immediately. Now, I'm sure the graphic board itself operates fine, because if I turn the computer back on for just a few seconds with the graphics card cooled down, it operates fine.

Thus, I've come to the conclusion that I need a replacement fan. After scouring the internet and local shops for a simple fan to sit on the 9800's heatsink, I've come to the conclusion that it's not something as easy as I thought to track down. Which leads me to why I'm writing this. As the manufacturer, you're the most likely source on Earth to have some of these fans available. I think you can see where I'm going with this;

I would be very grateful if MSI would sell or send me a DC-fan for this videocard. Without the fan, this powerful videocard is just a paperwight, and I'm just unable to source a replacement fan anywhere else! It would be such a shame for this wonderful product to be put on a junk shelf due to a malfunctioning GPU fan. It would also be terribly disheartening for me to have to go look for a new videocard just because a fan gave out! I don't neat a heatsink replacement or anything. Just a simple little fan to get it back on it's feet. I attached a picture to this report indicating exactly which part of the videocard requires replacing. If a deal can be arranged for me to purchase a fan directly from MSI, please contact me back at (edit: my email address) and perhaps we can work out some details :)

Even better, if there are any, umm, "spare fans" lying about the place, and one just happened to be sent to me, my address is, *ahem*: (edit: my snail mail address)

Any response to this would be greatly appreciated! :)

Kindly, Rob

Now we wait. I'll post the response if and when I get one.

Twenty-eight days into the experiment.

It has been the healthiest consecutive run in my adult life. Well, at 28 days it's not really considered a run yet. More of a gallop. Maybe even a trot.

At any rate, it simply isn't a hard thing to do once you resign yourself to it. The foods which I eat now are what I consider to be "real" food as opposed to the plastic-like globs handed out through a drive-through or what comes out of a nestle or hostess package.

Overall, I eat a lot of fishes and poultry, fruit, vegetables, nuts, grain bread, water and greentea. the basics. There have been a few pita and subway trips during the month, as the rules allowed.

One considerable challenge is after the 2nd week I noticed a slight drop in weight. I've been trying to counter this with exercise and eating a lot more animals, and am having some success on that front as of lately.

Just a quick update to the site. I added a button/link over in the right-hand column to an open-source project called Songbird. It's my nod of approval, if you will.

Songbird is an open-source audio player, with a remarkable resemblence to iTunes. Unlike iTunes, however, Songbird runs on any platform (including Linux). It's built upon the Mozilla platform. It supports plugins and extensions, which is one of the components of "cool" software in my books. It even supports "feathers" (a.k.a. skins) so you can colourize it the way you want :)

Check it out.

Lost season 3 premiers tonight. While I'm waiting for it to come on, I think I'll have a walk down memory lane. Over the past few years, flash games have been a welcome haven during stressful times. Playing these games was a more prevalent thing during the academic terms of University, but are still kicking around today.

Whenever the stress of a project came crashing down, some game would rise in popularity, to the point you could walk into the computer lab at some late hour only to find several people with glazed eyes working hard to get to the next level. Ahh.. Those were the days.

People will argue which game was better, and I indeed have opinion on that too.

That said, I have comprised a list of the 10 top games. Not in order of my favorite games, but games that I think had the most impact on my friends and classmates over the years. Lets Start with the 10th most important game and count our way down to the glorious pedestal of number 1:

Number 10: The Red Game (play)

This is the newest game of the lot. In fact, I discovered it on digg only a few days ago and posted to the class google group. Already it's catching on! A weird take on missile command, the goal is to deflect incoming asteroids by bouncing your ammo off of them. Catchy music and Neat powerups add flavor to the game.

It has all the ingredients to be a lasting game, and leave an impression in our minds, and so it finds itself at our spot # 10.


"the soundtrack is definitely rocking for the first 300 seconds of the game." -- ScottG


Number 9: FatMan Zombie Game (play)

The FatMan Zombie Game (which is actually named ZombieGrinder 60000) is probably the most novelty-like game on the list, depending who you ask. It was popular in the dog-days of being a senior engineering student, I recall.

I can only imagine the amount of work we had on our plates at the time that we put serious effort into this game. The basic play-style is to turn up the volume real loud, then run, jump and shoot for about 20 seconds until you collapse into convulsions.

"that's not nearly as fun as the fat man zombie game." -- ScottG


Number 8: That CaveMan Spear Throwing Game (play)

This game deserves it's placement based on the competition it started one week, probably sometime in 2003 or 2004. It was definitely on just about every screen in the Jr. Lab at once.

The gameplay is pretty self explanatory I think.

"That caveman spear throwing game was dope." -- JeremyW



Number 7: Championship Archer (play)

This is the only other post-graduation flash game, besides #10, to make the list. I sent out the link late this summer to the class, and it caught on pretty good for that time of year!

The goal is to get your army across the screen each round, while your character (an archer... a championship archer!) provides support by wizzing arrows overhead. Reid is the champ at this game. He has the screenshots to prove it. A similar game, Bowman 2, has been eating some of my time recently.

"Round 38 bitches! Once you get double arrow and fast shot, shit gets real." -- Reid
"Truly you are a god among men..." -- Humber
"that's what i've been sayin..." -- Reid


Number 6: Insaniquarium (play)

Ahhh, the dark days of Insaniquarium. This is the official origin of calling pregnant women "Prego the Mama Fish", which several of us still do to this day, and we're cool with that. I seem to recall Hayward playing this game the most out of everyone.

This was a popular game in the last academic summer term, in 2004. The goal of this one is to feed different fish, and following on that, to ward of mutants and aliens.

"Uh-oh. Phillipa is preggo the mama fish." -- Furlong


Number 5: Slime Volleyball (play)

The top 5. We're getting serious now. Slime Volleyball deserves a crown for being a straight-up classic. One of the firsts of the flash game movement. It didn't have the best graphics of course, and it didn't have levels or anything sophisticated like that, but it was fun.

The computer A.I. is practically impossible to beat, so we turned to frequently playing a 2-player game at the same computer. Two players! At the same time! We must be living in the future.

"slim volleyball was awesome" -- DanM
"slim" -- Bev
"Thats right I said it" -- DanM


Number 4: Fishy (play)

I wonder where that fish is gone?
You did love it so, you looked after it like a son.
And it went wherever I did go.
Is it in the cupboard?
Wouldn't you like to know? It was a funny little fish.
And it went wherever I did go.
Where can that fish be?
It is a most elusive fish!
And it went wherever I did go.

A'hem, Sorry. Theres not much to say about this game other than it was awesome. It taught us to stay away from bigger things than us, until we are bigger than the big thing.

"I loves teh fishy." - JeremyW


Number 3: Nanaca Crash (play)

This is my favorite game on the list, and probably the one I spent the most time at. It was hard for me to only give it 3rd place, but that shows my dedication to this being as non-bias a list as possible.

I won't get into the nitpicky details of the game here. Basically you control characters to keep punching and kicking a guy as far a distance as you can. There are a lot of tricks and special combos.

"i think Rob holds the record in Nanaca, 12,000 or something. did we ever break that? Matt?" -- Naeim

"I never go back to that site it steals the soul....." -- Matt

"I incurred an addiction with that for quite a while... I either hit 9000 or 11000 something. I know I never beat Rob's score though... I had to retire due to health reasons" - Northcott


Number 2: Chaos Game (play)

I remember this game got popular during the Nanaca Crash era, and I was disappointed when it started drawing players away from Nanaca. I never got into it to the degree that some people did. There were actual competitions!

A seemingly simple game with simple graphics, it is anything but. It has great gameplay that focuses on timing and foresight to create the largest chain reaction ever.

Damn this game.

"chaos game...how could one simple game capture my entire being. I remember matt walsh and I playing best score 2 out of 3 to win. It was the closest i will come to olympic pressure!" -- PWall

Number 1: Helicopter Game (play)

Was there any doubt? The flash game of flash games.

The granddaddy.

This is the first flash game the munece2005 group payed any sort of group attention to. In fact, this one reached far out of our class; other disciplines were playing it... Even in term 8, in the heat of battle, helicopter game was there.

Gameplay is pretty simple. How far can you get in the endless tunnel before you crash into a large green floating brick?? I think the controls are what puts it above the rest. It's easier to use than an iPod. Basically, there is one button to press, and that button makes the helicoptor go up.

Oh Joy.

"not to make anyone addicted again but..... http://www.addictinggames.com/helicopter.html" -- PWall

posted by rob  # 10/04/2006 08:28:00 PM 0 Comments