Chicago (IL) – Graphics card vendor Diamond Multimedia may have shipped between 15,000 and 20,000 AMD/ATI HD 3800-series with design/manufacturing defects to system builders and the retail market. Industry sources told TG Daily that these cards shipped between January and July of this year more than 15,000 units may have ended up in customer hands or are still being sold. Diamond denied that there is a problem with its cards, but confirmed that there was an isolated problem with one system builder earlier this year.

According to our industry source, Diamond Multimedia has been aware of the problem, but decided to keep the “faulty” cards in the channel. We were told that all HD 3850 512 MB cards shipped between January and July are defective as well as a substantial number of HD 3870 512 MB cards and X2 models. All cards lack power management features; the 3850s were identified to have quality issues with poor soldering and integrated memory problems while the 3870s were delivered with a wrong resistor value, which can result in computers not starting up and system crashes.

The whole issue was amplified through a complaint by Alienware, which, according to sources, returned all graphics cards it had purchased from Diamond Multimedia. The system builder found failure rates of more than 10% with X2 cards, more than 2% with 3870 models and almost 8% for 3850 versions. Especially problematic were artifacts in common games as well as system crashes.

For Alienware, the issue was serious enough to scrap its business relationship with Diamond and replace it with another supplier. In total, Alienware returned more than 2600 graphics cards. In a previous instance, Alienware had found 100% of a supply of Diamond Multimedia graphics cards to be defective.

It is important to note that Diamond Multimedia was not the manufacturer of these graphics cards. A fair amount of vendors actually contracts other manufacturers to build their cards. Diamond works with companies such as Sapphire and Info-Tek Corporation (ITC). In this specific case, it was ITC, better known for its brand name GeCube. Companies such as Diamond Multimedia usually change the cards they receive to differentiate themselves from their competitors: The most common changes are BIOS modifications as well as GPU and memory overclocking. While researching this story, we found that an obvious suspicion was that Diamond may have applied some unusual changes, as similar problems did not surface with 3800-series cards of other manufacturers. However, according to the information that is available to us, it appears that the errors were most likely caused due to manufacturing problems at ITC. Diamond may have received flawed cards from its contractor.

While Diamond probably was not at fault so far, we hear that the cards were never evaluated and qualified by AMD (which could have caught the errors) and may have been subject to negligent evaluation and testing at Diamond.

We contacted Diamond about the information we had received to find out more. Bruce Zaman, chief executive officer of the company, confirmed that there has been an isolated issue “with one vendor”, which Diamond found to be related to the power supply unit that vendor used. We were able to confirm that information with our source, which claimed that the “problem” showed up with “underrated” power supplies. In Alienware’s case, the problem occurred with a 750 watt power supply which apparently did not deliver what the specification promised and may have ended up in the 500-600 watt range. Our source stated that the problem was not specific to the power supply Alienware used.

Zaman denied that there was or is a problem with any of its video cards.

Of course, if our sources are correct - and the documents we received support their claims - then more than 15,000 potentially defective Diamond graphics cards were sold in retail/etail or are still in the channel. But we need to be realistic and keep an eye on the big picture. We know that 1.9 million 3800-series were shipped since last November overall, which means that 15,000 cards is a relative small number overall.

We checked the usual U.S. online stores and found some of the cards as still being offered, for example by Newegg. There are very few customer complaints, which, however, fit the picture of error description from our source. One user wrote that “This card crashes just sitting still.” and another noted that he could play Half-Life 2 only by underclocking the card.   

If there are really 15,000 faulty cards in the market, some may say that it isn’t especially nice of Diamond to keep the whole issue quiet. But what else should the company do? Issue a full recall?

Yes, it would have been the honorable thing to do, but this is a business world. A recall would have been a suicide business-decision since replacing 15,000 graphics cards can easily bankrupt a company like Diamond. We hear that Diamond is stuck between a rock and a hard place and was in no position to shoulder the cost of a recall due to a business agreement with GeCube. The ugly side of this whole scenario, of course, is that the customer is on the receiving end and gets a faulty product that may not work in certain environments.     

However, let’s not get too excited over this issue. The design/manufacturing flaws apparently affect very few users. If you are among those being affected, contact Diamond Multimedia and they happily replace your card, we are told. However, if your card works just fine, then there is no reason to request a replacement.

What is far more serious about these events is the fact that they expose a major problem in the graphics chip / add-in-board (AIB) industry. AIBs operate at extremely tight margins and several firms have a hard time surviving these days. The result is that those fancy names you see printed on graphics card boxes usually hide small organizations with only 10-20 full-time employees. You won’t find any over-staffed AIBs, which means that errors will be made and some may slip through to the customer sooner or later. And this Diamond problem may have been just such a case.

We have received the following statement from Diamond Multimedia following the publication of our article:

"After investigating our Customer Service logs, we did uncover an isolated issue with one OEM manufacturer relating to a power supply being used.  The issue was identified and corrected.  We do not have any extraordinary customer call reports for HD 3850, 3870 512 MB boards.  Diamond manufactures the most reliable graphics cards in the industry and our customers' satisfaction is our first priority. Diamond has always been about customer service and cares about maintaining good standing relationships with OEM manufacturers."

Whine whine whine

Sep 24, 2008 04:31     

So quality control and testing (and getting it right) is too hard, so we'll stick our customers with the problem, and explain to them that we can't afford to fix it. Since our customers can afford to absorb the cost of a new card, everyone wins! [The upside is that they'll lose market share and go out of business, it'll just take longer for the word to get out.] Sigh.
wpns report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

I Remember 10 Years Ago...

Sep 24, 2008 07:01     

I remember 10 years ago when Diamond Multimedia was one of the biggest add-in card companies in the world. They made everything from video cards to modems to sound cards. It looks like they're a shadow of their former selves.
Cypherdude report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

Not really an excuse...

Sep 24, 2008 09:02     

"In total, Alienware returned more than 2600 graphics cards. In a previous instance, Alienware had found 100% of a supply of Diamond Multimedia graphics cards to be defective." In one batch, Alienware found EVERY SINGLE CARD to be defective!? That is astonishing. Diamond have demonstrated quite substantial negligence here. If they make any change to a product, they need to qualify and test it. They didn't and apparently havn't in the past either. I have no sympathy for Diamond at all, it's inexcusable to supply faulty products simply because you didn't test them or qualify them. No sob story or excuse about their margins changes that. On the bright side, at least they are offering replacements without any issue, but that doesn't exactly wipe the slate clean.

Jo-mo report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

lol

Sep 24, 2008 11:11     

IS NOTICE FAKE lol
Cyber report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -2

I have a Diamond HD3870

Sep 24, 2008 14:49     

Had green squares of death so I replaced it with a HD4850. If anyone wants the card, it still works but beware!
bfellow report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

mobility video cards the energy efficient new black

Sep 25, 2008 07:04     

Mobility video cards should soon be sold as the new energy efficient discreet video cards for mini itx pcs, mini itx is really reaching spectacular heights as the new energy star compliant computer they even have case mods for mini itx now.
Gi-82 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

my 3870

Sep 25, 2008 10:04     

I happen to have this card and in the past couple months since i have bought it i have went through 2 monitors. they both took a crap on me. I have also had some trouble with the card itself. i thought it was the card but had no evidence to back that up. It good to know about this, thanks tg.
wheaties466 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Now DM can RIP

Sep 25, 2008 12:01     

Glory days were long gone....... RIP
Dominic report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Not limited to Diamond cards

Sep 26, 2008 10:41     

We've run into these types of issues with a number of other vendors selling ATI 2x00 and up cards. Frankly at this point we're starting to feel like the issue is related to ATI's GPUs.
hank report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -3

Diamond has been in a downhill skid since it was aq...

Dec 10, 2008 22:56     

Diamond has been in a downhill skid since it was aquired by Best Data. I have a HD3650 that worked for a few hours then started scrambling the graphics. I've been trying to get a response to my support ticket since september. After several weeks I did get an email from a technician requesting my phone number. He then promised to contact me the first of the week. That call never came. 2 months later I received another email saying they had been training new techs and were trying to catch up on support tickets. And once more was promised that I would be contacted. On top of that, they lost my order and it took over a month to get the card. Bottom line, the card has been sitting in the box since the end of August and I'm still waiting for tech support.

Terry report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0