Near the beginning of December I started to experience artfiacting on my Gigabyte 1GB GTX460. Having originally purchased the card from Scan I requested an RMA from them which they provided although they said I should not send it back until January as the RMA department would be closing early and would remain closed over Christmas. This seemed reasonable to me, not much point in sending it off when nothing would be done and it was still usable for desktop use. So at the beginning of January I sent the card off to scan who quickly verified the fault and sent it back to Gigabyte for repair/replacement, within 3 days of receiving it. I received the card back today, apparently repaired. Being at work I cannot test it but did a quick visual check and it was obvious that the heat sink was removed for some repair work and has not been replaced properly. Two of the four screws around the GPU are missing, if it's not obvious. This means that I am now going to have to return the card again, at this point I have not been able to use my PC properly for two months. I know Christmas has slowed things down but there has clearly been a lack of inspection after repair. And probably also a lack of quality during the repair as I would expect reattaching the heat sink to be a manual task. I await a response...
What happens is that the GPU manufacture keeps the heat sink of RMA's or returned cards, as those are expensive (would be a shame to throw away a perfectly working heat sink in any case). They care repaired or use a new board and use the existent heat sink to save a lot of money (beside the heat sink isn't what's faulty). In your case, human error lead to have your card shipped with missing 2 screws. Contact Gigabyte maybe they can send you screws,
This would be my first thought as GoodBytes pointed out. However technically speaking it is the retailer you bought the card from that bears responsibility for the goods they sell.
I contacted scan as soon as I noticed the screws missing as they would have had some contact with Gigabyte for the RMA. Though I will also see what Gigabyte suggest I do, if they are happy to send me the screws then it will certainly be a lot quicker. Thanks for the advice guys.
