Cheap Chinese GTX 1050 Ti - 512Mb or 4Gb? Constant BSODs

[freddiegorst]

Hi all,
I bought a cheap clone of an NVidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti from ebay and low and behold I'm experiencing issues with it (I know, bad move but I don't have the money for a proper one right now).
Firstly, when I run Speccy (I'm sure you all know what it is) the card's specifications are read as 512Mb of physical memory and 512Mb of Virtual. In any other spec reader I have tried such as DXDiag and CPU-Z it is read as 4Gb, which is what it was advertised as.

When I run low graphics games like League of Legends or Garrys Mod the card performs really well but, whenever I run GTA V even on the lowest graphics settings I get a video scheduler internal error BSOD. Interestingly GTA V has a scale showing how much VRAM it is using and when on really low settings this is about 800-900Mb. The game will run fine until you move away from the starting area and then it crashes. Could this indicate that Speccy is right and the card only has 1Gb of memory?

Steps taken so far:
1. Installed and re-installed latest NVidia drivers using both their auto detect and choosing the specific driver myself
2. Reinstalled GTA V
3. Installed pending Windows updates
4. Cleared all old display drivers from PC

PC Specs:
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
CPU: AMD FX-8320E Eight Core
RAM: 16Gb
GPU: NVidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
Storage: OS on a 64GB SSD and Programs on 1Tb HDD

 

[LordVile]

What actually is your card?

 

[pete_101]

Never buy a cheap Chinese card, I have no doubt that it's a fake. They take old GPUs like the GTX 550ti and sell them as a 1050/ti.

 

[norcalsc]

it is not a 1050ti. it doesnt have 512mb of video or virtual memory. what you have is a fake. ebay strikes again!!!!
bummer man its probably some older card like a 550 ti. its very common on ebay. itll probably work as you see for lee intensive games but with AAA titles you'll probably have same results you might want to try to lower resolution to 720p or lower if you have to just to play. good luck

 

[LordVile]

it is not a 1050ti. it doesnt have 512mb of video or virtual memory. what you have is a fake. ebay strikes again!!!!
bummer man its probably some older card like a 550 ti. its very common on ebay. itll probably work as you see for lee intensive games but with AAA titles you'll probably have same results you might want to try to lower resolution to 720p or lower if you have to just to play. good luck

What's ebays policy on these things? It's clearly a fraudulent listing would you get the money back guarantee?

 

[guanyu210379]

512MB 1050Ti? That is a fake product!
There is no 1050Ti with 512MB VRAM.

 

[freddiegorst]

Hi guys, thanks so much for all your responses! I contacted the seller this morning and he admitted that the specs I pulled from the card were correct, 512mb physical and 512 virtual memory! He refunded the full amount and didn't even ask that the card was returned. I called eBay in the hope that they would do something about these fake listings.
I hope someone else will read this post and avoid these cards.

 

[R4DIO4CT1VE]

well its good to hear that you were refunded, it seems like a lot of these stories end up with people getting refunds which is surprising.

 

[norcalsc]

enough of them get through that he can refund people who complain and still make a profit.