Gigabyte is apparently under investigation by the Bureau of Consumer Protection over RMA issues

[Forgotten_Fox]

This was posted by a fairly reputable member of the PCMR reddit community detailing their efforts to get a warranty replacement from gigabyte for a motherboard with an exploded cap. Their efforts were met with gigabyte refusing to make a warranty replacement because they claim they had not received the motherboard after having legally signed for the package which USPS had in their manifest records.

 

"TLDR: Gigabyte's horrible customer service leads to an investigation by the Bureau of Consumer Protection after they refuse to replace a motherboard, they "aren't in physical possession of" even with proof from USPS that Gigabyte signed for it."

 

Total story can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/fgz4he/serious_complaint_about_gigabytes_criminal_rma/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

[aisle9]

Oh boy, more CFPB overreach. Can't wait for the SCOTUS to pronounce them unconstitutional.

[Tristerin]

7 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

Oh boy, more CFPB overreach. Can't wait for the SCOTUS to pronounce them unconstitutional.

Guberment

[WereCatf]

7 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

Oh boy, more CFPB overreach.

Why is it overreach?

[5x5]

About time for GH to be under investigation tbh. Their RMA and support is abysmal

[GoodBytes]

Asus should be part of it as well. They don't repair RMAed boards, they just send you someone else RMA board with its problem to you (dust included), and hope you won't notice.

[omardlt1]

Now I'm afraid to do that BIOS update on my Aorus Gaming 5... I've seen videos on how to do it and it seems easy enough, but honestly I have yet to face any issues at all having to do with the BIOS, so I may just hold that off until, or if, I decide to upgrade to a 9th-gen processor. Don't want to inadvertently cause a problem with the board and have to RMA because of a screwy BIOS update, if it'd even fall under the warranty.

[Mister Woof]

22 minutes ago, omardlt1 said:

Now I'm afraid to do that BIOS update on my Aorus Gaming 5... I've seen videos on how to do it and it seems easy enough, but honestly I have yet to face any issues at all having to do with the BIOS, so I may just hold that off until, or if, I decide to upgrade to a 9th-gen processor. Don't want to inadvertently cause a problem with the board and have to RMA because of a screwy BIOS update, if it'd even fall under the warranty.

I've upgraded the bios on my gigabyte Z370 gaming 5 three times without issue.

 

Although I haven't in a while. I can't really speak on newer versions

[aisle9]

1 hour ago, WereCatf said:

Why is it overreach?

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Not Consumer Electronics Protection Bureau.

 

But seriously, they've been stepping far over the line and inventing rules for themselves almost from day one...thanks, Obama. And Warren. Mostly Warren. Their history is one of deciding that they want money from an industry, so they start policing that industry and fining its players without any real authorization to do so. They are generally the bane of my existence. The only good thing to come out of the current administration is the impending gutting of the CFPB, now that their own director has come out and said to the SCOTUS that the agency's composition is unconstitutional, effectively begging the Supreme Court to dismantle it and allowing for it to be re-formed in a much more limited, scaled back form.

 

This isn't to defend Gigabyte, because I think anyone who's ever dealt with their RMA process knows that it's about as much fun as sticking your junk in a blender, and they have a long and storied history of saying, "Hey, sucks that your top-of-the-line H97-Gaming 3 board is dead because we put bad VRMs on it. We don't have any more of that board in stock, but you're in luck! We're going to upgrade you to a Z97 Ultra Durable DS3H board instead!". And we know that it takes sometimes several months to get something back, and that's something that needs to be addressed...but the CFPB isn't the agency to address it. Trust me, if they smell blood in the water, you're going to see manufacturer warranties on components in the US become much more codified and much less friendly. It'll go from, "Here's a lower end board on a better chipset, do you agree?", to, "Here's a low-end replacement H97 board because our warranty policy says we have to offer an equivalent or better chipset. Enjoy."

[GoodBytes]

4 hours ago, omardlt1 said:

Now I'm afraid to do that BIOS update on my Aorus Gaming 5... I've seen videos on how to do it and it seems easy enough, but honestly I have yet to face any issues at all having to do with the BIOS, so I may just hold that off until, or if, I decide to upgrade to a 9th-gen processor. Don't want to inadvertently cause a problem with the board and have to RMA because of a screwy BIOS update, if it'd even fall under the warranty.

Doesn't Gigabyte have a dual BIO chip?

[Kisai]

On 3/11/2020 at 11:24 AM, omardlt1 said:

Now I'm afraid to do that BIOS update on my Aorus Gaming 5... I've seen videos on how to do it and it seems easy enough, but honestly I have yet to face any issues at all having to do with the BIOS, so I may just hold that off until, or if, I decide to upgrade to a 9th-gen processor. Don't want to inadvertently cause a problem with the board and have to RMA because of a screwy BIOS update, if it'd even fall under the warranty.

I had the Gigabyte P45 board kill it's bios, despite having one of those ultra durable labels. The dual bios does not work and will not save you, it will kill both.

 

That's the only reason Gigabyte is on my do-not-buy list. 

[CarlBar]

On 3/11/2020 at 7:17 PM, aisle9 said:

but the CFPB isn't the agency to address it.

 

Then who's responsibility is it exactly, and why aren't they handling this.

[ARikozuM]

On 3/11/2020 at 3:17 PM, aisle9 said:

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Not Consumer Electronics Protection Bureau.

 

But seriously, they've been stepping far over the line and inventing rules for themselves almost from day one...thanks, Obama. And Warren. Mostly Warren. Their history is one of deciding that they want money from an industry, so they start policing that industry and fining its players without any real authorization to do so. They are generally the bane of my existence. The only good thing to come out of the current administration is the impending gutting of the CFPB, now that their own director has come out and said to the SCOTUS that the agency's composition is unconstitutional, effectively begging the Supreme Court to dismantle it and allowing for it to be re-formed in a much more limited, scaled back form.

I'm going to have to disagree on this one. The CFPB's job is to protect consumers with financial transactions. Did the person pay for the motherboard? Yes. Ergo he/she must be protected for the warranty claim made. The CFPB was a rather large step in giving consumers a voice where they had none before. 

[ARikozuM]

On 3/11/2020 at 7:18 PM, GoodBytes said:

Doesn't Gigabyte have a dual BIO chip?

If the BIOS chip goes, you're done. The BIOS on them is usually a single chip. Don't know if they changed it recently, but that is how I remember it. 

[GoodBytes]

1 hour ago, ARikozuM said:

If the BIOS chip goes, you're done. The BIOS on them is usually a single chip. Don't know if they changed it recently, but that is how I remember it. 

Intresting, I guess they cheaped out over the years. I have the Gigabyte X58A-UD5 (CPU is a Core i7 930.. for reference, so yes very old), I already got the BIOS update failed on me, but the dual bios recovered the first BIOS chip. I guess they saw that other manufacture didn't bother doing this, so they switch to a single BIOS chip.

 

Honestly, I never understood why the BIOS chips aren't socketable. Cheaper than dual BIOS chips that my board has, probably cheaper than the hacky solution that they have now. You just call their service dept and order (assuming out of warranty) a replacement blank chip from them. Onc eyou get it, you just replace the chip, plug in your usb flash drive in the specified port with the BIOS file inside, and turn on the system. BIOS gets installed, and off you go. I mean they could sell those chips at 10$ a pop + shipping, covering support, logistics, and all that, plus save money on the motherboard, increasing profits. I guess the only issue is that people could just buy a "non-certified" BIOS chip elsewhere for 1-2$, maybe 5$ with shipping as they don't need to handle support sideof things and this extra logistical service. But hey, if they use BIOS chips that are the same between all boards, then they have the chip anyways from manufacturing, same for any boards, so no special stock needed.

 

Like, I get the idea "Oh, let's have the consumer buy our new boards.. hehe.. moneys!", but in reality already after 1 year, it becomes hard to find older chipset boards in retail stores, 3 years in is like impossible. So if the board is gone, then that means new CPU + board + possibly RAM if that changes. And because of that high cost, you can bet that the consumer will buy a board from a different manufacture. So they lose.

[Kisai]

47 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Intresting, I guess they cheaped out over the years. I have the Gigabyte X58A-UD5 (CPU is a Core i7 930.. for reference, so yes very old), I already got the BIOS update failed on me, but the dual bios recovered the first BIOS chip. I guess they saw that other manufacture didn't bother doing this, so they switch to a single BIOS chip.

 

Honestly, I never understood why the BIOS chips aren't socketable. Cheaper than dual BIOS chips that my board has, probably cheaper than the hacky solution that they have now. You just call their service dept and order (assuming out of warranty) a replacement blank chip from them. Onc eyou get it, you just replace the chip, plug in your usb flash drive in the specified port with the BIOS file inside, and turn on the system. BIOS gets installed, and off you go. I mean they could sell those chips at 10$ a pop + shipping, covering support, logistics, and all that, plus save money on the motherboard, increasing profits. I guess the only issue is that people could just buy a "non-certified" BIOS chip elsewhere for 1-2$, maybe 5$ with shipping as they don't need to handle support sideof things and this extra logistical service. But hey, if they use BIOS chips that are the same between all boards, then they have the chip anyways from manufacturing, same for any boards, so no special stock needed.

 

Like, I get the idea "Oh, let's have the consumer buy our new boards.. hehe.. moneys!", but in reality already after 1 year, it becomes hard to find older chipset boards in retail stores, 3 years in is like impossible. So if the board is gone, then that means new CPU + board + possibly RAM if that changes. And because of that high cost, you can bet that the consumer will buy a board from a different manufacture. So they lose.

Probably because of UEFI and firmware hub shenanigans (eg secure boot.) 

 

I would much prefer the BIOS to be easily removed, even if it requires removing a security sticker and tripping an "intrusion" alert in the log file. The amount of people who need this isn't very high, but it could save having to throw away MB's, especially as boards move to ATX12VO, and more of the "what can go wrong" ends up on the MB.

 

Though at the same time I would rather have less soldered to the board stuff in general, like a way to eat your cake here would be to put a micro-header on the board that operates like physically pulling the BIOS chip and routing the paths to this microheader which could then let you attach a separate firmware firmware on a SD card to "save" the board and try and re-flash the bios. 

[Dabombinable]

On 3/12/2020 at 3:35 AM, GoodBytes said:

Asus should be part of it as well. They don't repair RMAed boards, they just send you someone else RMA board with its problem to you (dust included), and hope you won't notice.

In a way I'm glad the original owner of my Asus board removed the serial number (stupid sticker thing) from it. I'd have probably gotten a board that was just as damaged when I was looking to get an RMA for the suddenly dead onboard audio.

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

Honestly, I never understood why the BIOS chips aren't socketable. Cheaper than dual BIOS chips that my board has, probably cheaper than the hacky solution that they have now. You just call their service dept and order (assuming out of warranty) a replacement blank chip from them. Onc eyou get it, you just replace the chip, plug in your usb flash drive in the specified port with the BIOS file inside, and turn on the system. BIOS gets installed, and off you go. I mean they could sell those chips at 10$ a pop + shipping, covering support, logistics, and all that, plus save money on the motherboard, increasing profits. I guess the only issue is that people could just buy a "non-certified" BIOS chip elsewhere for 1-2$, maybe 5$ with shipping as they don't need to handle support sideof things and this extra logistical service. But hey, if they use BIOS chips that are the same between all boards, then they have the chip anyways from manufacturing, same for any boards, so no special stock needed.

My Z97 Sabertooth has a single socketed chip, while my Gigabyte H97 HD3 has 2x soldered. My old P5Q Deluxe takes the cake though with 2x socketed BIOS chips. It really just depends on the board and its age.

[OhioYJ]

On 3/13/2020 at 10:06 AM, Kisai said:

I had the Gigabyte P45 board kill it's bios, despite having one of those ultra durable labels. The dual bios does not work and will not save you, it will kill both.

 

That's the only reason Gigabyte is on my do-not-buy list. 

 

Most boards in my house are Gigabyte and I update them without issue. However I will say I don't like the way modern Gigabyte dual bios is setup. It might as well not be dual bios. The way it used to be was you flashed one, got to boot up and see if things worked, see if you liked that bios. Then later could choose to update the other bios if you wanted to. Or never if you didn't want to. For years now it's been update the bios and as soon as it flashes the one, it updates the second. It doesn't reboot, doesn't ask you for confirmation, nothing. If it's buggy, too bad, both are now the same. If it went wrong, too bad, it updated both.

[Tenelia]

On 3/12/2020 at 1:35 AM, GoodBytes said:

Asus should be part of it as well. They don't repair RMAed boards, they just send you someone else RMA board with its problem to you (dust included), and hope you won't notice.

Sapphire does exactly the same thing here in Asia, even though I sent it directly to their Hong Kong regional office. The folks in the west are lucky. Hongkong can't even enforce my appeal to enforce its consumer protection laws... The reason corporations do this is simply because they get away with it.