My trip through RMA Hell.

[Yanderella]

So this started about four months ago as I noticed my MSI R9 390 8GB was overheating like crazy. Slowly but surely, the temperatures got worse and worse, to the point where I was getting 93 degrees in main menus (at 1080p, as well.) During this time, however, I was still in school, so I was really preoccupied. I knew how to fix it, (open the card and change thermal paste,) but I knew this meant voiding the warranty, so I decided against it. When summer vacation started, I applied for an RMA with MSI and they accepted. I packed up my graphics card, and paid the shipping to MSI. During this time, I went out to my local Best Buy and bought a GTX 1080 founders card. It had a 15 day return policy, so I used it while my R9 390 was getting repaired. The graphics card was hitting 80, but that was much better than a consistent 95.

 

Roughly 2 weeks later, I received my graphics card. I swapped out my 1080 (which was perfectly working), and my parents sent it off to Best Buy. I went to get my R9 390. I was suspicious when I picked up the box, as I noticed that there was no kind of protective packaging (styrofoam, bubble wrap, those kinds of things.) They just put the graphics card inside of a box, then placed that box inside of a bigger box. Like a matryoshka doll, but expensive. I didn't think much of it. I took it out and placed it into my system. I turned it on, and to my dismay, within 10 seconds of turning it on, I got a black-screen. What the...? I reboot my pc, try again, same result. At first I thought it was just my game that was black screening. So I rebooted it once again, but didn't open the game. Another black screen. Okay, what's going on? I rebooted it multiple times, each time it black-screened quicker. Eventually, I call my dad, who's an IT Specialist, to help me out. First, we tried running it in safe mode. It kept on black-screening. We swapped display ports (DVI to HDMI.) No change. We got an entirely new monitor. Same thing. A year prior to this, I had a hard drive problem that led to horrible graphical quality, so we thought something like that might've happened again. We took out my 500gb Samsung 850 EVO and got some random 500gb Seagate hard drive my dad had lying around. Surprisingly, it happened again. We tried one last thing. We completely removed the graphics card and used my i7-4790k's iGPU. No black screen. We had confirmed at this point it was the graphics card that was faulty.

 

We called MSI to see what was going on. The man on the phone said that this was probably because the graphics card was damaged during shipping. I had a feeling this was true, recalling the fact it had no packaging in it. He issued us another RMA and, this time, a shipping label. Once again, we packed up and sent it out to UPS. We didn't want to push our luck again, so we didn't buy another graphics card. About a week and a half later, I received an email from someone at MSI telling me that they had no more R9 390's, and if I was willing to accept an RX 480 4gb model. I was really irritated at this point and declined, because I sent in an 8gb card, I expected to receive an 8gb card back. The lady said she would be looking for an RX 480 8gb model. A couple hours later, I received an email from the same woman saying that she couldn't find an 8gb model of an RX 480, and if I was willing to accept a $285 refund. I paid $300 for the card, but at this point, what could I do? After another pain looking for an RX 580 8gb, hidden tax and expensive shipping, plus 1 month of wait due to backorder, I received another email stating that my graphics card has been fixed and that it was on my way. I rushed to cancel my other order in hopes that this one would work. I waited another week, and yesterday it arrived.

 

I noticed, once again, that there was no packaging in it. My hopes were lost.

 

I put it in my system again, and the problem was even worse this time. Previously I could at least log into my computer. This time, it would black screen before the login screen would show up (blackscreen after Windows Startup animation.) I decided to try a few more things out, because I was doubtful they'd do something like this again. I placed it in my motherboard's 2nd PCI-E slot (which I never even touched.) Same result. I swapped out my power supply's VGA cables to ones that were never used. Same result. I knew it wasn't due to the motherboard or power supply either (AsRock Z97 Extreme 6, EVGA SuperNova 750G1). 

 

All I wanted was to fix an overheating problem, and as a result I wasted my entire summer vacation.

 

I called once again, and it was the same man on the phone who gave me the second RMA. When I explained the situation to him, even he said, surprised, "Again? Really?" I straight up told them that I didn't want a refurbish or a replacement, all I wanted was a refund. He sent me a 3rd RMA and another shipping label. I went out and bought a GTX 1060 6gb, and that's arriving in 2 days.

 

I'm just curious, have any of you had this kind of terrible experience with RMA?

 

I honestly wish I just opened the graphics card and fixed it right then and there. 

[LHJKO]

its probaly bc of all this mining people probably sent in there cards once mining dropped for awhile 

[Yanderella]

Just now, Vernw3 said:

its probaly bc of all this mining people probably sent in there cards once mining dropped for awhile 

One of my friends used the term before, what is "mining"? Sorry I'm not too big into the PC scene.

[Jurrunio]

2 minutes ago, Yanderella said:

One of my friends used the term before, what is "mining"? Sorry I'm not too big into the PC scene.

Making money with crypto currency

[Yanderella]

Just now, Jurrunio said:

Making money with crypto currency

Ah okay! Thank you.

[themctipers]

much worse than my experience with asus

 

 

to be honest, if i had to ship my card to asus and i wasn't living near one of their centers, i would have a horror story like yours. 

[Yanderella]

1 minute ago, themctipers said:

much worse than my experience with asus

 

 

to be honest, if i had to ship my card to asus and i wasn't living near one of their centers, i would have a horror story like yours. 

Yeah I've begun to notice that RMA horror stories are quite common.

[themctipers]

Just now, Yanderella said:

Yeah I've begun to notice that RMA horror stories are quite common.

you dont hear the good success stories, only the bad 'fucking asus screwed me over stories'

[BingoFishy]

Just FYI, MSI is 100% okay with you opening the card to change thermal paste. As long as you don't damage it in the process of switching the thermal paste, you can keep your warranty. The stickers are just there to discourage inexperienced people.

 

Edit: Also, you probably should have taken the 4GB RX480 offer. It performs better than the R9 390.

[Yanderella]

14 minutes ago, BingoFishy said:

Just FYI, MSI is 100% okay with you opening the card to change thermal paste. As long as you don't damage it in the process of switching the thermal paste, you can keep your warranty. The stickers are just there to discourage inexperienced people.

 

Edit: Also, you probably should have taken the 4GB RX480 offer. It performs better than the R9 390.

That would've been nice to know beforehand, also when I called them they said that the 4GB RX480 was a backup plan just in case they couldn't fix the R9 390. Even then, I'm sure that by the time I got the 480 that would've been broken too.

[Mooshi]

I'd have just kept the card from Best Buy instead of being shady with "borrowing" it and having them left with a card they have to take a loss on to resale as open box.

[Zodiark1593]

4 hours ago, themctipers said:

you dont hear the good success stories, only the bad 'fucking asus screwed me over stories'

If I were to open threads praising Google or Amazon (or smaller developers) for their prompt service, would anyone actually read them?

[Teddy07]

4 hours ago, Yanderella said:

Yeah I've begun to notice that RMA horror stories are quite common.

It´s called confirmation bias. RMA stories are quite rare in reality.

[themctipers]

15 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

If I were to open threads praising Google or Amazon (or smaller developers) for their prompt service, would anyone actually read them?

yes. i would

[gamerking]

4 hours ago, BingoFishy said:

Just FYI, MSI is 100% okay with you opening the card to change thermal paste. As long as you don't damage it in the process of switching the thermal paste, you can keep your warranty. The stickers are just there to discourage inexperienced people.

 

Edit: Also, you probably should have taken the 4GB RX480 offer. It performs better than the R9 390.

thats not what they were saying   the 900's came out 3 different tickets all got the same answer.  for my 970's they said once the sticker on the gpu screw was used to remove the cooler the warranty was void and no longer valid anywhere didn't matter what reason you did it. adding a WB or just changing stock thermal goo  .

[BingoFishy]

6 hours ago, gamerking said:

thats not what they were saying   the 900's came out 3 different tickets all got the same answer.  for my 970's they said once the sticker on the gpu screw was used to remove the cooler the warranty was void and no longer valid anywhere didn't matter what reason you did it. adding a WB or just changing stock thermal goo  .

Oh, I've heard other things. Anyways, there's ways to remove the screws without breaking the sticker . You can actually buy kits for it (or see if you can buy extra stickers).

[System Error Message]

the more common story than rma story is AMD GPUs failing a lot faster, which was the main reason i stayed away from AMD. Doesnt mean i didnt try, i did try a couple of AMD cards too and they failed, confirming it.

 

I just hope that AMD vega does not suffer from the same issue. At the very least they offer their cards with plenty of power allowance this time.

[Guest]

Wow that sounds awful, i would never buy from a company like that ever again.

 

But yeah, the RX 480 would have been better, even at 4GB since you were using a 1080p monitor ...

 

Man, it must have been the worst to see the 1080 go tough!

[IntMD]

7 hours ago, gamerking said:

thats not what they were saying   the 900's came out 3 different tickets all got the same answer.  for my 970's they said once the sticker on the gpu screw was used to remove the cooler the warranty was void and no longer valid anywhere didn't matter what reason you did it. adding a WB or just changing stock thermal goo  .

 

17 minutes ago, BingoFishy said:

Oh, I've heard other things. Anyways, there's ways to remove the screws without breaking the sticker . You can actually buy kits for it (or see if you can buy extra stickers).

Depends on what area you live, from the look of it. It is fine to remove it in the EU as per MSI's post below.

 

https://www.facebook.com/msiuk/posts/652634514773229

 

[gamerking]

1 hour ago, BingoFishy said:

Oh, I've heard other things. Anyways, there's ways to remove the screws without breaking the sticker . You can actually buy kits for it (or see if you can buy extra stickers).

i took mine off with a razer blade when i put my waterblock on  and put it back when i had a issue with the card .

 

1 hour ago, IntMD said:

 

Depends on what area you live, from the look of it. It is fine to remove it in the EU as per MSI's post below.

 

https://www.facebook.com/msiuk/posts/652634514773229

 

im in the USA . i sent msi a ticket  after i let the post , same thing sticker damaged  no RMA/ help then . doesnt matter why according to them . they tell me to buy their overpriced card with the block installed already no reason why you need to put one on for a air cooled card

[spat55]

I'd like to say OCUK, Amazon and EVGA have awesome customer service when it comes to RMA.

[ThatTechKid]

6 minutes ago, spat55 said:

I'd like to say OCUK, Amazon and EVGA have awesome customer service when it comes to RMA.

Definitely EVGA. They are the absolutley best when it comes to RMA. Thats why for my next PC build I am going to buy a EVGA graphics card.

[BingoFishy]

7 minutes ago, ThatTechKid said:

Definitely EVGA. They are the absolutley best when it comes to RMA. Thats why for my next PC build I am going to buy a EVGA graphics card.

I'd say the same (I have a EVGA one right now) but I want an AMD card for FreeSync . Wish EVGA made AMD cards.

[ThatTechKid]

Just now, BingoFishy said:

I'd say the same (I have a EVGA one right now) but I want an AMD card for FreeSync . Wish EVGA made AMD cards.

Me too.