LMG Sponsor Complaints

[cbillig]

I would just like to warn people not to order ugreen products from their website and order from Amazon.

 

From my experience if you have an issue with your order they will not help you.

 

I ordered two chargers on the ca.ugreen.com website(not amazon.... this is important for some stupid reason) says it is delivered but I did not receive the chargers. I contacted Ugreen they keep telling me to contact Amazon. I try to tell them that I did not order from Amazon. They say only amazon can help.... Just in case, I try and contact Amazon they tell me they have no record of my order number or tracking number. I emailed ugreen back today.

 

We will see what happens. My first email to ugreen about this was April 27th. It has been a hair pulling process and they don't appear to have a working North American number.

[tkitch]

In light of all the current issues going on, is LTT going to take any stance on Asus, and how poorly they've been handling the AM5 board issues?

[spaghet rat]

1 hour ago, tkitch said:

In light of all the current issues going on, is LTT going to take any stance on Asus, and how poorly they've been handling the AM5 board issues?

read coltons psot

[tkitch]

59 minutes ago, spaghet rat said:

read coltons psot

and it's Asus trying to cover things up.

Steve mentioned the same thing:  After he had already talked to the guy on reddit about buying the blown up board and CPU, Asus messaged the guy and offered to replace it fully, PLUS give them another item from Asus, so nobody would be able to get ahold of it and do the kinda teardown that Steve did.

 

So, yes, that was good for the guy who got helped, but that doesn't say anything about LMG / LTT having an opinion on what Asus is doing right now.  

[97hummer]

I thought I would give a small update on my RMA but also bring to light something Asus did to me that I think was an attempt to make me not talk about any of this.

 

RMA update. 

It's now over 10 months since I opened the first the RMA and I still don't have a working product.  Currently trying to get a different product sent to me because the XG17AHP (portable gaming monitor) seems to have bad QA issues after already having multiple replacements.

On April 19th Asus offered me a ROG Strix XG27UQR (a full size 27” monitor). I debated taking it just so the nightmare would be over but turned it down because it's a 4k monitor that I really don't want and wouldn't work well with my GTX 1060.

On May 2nd Asus offered me a ROG Strix XG17AHPE. That's the same monitor I have problems with QA issues with the only difference being it doesn't come with its special tripod stand. So I turned that down but I can't put into words how aggravating this process is.

This is where things currently stand, just waiting to see what else I might get offered.

 

I'm definitely in a hard spot tho because the product I wanted has problems and it looks like I'll end up having to take something I both don't want and don't need.

 

 

 

Now for what I would like to bring to light happened during the second FedEx claim.

This is a quick run down for what you need to know. When Asus was sending a replacement monitor (after waiting months) they put the wrong name and address on the box sending it to someone not that terribly far from the service center in California but I live in Pennsylvania. On the day of delivery, I talked with Asus as soon as I saw it was going to the wrong place and Asus told me to call FedEx saying it was my package even though it was their shipping label. There was nothing I could do since like I said wasn't my label and wasn't even my name or address.

Instead of taking responsibility, Asus blamed FedEx when it got delivered to the wrong person. But because I talked to FedEx I found out what asus had done and told all that to Asus but they still blamed FedEx.

 

This is what I would like to shine light on.

When Asus opened the claim with FedEx they sent me an email saying if FedEx denied my claim they wouldn't send me another one (see attached picture #1) even though Asus was at fault and I had told them what happened hours before that claim was opened.

When I got that email I immediately called and talk to a supervisor. I told the supervisor everything and stated that Asus is responsible for sending me another replacement because Asus is at fault and did say how I would have to get a lawyer if I didn't get a replacement since they messed up. I did speak nicely but was firm and to the point.

A couple of days later Asus sent me an email and it had a large disclosure on the email (see picture #2) saying the emails are “off record” and that I need “written consent” to post anything. That is much different than the normal disclosure (see picture #1) and sure seems like the larger disclosure was manually added since the normal disclosure included in all their emails was still on that email just further down. 

 

I never did agree to those disclosures but to add that large disclosure to an email right after I found you're at fault for something you want to blame on FedEx and called you out on it sure seems like a scare tactic to me. 

Also FedEx did end up accepting the claim and it was for $100. So Asus wasn't going to send me another replacement monitor worth $569 unless they got paid $100. That is on top of the fact they're at fault for sending it to the wrong place but still really wrong on it's own be that cheap and try to get out of RMA that way.

 

To sum it up. If I said I regret that purchase that would be an understatement. 

[GamingWizard]

I'm sharing my experiences with Asus after this whole CPU/EXPO debacle. It ended up solving itself afterwards, but only due to me being tech savvy. 

 

In 2016 I bought a midrange UX430 laptop. It worked fine for ~6 months, but then one day it bluescreened. Turned out the SSD was dying. I didn't bother warranting it, since I had a leftover SSD and didn't want to be stuck without a laptop. I'm still using the laptop today and it works fine.

 

Around the same time as I bought mine, a friend bought an almost identical laptop, only a bit fanciener. His broke after 14 days. 14 days and he had to warranty it. He got it back and it broke after 2 days. He was so frustrated that he just went ahead and bought a new 1000 dollar laptop. He gifted it to me, I changed the SSD and gifted it to his dad minus the cost of the SSD. That laptop is still working flawlessly today. 

 

I know this is very anecdotal, but how is it possible for ASUS to create laptops with SSDs that lasted a combined 7 1/2 months over technically 3 laptops? And how many people ended up doing as my friend and just buying a complelty new laptop? That isn't very consumer friendly nor sustainable. 

 

I would also like to shoutout Armoury Crate for auto-installing without my authorization and for receiving a clearly used 360 Ryoujin AIO even when I paid full price for a new one (but that might Komplett.no fault)

 

(Also regarding Samsung, thanks for still not fixing the intermittent disconnection issues on my g9 oddesey. I love having a seizure whenever I use my screen, even on the newest FW)

[sparkofflaim15]

On the topic of Asus. I was a huge ASUS fan boy, MOBOs, cards, monitors, routers, the works. I bought an ROG Phone 5 ultimate when it came out, loved the phone, and used it for over a year, one day it suddenly stopped working, Asus RMAed it, and contacted me to tell me it was water damaged, long story short after much back and forth asus sent the phone back unrepaired. They sent it back with both the front and back glass broken, and sited the likely cause of the water damage was from going into and out of my house during the summer, refused to fix it under warranty, and only got resolved once I got paypal and the BBB involved. I haven't bought an ASUS product since, and won't again especially after this mess. I could probably dig up emails if anyone wanted them.

[Skiiwee29]

2 hours ago, GamingWizard said:

I'm sharing my experiences with Asus after this whole CPU/EXPO debacle. It ended up solving itself afterwards, but only due to me being tech savvy. 

 

In 2016 I bought a midrange UX430 laptop. It worked fine for ~6 months, but then one day it bluescreened. Turned out the SSD was dying. I didn't bother warranting it, since I had a leftover SSD and didn't want to be stuck without a laptop. I'm still using the laptop today and it works fine.

 

Around the same time as I bought mine, a friend bought an almost identical laptop, only a bit fanciener. His broke after 14 days. 14 days and he had to warranty it. He got it back and it broke after 2 days. He was so frustrated that he just went ahead and bought a new 1000 dollar laptop. He gifted it to me, I changed the SSD and gifted it to his dad minus the cost of the SSD. That laptop is still working flawlessly today. 

 

I know this is very anecdotal, but how is it possible for ASUS to create laptops with SSDs that lasted a combined 7 1/2 months over technically 3 laptops? And how many people ended up doing as my friend and just buying a complelty new laptop? That isn't very consumer friendly nor sustainable. 

 

 

This is likely more on the SSD manufacture than Asus since swapping in a different drive resolved any/all issues you and the 2nd laptop had. 

[GamingWizard]

6 hours ago, Skiiwee29 said:

This is likely more on the SSD manufacture than Asus since swapping in a different drive resolved any/all issues you and the 2nd laptop had. 

Yeah and who picks out the SSDs and assembles the laptops? That's ASUS, and they have a responsibility to make stuff that doesn't break after literally 14 days. 

 

Normal people aren't going to know that their SSDs are broken, their either going to warranty it forever or buy a new laptop, like my friend did. Super wasteful and it says something about ASUS QA team and how little they care. How do they manage to ship literal e-waste to their customers?

[GamingWizard]

7 hours ago, sparkofflaim15 said:

On the topic of Asus. I was a huge ASUS fan boy, MOBOs, cards, monitors, routers, the works. I bought an ROG Phone 5 ultimate when it came out, loved the phone, and used it for over a year, one day it suddenly stopped working, Asus RMAed it, and contacted me to tell me it was water damaged, long story short after much back and forth asus sent the phone back unrepaired. They sent it back with both the front and back glass broken, and sited the likely cause of the water damage was from going into and out of my house during the summer, refused to fix it under warranty, and only got resolved once I got paypal and the BBB involved. I haven't bought an ASUS product since, and won't again especially after this mess. I could probably dig up emails if anyone wanted them.

I too was an ASUS fanboy until recently. Always had the Strix GPUs and ROG motherboards. Always had an ASUS laptop too. I have never had to RMA so much stuff made by other brands. 

 

I remember RMAing my 2x GTX 1070 Strix' a combined 5 times due to broken LEDs. (They always died after 6 months of use). One of the times they returned me a card with a bent fin stack, which I promptly returned back to them, because I don't want broken stuff back. 

 

Also RMAed the ASUS laptop mentioned in my other comment two times, due to the glue holding the chassis together literally falling out through the hinge area. 

 

One of my Z170 Strix motherboards started sweating and couldn't power more than ~3 USB devices at a time. RMAed it, but got it refused since the sweating was normal and they couldn't replicate the USB issue. I replicated it immediately when I got it back, but bought a powered USB hub instead. 

 

I RMAed another motherboard for another friend 3 weeks ago. Brand new Asus Prime motherboard with a brand new AMD CPU. The PC would BSOD every 10 minutes, without load. Swapped the SSD, but that didn't help. Turned on EXPO and it seemed to work, but then it BSODed every 2 hours instead. New CPU and swapping DDR5 didn't work either. Updating the BIOS always failed, luckily BIOS flashback never failed or else it would've been a brick. I don't know if this was related to the EXPO scandal or not. 

 

I don't think I will buy anything else from ASUS anymore.  

[Lithnor]

I've been looking for a place to voice this concern for 2 generations of motherboard now. I had no idea that this forum/post existed until the WAN show 9 hours ago. This post will be about Asus but it's for a reason no one else is talking about. I'm not beating a dead horse.... just a horse that's fallen down and can't get back up right now.


Has anyone else had issues with just about ALL of Asus's bundled software with their motherboards? I'm going to specifically talk about Sonic Studio 3 but, to a lesser extent, much of this can be said about Armory Crate, Sonic Radar (I think, I only tried to use it once to even see what it was), etc.

DISCLAIMER: Going to get this part out of the way early, many people don't care for Sonic Studio, I get it. That's not the topic at hand here, let's put aside how you feel about it and discuss the idea of it's existence at all right now.

So, previous to this iteration of my computer I had been running a Maximus XI Formula. I'll link to the product page here. One of the listed features is this piece of software called Sonic Studio 3. It's essentially a post processor for audio that allows you to play audio from any source with effects added to them to simulate different kinds of arenas and different types of sound. For instance, I use this because I think most music sounds better with a *touch* of "live" sound added to it. I've found that using this allows me to enjoy the music a lot more at a lower volume which saves my ears in the long run and will allow me to enjoy the sounds of my crying newborn for years to come.

In the current iteration I'm running a Rog Strix X670E-E Gaming Wifi, because of course I am. Product page link. Sonic Studio III is still listed as a feature. (This time it's under 'Advanced Audio' near the bottom. You won't be able to just search for it.)

That's enough backstory, I guess. Here's the issue. This has, as far as I can tell, never truly worked. It's been a hunk of shit since the first day I tried it on the Maximus XI Formula. Asus knows this. There is an entire post on their forums that a COMMUNITY MEMBER has to provide drivers to try and keep this running because it just randomly breaks constantly. (At least one time this community member has deleted their entire post history because someone offended them which left everyone in the dark for this time period.) About 95% of the time the application will fail to launch at all, it simply exits when it opens. When it does finally launch there's entire feature sets that simply don't work. It will randomly decide that some windows should be played as other "types" of sounds for no good reason. (It's a bit hard to explain but you're supposed to be able to set each application as a type of application and have post processing done on each of the different types independently, this allows you to bring up the lows during games but keep music as an entirely separate entity so that you're not just drowning out the lyrics or whatever you have it set to. Also disclaimed I don't know what the fuck a "low" is, so.... don't skewer me.)

 

The issue I have is that Asus has known since at LEAST 2018 (That's just when I bought my last motherboard) that this feature doesn't work as intended and has done absolutely nothing to fix it. I originally assumed that something was wrong with the board and we ordered another for my wife, specifically because she liked the post processing, and it does the exact same thing. Now, with the Strix X670E-E Sonic Studio does the exact same thing. It's a complete crapshoot trying to get it to work and even when it does work it's not feature complete. Why are Asus still using this as a marketing point? Why (aside from the fact that most people don't care for post processing on their audio) has not a single review talked about this? 

I don't really expect anything to come of this at all... I'd really just like to see why reviewers don't talk about it and if someone with better links to Asus could get them to answer why they are still touting this on their product page as if it's a working piece of software that actually adds anything to the motherboard.

The most hurtful part is that I *WANT* to use it.

Just a quick search for this on Asus forums as well.

Edit: Adding an edit here. Since the upcoming Rog Ally is using software that is built by Asus (Armory Crate etc) this lack of support on their own software might be something that is incredibly important moving forward. Just food for thought.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Lithnor

[starvinowen]

Hi, 

 

I just finished the latest WAN show and thought I'd post this here.

 

I'm having issues with Alienware (dell). I'm not sure if they are still a sponsor, but I think they've been in the past.

 

I bought an Alienware aw3821dw and the DisplayPort stopped working, so now stuck on 85hz over HDMI. I tried to RMA it and I was being helped for a bit and after sending in all the info asked of me (taking pictures serial numbers etc) I stopped being helped and was asked to contact the store I bought it from (the monitor was bought second hand, but was still under warranty as the monitor release date wasn't long enough to be out of warranty when I started asking for support). The retailer return policy is only valid for 30 - 60 days here in Sweden. 

 

I really wish they'd at least have told me why I stopped getting help especially after spending hours on hold and following instructions.

 

Maybe anyone have had similar issues with Alienware and have some tips?

[AvianAces]

I want to chime in owning a 7950x3D, ASUS Crosshair Extreme X670E, ASUS ROG Strix 4090 OC White, and G.Skill Trident Z5 6000MHz CL30. I've had nothing but issues with this damn motherboard. I've reached out for support about 2 months back and got stonewalled by ASUS just telling me to run Defaults. Wait for the new Bios. It will solve issues. This and that. 

 

I got the 7950x3D in March 2023 along with the Crosshair Extreme X670E. Nearly $1,800 USD all together for just those two parts and I don't even have a PC anymore that functions. 

 

March 2023 - Random reboots / freezing / OLED Display not working correctly. Armoury Crate not recognizing certain things. Figure new CPU. They have things to work on. It'll work itself out. 

 

April 2023 - I get on Bios 1101, you know better stability for it. Blah Blah Blah. Cool, it all seemed well at first. The end result. I started getting more crashes, stutters, Armoury crate wouldn't work properly again. OLED Display turning off on it's own and working half of the time. I start going to see if anyone is having issues like myself, yes. I check inventory and many stores especially Micro Center has a plethora of Open Box "Returns" of Crosshair Models for the X670E and I begin to wonder why.

 

Late April & Early May 2023 - I see reports of x3D CPUs failing on ASUS X670E Crosshair Models. We all get word that it's due to the SoC Voltage being above spec. ASUS Releases there bios version 1303 that isn't a beta bios and supposed to stop SoC Voltage from going above 1.3V with Expo Enabled. Did it? Not on my Crosshair Extreme. Was told to run at Default Values again "Seems to be their fix for everything" yet at Default Values SoC according to Aida64 Extreme that you got with your ASUS motherboard for free reporting at 1.4V roughly. Beta Bios "1401" is released. Since 1303 didn't fix my issue and I have a machine I can't really use I read their disclaimer of warranty void if blah blah blah and since I'm not getting any help besides being told to run Defaults, Restore Bios, Reinstall Windows I figure I'll go ahead and do it anyways since ASUS doesn't want to seem to be helpful or do anything about it. This made my system have even more crashes, OLED Display non working 90% of the time. Armoury Crate wouldn't recognize it's own Motherboard among other things. At this point I'm pissed off and feeling isolated but on a Positive Note SoC Voltage was brought down to 1.35V with Expo Enabled. I said F it and shut my PC down. Didn't want to deal with it anymore. Beta Bios 1410 is released and with the same stupid "Warranty Void" if you use this Beta Bios. Can't get any worse. I was wrong. Random Reboots, Crashes, Armoury Crate wouldn't recognize FanExpert, It's own Motherboard, GPU, or ARGB Header for Aura. Couldn't get to the info to see Processor Information. Everytime I tried to use Aida64 it would crash a few seconds. Aida64 when it did work for a few seconds would show SoC at 1.341V. Then I just got sick and tired. Watching the GN video gave me a sense of I'm not alone, and watching the J2C video also let me know that I wasn't alone in what I was experiencing regarding the Crosshair X670E boards. Here it sits though. I reverted back to Bios 1202 via Bios Flashback just to have it work somewhat, and running at default so I don't have as many of the issues that I do.

 

Maybe I'm just really unlucky with this specific board and it just doesn't want to work but I'm tired of trying with it. I'm over it. I spent too much money to be told run it at this, this is our solution. Wait till the next bios. 

 

 

[Wireless G-Spot]

I have an x570 Aorus Master Motherboard, made by GIGABYTE.  I am experiencing an issue where my GPU doesn't utilize all 16 PCIE lanes.  My GPU is getting stuck only using 8 lanes, nor does it dynamically increase to 16 lanes under load - it remains at 8 lanes at all times.  I'm also having an issue where a USB add-in card is only using half the number of lanes it should - it uses x2 instead of x4.  I tried to RMA the motherboard and they're telling me it's the CPU.  I'm skeptical, especially since the motherboard is responsible for negotiating the number of lanes - possibly an issue with signal integrity.

 

I also think it is unreasonable to expect a customer to buy a whole new CPU just to prove whether it's the motherboard or the CPU, because AMD will definitely come back and tell me it's the motherboard.

[LogicalDrm]

On 5/11/2023 at 11:39 PM, QwertyChouskie said:

I agree that LMG can't act as a mediator for every dispute, but if customers are having to resort to getting the government involved, maybe LMG shouldn't accept sponsorships from them anymore?

Those are two different things. Yes, you should voice your concerns on sponsor here and that's what LMG are asking for. But going beyond that is job for the local consumer protection agency. As noted, LMG isn't the one customer interacts with. They are just endorsing the brand. So expecting more than pressure to fix things (Asus) or dropping completely (Anker) is tad unreasonable. Local consumer protection agency has much more robust system with fines and legal routes to deal with problematic consumer claims.

[Haxaclappa]

Hey LTT team, I'd like to complain about War Thunder, a video game that is frequently advertised on Mac Address. While War Thunder is a beautiful game, that can only be said for the version on Windows. The game on Mac is borderline unplayable, with crashes every (I mainly play WT air RB, at tiers where AAMs are available) game or two. The game also suffers from graphical artifacts, although that is not nearly as bad as it was before. Per my ~200+ hours playing War Thunder on my base M1 MacBook Air, I do not believe the game can be advertised in good faith to the Mac Userbase. I hope you guys can validate that War Thunder works well on Mac, and thank you for your time reading this.

 

[Jacobx89]

On 5/4/2023 at 12:58 PM, Evergrace said:

The Corsair K100 keyboard has had a fatal flaw since early August of 2022 (possibly even sooner, this is the earliest posting I could find on Corsair's user forums was August of 2021 regarding this issue, OP in that post claims to have bought the board in December of 2020 first documented use of the firmware version was August of 2022, so regardless it's been an issue for at least 10 months) where seemingly the board will randomly record a macro without user instigation and will randomly execute said macro without the user hitting that macro button. This prompted the release of firmware update v1.11.39 which then seems to exacerbated, or introduced a slew of issues. For example, the board will randomly drop connection to the user's computer, requiring a full unplug/replug of the peripheral to restore function (this can happen as rarely as once-twice a week, to multiple times within a half-hour, it's entirely random frequency). As well as "ghosting" but with the added headache of the usual "push ghosted button to exorcise the ghost" fix does not work as the board will cut connection at the same time. Corsair has released subsequent firmware updates that have not fixed the issue, and at one point made the issue worse (Corsair has rolled back that particular firmware version 1.11.39, to their credit) but still refuses to acknowledge there is a problem with the keyboard and directs you to sit on customer support repeatedly, sometimes resulting in a RMA that just sends you another board with the same issue (but an earlier firmware v1.9.26 which touts a user-reported "less frequency of failure rate"). The entire issue is also exacerbated by the refusal to have a firmware repository for any devices under Corsair's umbrella, while I could understand the hesitation due to hardware conflicts, trying to flash the older firmware (I have a copy of v0.30.257) onto these new v1.xx boards results in an "incompatible firmware" error, which would (in my humble opinion) keep the instances of catastrophic firmware incompatibilities to an absolute minimum.

 

Older versions of the board to the communities knowledge used a different controller mainboard and does not have this issue, but is running an extremely old version of firmware (v.0.32.262) and are from purchases prior to seemingly Q2 of 2022 (I have a K100 purchased in January of 2021 with the old firmware and no issue, and recently rebought the board for a friend in March of 2023 which is having the issues still to this day). Corsair recently (March 29th '23) released firmware v1.13.53 which had no noticeable change in behavior, but in some instances has caused the issue to become more frequent (again, going off frequency of Forum posts). 

Corsair has completely dropped the ball on this keyboard from a customer and community support angle and should be pressured to be transparent with the process of how they are planning to fix this issue, and keep the (flagship $280 USD) faulty boards from ending up in consumers hands (at least in the state that they have been for the last 300 days). 

 

Thank you LTT team for all your hard work.

 

 

Corsairs latest firmware pushed by the new iCue v5 has caused the K100 to intermittently restart itself. No fix or option to rollback supplied, Forum post below : 

 

https://forum.corsair.com/forums/topic/181562-corsair-k100-freezes-after-latest-firmware-update/page/9/

 

Blown away that for such an expensive keyboard that has worked perfectly since purchase has been basically bricked for competitive gaming due to random restarts due to a firmware 'update'. 

 

 

[picky33]

Can you please consider dropping Eight Sleep as a sponsor. I absolutely de-test companies that add unnecessary subscriptions to things just to access features that are built in. The mattress covers requires a subscription for the first 12 months of use in order to use the product. I hate BMW for starting the trend of locking features that are already built into the product behind a subscription paywall. It’s already a $2200 mattress cover after the LTT discount.

[PCMRCharlie]

To add on about the ASUS complaints, I have a ROG Phone 5 I bought from an ASUS Hong Kong go between (I live in the US but I bought it before the US release) and it after 2 months stopped charging and I contacted ASUS US about it and they said they could not service it because it was the HK model, I thought that was weird but I talked to ASUS HK and they said they could not take packages and I would need to fly there with the phone in person to get my warranty service. Obviously I am not going to pay thousands of dollars for a flight and hotel and take time off to get my phone fixed that I already had a replacement for so I made a change to only buy samsung and google pixel from now on. I still want it fixed but am obviously over it now.

[user_name]

Found out about this thread from the WAN show clip about Asus being in the dog house, figured I'd throw my experiences with Asus into the ring. 

 

1. My brother needed an upgrade from a Samsung Galaxy S4. My father bought a ZenFone 2 for him a few weeks after it released in the USA. Unfortunately, it only lasted about a year before he had to upgrade to a OnePlus 3T, due to the software slowing down and battery life taking a major hit. Then 2 years later, my brother had to dig it up to find some old game data and we discovered the battery had bloated to the point that it wouldn't stay on consistently. It's still in a drawer somewhere, I really need to disconnect and dispose of the battery - but I can't find replacement parts for it anymore. Never contacted Asus about it, as it was way out of warranty by then.

 

2. Around the same time he bought a ZenFone 2, he bought an Asus ZenPad 8.0. Imported from China, running the CN variant of the software. The pre-installed apps would not work without granting literally every single permission and agreeing to terms of use about data collection. The tablet couldn't keep more than 4 apps in RAM. The software did have an English option, but most of the stuff was poorly translated or not translated at all. It did make a great alarm/Netflix bedside tablet, with its front-facing speaker and headphone jack placement. But that ended when I was trying to update my tablet to Marshmallow? Lollipop? I forget. Anyways, I forgot to change Asus' site to the China one, accidentally download the global variant of the update, and install it via recovery. Then the tablet doesn't boot anymore, it's been bricked. Sucks but I was still within the warranty period and I had an upcoming family trip to Hong Kong, so I took it with me. A few weeks into the trip, crossed into mainland china to enter Shenzhen and headed to the office the Asus website pointed me to. Made our way through a very confusing mall at the bottom, walked in circles and up various stairs until we went up a couple floors and suddenly we were in a bunch of offices. Step through, see a bunch of white chairs and tables but no one at the desk. Wait ~10 minutes until someone in the back notices someone's in the reception area, then two people emerge Andrew ask how they can help. Explain the tablet no longer works after I updated it, the second person starts messing with it but it's dead as a doornail. They make us fill a few forms, take the tablet and tell us they'll call back when it's ready. We then cross back into HK and continue the trip. 1 week before my trip ends, the office calls back and tell me they've fixed it and it's ready to be picked up. So now we have to head back into Shenzhen, back to the office to pick it up, then head back into HK. Get on the flight back to the USA, arrive home, spend a week unpacking and reorganizing before I decide I want to watch Netflix. Plug in my headphones, turn on the show, but I quickly realize that the audio is still coming through the speaker. Switched to to my earbuds, same thing. Switched to my parent's headphones, same thing. Every audio device I tried, the tablet wouldn't switch. The repair center broke my headphone jack. I ended up having to root the tablet and install an app that let me change the audio output on the fly. I stopped using Android tablets after that, since having to switch outputs constantly got very annoying very quickly. 

 

Sorry for the wall of text about getting to the repair center, but to emphasize how long it took, we left the house in HK at 9AM sharp. Commuted to and lined up at the bus terminals, boarded a cramped minibus, crossed the border into Shenzhen at 12:30 noon. We arrive to the office at 3:30PM. We step out of the office just as the upstairs are closing up for the night. Then we need to rush back through Shenzhen before the border closes at 10PM. Traveling to the office takes up almost an entire day, with very little time left to sightsee or explore the electronics market. 

 

3. I needed to build a new computer rig after my old one died in 2020. Bought all the parts mid 2021, including an Asus ROG Strix B550-F WiFi. Shortly after purchasing, I noticed a lot of complaints online noting that the only way this board could connect to Ethernet was if you had to connected to your router via a switch or a WiFi point, and only the 3rd revision of the board fixed this issue. Before it shipped out, I asked support if the Asus web store was shipping out revision 1, 2 or 3 boards. They replied and said they needed my board's serial number to check the board's revision. I replied saying I think they understood, and then they never replied. I then received my motherboard after 2 days (im pretty sure I paid for the slowest shipping, so shout-out to Asus for having it ship out from a warehouse 5 hours away lol). I quickly assembled a mini test bench because I felt like I was going to have to disassemble it anyways, and trying to plug the Ethernet from the mobo directly into the router, the ppl online were right - I could not connect. I had to pass my Ethernet port from the mobo into a network switch or WiFi mesh point, then have another Ethernet cable going into my router. Peered underneath a heatsink, saw I had the problematic Intel i-225V chip. I opened a return as soon as I found that out, then bought another B550-F in hopes that I'd get a later revision. Second board I received was an earlier revision, but still revision 2. So I contact support to ask if I can exchange the motherboard for one with a newer revision. I'm honestly a little fuzzy on the details at this point but I think if I checked the emails and phone calls, I'd pop a vein. Long story short, I would call them or email them, get a tier 1 rep, have to verbalize my issue, have them put me on hold for 30 mins to 1 hour, then transfers me to tier 2, who tells me they'll look into it and call back. They would then tell me I had the wrong department, direct me to a different department where the cycle repeated. And when I received the "right" department, I was told that they couldn't help me, and the most I could do I send it back in and they would send me a refurbished motherboard that was revision 1. I was basically run around in circles over the phone and over email over the course of 3 months until I finally broke, got a replacement, and "lucked" out by receiving yet another revision 2 board. Oh, and the Asus reps would do their callbacks at 6 AM sharp my time. For a week I was majorly sick and had trouble falling/staying asleep, and one morning I was slowly drifting asleep after being up all night when suddenly Asus support decides to give me a nice old wake up call to tell me I had the wrong department. Anyways, my internet setup is currently wall > modem > Google mesh wifi router > network switch > Ethernet from the network switch into a mesh router in my room > computer. Before I got more mesh points, it was modem > router > switch > old router set up as a switch > computer. As James May said, "the bloody awful". I'm still seething about it, especially since I paid $250 for it and I also realized it didn't support front panel USB-C. Oh, and I bought 32GBs of 3600mHz RAM... Except the motherboard refuses to POST if I enable XMP and set it to 3600. I have to set to 3560 or something like that to get it to POST and boot into Windows. I tried pushing in the RAM sticks but no dice. Not sure who to blame for this, so I won't count it against them cus honestly, I don't think it's that big off a performance difference.

 

 I'm also giving them some leeway on 1 and 2. 1, as all batteries have potential to expand (see my  original Sony PSP batteries lul). Maybe Asus got a bad batch? And 2, it's probably not hard to get to if you live in Shenzhen. But are these complaints unjustified? I feel they are justified, but I'm not sure if this qualifies for this thread as these aren't recent experiences. But it's put me off to Asus entirely. Was thinking about getting a ZenFone 8 since I love its size, but nope, not after considering the support hell I'll have to go through if something on it fails. 

 

Oh, and the RGB on the motherboard cannot be changed without Armory Crate, and i can't figure out how to sync light patterns with my Asus ROG 3070. Literally unusable. 

[user_name]

3 hours ago, PCMRCharlie said:

To add on about the ASUS complaints, I have a ROG Phone 5 I bought from an ASUS Hong Kong go between (I live in the US but I bought it before the US release) and it after 2 months stopped charging and I contacted ASUS US about it and they said they could not service it because it was the HK model, I thought that was weird but I talked to ASUS HK and they said they could not take packages and I would need to fly there with the phone in person to get my warranty service. Obviously I am not going to pay thousands of dollars for a flight and hotel and take time off to get my phone fixed that I already had a replacement for so I made a change to only buy samsung and google pixel from now on. I still want it fixed but am obviously over it now.

Unfortunately, Samsung has the same policy as well. My cousin purchased a Galaxy S7 Edge brand new while he was working in Macau, and when he came back to Hong Kong it developed the green line issue. He took it to Samsung HK, who told him to go to a repair center, who told him they couldn't accept the phone and he'd have to bring it to Samsung Macau, who told him they'd have to send it to the mainland to get it repaired He ended up living with it and replacing as soon as he could. 

[Ginger Penguin]

9 hours ago, picky33 said:

Can you please consider dropping Eight Sleep as a sponsor. I absolutely de-test companies that add unnecessary subscriptions to things just to access features that are built in. The mattress covers requires a subscription for the first 12 months of use in order to use the product. I hate BMW for starting the trend of locking features that are already built into the product behind a subscription paywall. It’s already a $2200 mattress cover after the LTT discount.

Yeah, this was probably the first time I clicked on an ad in a very long time because it actually seemed like an interesting product that, while I'm currently single, when I have been partnered, has been a huge issue. I figured it wouldn't be cheap but could be a worthwhile investment for a one-time upfront cost but $3000 plus an ongoing subscription for nothing that I can see that can't be run locally.

[DELTAprime]

I actually have a story of customer support that involves both Asus and another LTT sponsor, Cablemod.

 

Maybe this is because I'm in Australia and we have super strict consumer protection laws, but I actually had a good interaction with Asus customer support about this situation back in January. My TUF 3090 had the Cablemod PCIE 8-pin cable going to it burn in the GPU's power socket. I had no idea of the extent of the damage at this point, but I emailed Asus questioning them about repairs and also the fact that I had watercooled the card with an EK waterblock and how that might complicate things. I also emailed Cablemod since it was their cables.

 

The thermal pads Asus were using at the start of the 30 series were basically single-use-only pads and were destroyed by removing the default cooler and putting the waterblock on. The Asus rep said that they would replace the thermal pads and put the default cooler back on the card for me under warranty. So I wouldn't need to worry about a charge for that.

 

Cablemod on the other hand denied that there was anything wrong with their cables despite including pictures of the burnt connector. The plastic had clearly been subjected to high temperatures as it had changed from black to a dark red colour.

 

In the end, I found that the card itself was fine and just needed the charring from the burned power cables cleaned off the pins on the GPU side of the power connector so I never got to test out Asus on their offer to cover the thermal pads and reassembly of the card under warranty. But I was totally annoyed at Cablemod for denying that there was an issue.

[Hazem The Pro]

On 5/3/2022 at 6:31 PM, CPotter said:

Hey everybody!

 

Let us know if you have any issues with sponsors we're currently running across any of LMG's channels. The business team is active here and will chime in and respond as necessary. Please keep discussion related to sponsor complaints and on topic in this thread. We'll do our best to field any complaints, and address them as necessary, but also make sure reach out to the companies in question as well first, if you're having any problems.

 

Thanks for watching our content, and for the support and feedback, we really do appreciate it.  

Hey,

Around 8/8/2022 My dad bought an ASUS Vivo Book X515JA when I registered the product it said that he had bought it on 2021-02-06 the first time I reached out to the Asus support team they said that they needed the purchase invoice to proceed with the correction of the purchase date when I sent the purchase invoice, they said that it needs to have a tax stamp which my father did not have because when I registered my Tuf gaming motherboard it didn't ask me for and when we reached out to the seller they said that they couldn't tax stamp the invoice because we did request it be tax stamped when purchasing it and ASUS support also stopped responding to my follow up emails so my dad bought a desktop and we forgot about the whole thing for a bit when recontacting  Asus support about this week they said that they can't support us.

[eroc1990]

I wanted to throw my feedback in on Bark. While I get the reasoning behind monitoring your child's behavior, using what amounts to sanctioned/resold spyware to do so is way too invasive. There are better parenting methods than becoming your child's very own Big Brother, and it's just downright creepy.