PSA: Never buy products from GIGABYTE

[abroxyz98]

So about two and a half years ago I decided to build a new system. Initially I went with an ASUS X570 Motherboard, But it arrived with dead DRAM slots so I returned it. I ended up buying a GIGABYTE AORUS X570 ELITE WIFI since it was the only motherboard that met my requirements that was in my price range that wasn't ASUS. For my system I ended up using a 850 watt PSU and got a new monitor, both GIGABYTE products. The monitor developed a dead pixel after just two months. And better yet the PSU ended up being one of the models with no over current protection that was a fire hazard, so I turned that in with the recall and got my money back. now a few years later my computer stared only reading half as much RAM as I had installed. After doing some testing it turned out that my B1 and B2 DRAM slots were no longer reading so I decided to RMA my motherboard. Upon taking it apart, aside from being a little dusty, it was fine however some of my thermal compound had gotten on the PCB next to the CPU socket. So I decided to clean it off with some isopropyl alcohol. After it dried there were some splotches on my Motherboard around where the thermal compound was as it had dissolved into the alcohol and splattered around a bit in the cleaning process. I thought it was no big deal since I know thermal compound is non-conductive. So I shipped my motherboard off to GIGABYTE. THEY RESPNDED TO ME BY SAYING THAT MY MOTHERBOARD HAD LIQUID DAMAGE AND WAS CORRODED. And they provided these BS photos as "proof". You guys tell me if any of these photos show corrosion. Even though I explained to them on the phone that it is from alcohol and thermal compound they are still refusing to honor the warranty and admitted that they did not even try to power it on. Never buy from GIGABYTE, they would sell you tainted meat if they could. 

 

*edit* Thanks for the responses, I didn't even think I would get any. Please spread the word that GIGABYTE is up to their devious ways yet again, no one should buy their products for the sake of their wallets and their safety. I would love some advice on what brands people have had good experiences with as I am planning on getting a new GPU soon. Also If anyone knows a good person or a company that does motherboard repair and won't BS me LMK. Also seriously does anyone see corrosion in these pictures? what a load of Horses--t!

 

 

 

 

[seon123]

@abroxyz98 had some bad experiences with Gigabyte. I guess that settles it, then. No one should ever buy Gigabyte products

[TheUnofficial_Boss]

Damn... That's another option off my list. Never knew these board companies can be so lazy and stubborn. Have you tried forwarding this case to another rep? Feels bad man.

[Hinjima]

One of my favorite hardware product was the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Motherboard... But that was 10 years ago haha, I guess things change

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

All 3 of the major MOBO manufacturers do this. I'd honestly rather just pay for a new board 99% of the time. How much $$ is your time worth to you?

[manikyath]

i have never owned a gigabyte product that didnt fail prematurely in some brilliantly dumb way.

 

my favourite example is still my radeon HD5770 where the fan just sort of "fell off" it's own bearing.

[Vishera]

42 minutes ago, Deadpool2onBlu-Ray said:

All 3 of the major MOBO manufacturers do this. I'd honestly rather just pay for a new board 99% of the time. How much $$ is your time worth to you?

Indeed, most motherboard manufacturers do this.

OP needs to learn the consumer protection laws in their country\state and leverage that in their favor.

Harass them, call them multiple times a day, send them tons of e-mails, threaten them that you will contact your local consumer protection agency or even threaten them with a lawsuit, send them a letter from your lawyer, don't give up.

They will try to bullshit you, ignore what they say and just demand what your are legally entitled to.

Usually i have someone else do these kind of stuff for me but in cases i deal with it on my own this is what i do - Just be a Karen.

 

38 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Shitty brand, used to be good back in the day though but not since everything started being marketed as for gaming.

Welcome to the dystopian 2020s

38 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Also their mobos come with a firmware backdoor, neat.

It depends on what BIOS version the board comes with, some BIOS versions have it.

All of my GIGABYTE boards didn't come with it, but there are boards that do come with it.

 

If i were to update the BIOS to the latest version only then i would have this backdoor.

26 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i have never owned a gigabyte product that didnt fail prematurely in some brilliantly dumb way.

 

my favourite example is still my radeon HD5770 where the fan just sort of "fell off" it's own bearing.

I bought the SAPPHIRE HD 5750\6750 back in the day - The card is still working.

But i suspect it's just bad luck.

[manikyath]

Just now, Vishera said:

I bought the SAPPHIRE HD 5750\6750 back in the day - The card is still working.

But i suspect it's just bad luck.

i'm sure it's bad luck.. but i seem to have guaranteed bad luck every time i buy a gigabyte product.

at some point bad luck turns into a pattern of horrid QC.

 

i dont have the numbers to call it any sort of valid pattern (like the way LTT's christmas razer blades all bit the dust SHOCKINGLY fast), but personal experience has given me enough matter trough the years to be weary.

[abroxyz98]

4 hours ago, Deadpool2onBlu-Ray said:

All 3 of the major MOBO manufacturers do this. I'd honestly rather just pay for a new board 99% of the time. How much $$ is your time worth to you?

Which 3 mobo makers should I avoid? I am currently using an asrock, and a system I built for a family member has an MSI.

[XNOR]

I don't see evidence of corrosion, but I do see evidence of droplets. This may lead Gigabyte or their repair partner to say there must be liquid damage.

 

I can see why they would do so, because a motherboard shouldn't have traces of liquid on it, but at the same time these traces do not represent damage or evidence of damage. That's a tough discussion to have with a manufacturer, though.

[Quinnell]

2 hours ago, XNOR said:

I don't see evidence of corrosion, but I do see evidence of droplets. This may lead Gigabyte or their repair partner to say there must be liquid damage.

 

I can see why they would do so, because a motherboard shouldn't have traces of liquid on it, but at the same time these traces do not represent damage or evidence of damage. That's a tough discussion to have with a manufacturer, though.

 

Yeah, while I agree they could determine that it's all harmless traces of isopropyl alcohol, that's not exactly something I expect their RMA department to be trained on. They're going to see evidence of liquid and dismiss it, since 95% of the time, it's water damage. The 5% of the time it's someone's sloppy goop cleanup job is not something the company will really care about. I've personally never left behind such an obvious mess.

 

Next time, try to avoid leaving a mess behind on the board. I know that's little help after-the-fact, but you never want to give them an easy reason to deny your claims. 

[TetraSky]

How much alcohol and liquid compound did you spray on that poor board for it to look like that...

[cooky560]

Honestly I've never had a Gigabyte motherboard, but my 2 Gigabyte monitors have run 24/7/365 for nearly 2 years and so far have been perfect *touch wood*

I had a gigabyte 1080 for years when that series was current and it's now sitting in a friends PC working just fine.

 

I know the PSUs have had a bad rep, but it seems like you've been unlucky rather than the brand being terrible.

 

Sorry to read about your experiences though

[LAwLz]

I always find it weird that whenever someone on this forum comes with a "horror story" about how they got "mistreated" by some company, it's almost always revealed that they have had a ton of issue with a lot of products they buy.

Not to be like that, but if you constantly have issues with things you buy, from multiple manufacturers, then maybe the issue isn't with them and instead with you?

 

Also, I find the whole "boycott company X because I had a bad experience with them" kind of tiring.

If we constantly do blanket bans on companies for fuckups (this doesn't even seem that much like a fuckup to me, you sent them a wet motherboard) then we will run out of companies to buy things from within a month.

It's a good thing people on this forum seem to have the memory of a goldfish, so all the outrage and boycotts are quickly forgotten about.

[Stahlmann]

You could have done a better job cleaning it. This mobo looks like it went through a dishwasher and then being left to dry out by itself. Imo every customer service rep would've done the same and deny a replacement or refund.

 

23 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

It's a good thing people on this forum seem to have the memory of a goldfish, so all the outrage and boycotts are quickly forgotten about.

That's more like the internet as a whole. Huge drama becomes non-existent within a few days. For better or for worse people just move on.

[Dabombinable]

Just because I had an abysmal experience with Gigabyte, my GTX 970 G1 Gaming and really shitty RMA process...doesn't mean that it was something to boycott them over. Had no problems with my 650ti, the "hot potato, ended up with it back after a couple of failed RMA" GTX 970 still sort-of works (just with a fan from my GTX 650ti due to prematurely failed bearings) and the X570 UD Gaming X I replaced for a board with more m.2 slots is also working well as far as I'm aware (gave it away to replace a shitty Asrock B450 board that had been unreliably part of a game server I have played on for years).

[nbrowser]

19 hours ago, Hinjima said:

One of my favorite hardware product was the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Motherboard... But that was 10 years ago haha, I guess things change

I'ved got two rigs still rockin that board...one has a i7 950 in it that's been at 4Ghz since the day it was built...rock solid.

[da na]

My Gigabyte Athlon 64 board is going strong, from back when a dual core CPU used 125w. 

[dilpickle]

I've heard these stories about literally every motherboard manufacturer. I guess I should make my own. 

[Tan3l6]

The one series I'd go nowadays is MSI Tomahawk series.

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

9 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

The one series I'd go nowadays is MSI Tomahawk series.

The B650 tomahawk for AM5 is trash for the price

[Tan3l6]

3 minutes ago, Deadpool2onBlu-Ray said:

The B650 tomahawk for AM5 is trash for the price

Ah, an exception, good to know. Most of them, either Intel or AMD versions are quite good.

But I'd never buy a MoBo without doing a research about how good is the specific board. 

[Dabombinable]

8 hours ago, da na said:

My Gigabyte Athlon 64 board is going strong, from back when a dual core CPU used 125w. 

More than I can say for alot of dual CPU boards such as my VP6. Being in Australia it missed out on everything and still runs the original caps.

Class Action Lawsuit Against ABIT for Bursting Capacitors - PCStats.com (archive.org)

@abroxyz98

What you're experiencing would be just part of the typical fail-rate that all electronics have. The kicker is the overall quantity. Asus for example are well deserving of a boycott with their recent debacle caused by their boards with shitty BIOS killing CPU via immolation.

[wanderingfool2]

I was curious about this post, so I clicked on it...then I saw the wall of text and decided not to read it and instead looked at the picture.

 

When I saw the picture, I thought "man that looks like liquid was blasted everywhere, I wonder if Gigabyte returned an RMA like that"...then I read the OP and realized he did it.

 

I 100% agree with Gigabytes response on not wanting to repair it under the claim of liquid damage.  If you somehow get that "dried" thermal compound below the PCIe slot, I'm sorry but you are cleaning your equipment wrong or irresponsibly.  In the literal sense there are splatter marks going up the RAM slots, there isn't anyway I can reasonably think of that thermal paste splatter should end up there (at least any normal cleaning procedure).

 

Then there is also the PCIe slot...they were right to show an arrow to gunk on the connector.  I get that some places have the requirement on the company to show damage to void warranties, but honestly I can't blame them for wanting to void a warranty when the board looks like that.

 

[LogicalDrm]

So, lets poke some holes to your story.

 

First, I find it funny that your Asus board was bad from start, yet its all Gigabytes fault. Second thing I find funny is your PSU and monitor (which you don't give models for), but faulty also. I'm guessing you don't give models of them because buying them in first place was problem and you are only one to blame there. It would be like I was blaming Gigabyte for bricking my previous mobo because they didn't make CPU pins strong enough. (with 2nd Gigabyte mobo, bought used, been running for 9 years)

 

Now to the main issue. Which again, you are part of the issue. First making error while installing cooler and most likely putting too much paste on. Rookie mistake. Then cleaning it and not making sure that isopropyl alcohol had enough time to evaporate and/or helping it a bit with cloth. Also rookie mistake, but one that ended causing you your RMA.

 

I'm assuming you are from country where robust consumer protection is not a thing. Meaning that you would need to have money to fight back instead of making complaint with enough evidence to get favorable ruling.

 

I don't see corrosion, I see discoloration which means there's something that wasn't there when it left from factory. "User error" is easier mark in the RMA terms to use against people. You did make it easy for them by having 2 user errors already. While neither should have caused harm, that doesn't matter. The info I'm still missing here is, did you tell Gigabyte that you had some paste on PCB and you tried to clean it off? Maybe showing/linking to what liquid you used for it? Here, being up-front and honest is benefit. If you have receipts showing that you informed them honestly about what you did, then them claiming something thats contradictory would make them to have more explaining if its taken to consumer protection agency.