ASUS's deteriorating quality & repair service.

[BetaGlitch]

I've been a fan of Asus ever since my first gaming computer back in 2008-2009. Since then I have been highly recommending Asus for many other products and parts because of build quality, excellent features, competitive prices and "services" - I'll get to this in a sec. As a geeky high school student, I started saving my entire income from my part-time job and my lunch money, I could finally get hands on one of these premium option for gaming computers on 2012 December. Around Boxing day week sale, my heart skipped a beat after seeing G75VX-RH71-CA was on sale (discount of around $300). It was my first time blasting over a grand on a single item on NCIX. However, I guess my expectation was a bit too high. After spending roughly around an hour on unboxing, I finally reached a point of a meat of the pie. I held my breath and pushed the ON button... No Post. I cold-rebooted again... No Post. I tried several times and FINALLY it turned on with splash screen on glorious ROG loading screen. After hours of tinkering with Windows 8, I finally reached a point where I need to reboot. Unsurprisingly, it got stuck in non-posting scenario again. But then again, I was too excited to go back to NCIX to replace it since I knew that it was going to boot normally after resetting and turning it back on around 9999 times.

 

As days went by, the problems were exponentially increasing; decreasing chances of posting for every boot. I figured NCIX would be happily to have my half-dead laptop exchanged for fully functioning one. Sadly, I was quickly informed by a technician... that they no longer support exchange, instead they do replacement. Basically they check over all the physical damages and reuses them on new machine. For mine, bottom cover (user-accessible cover that can be removed if upgrade was necessary) had few flimsy latches broken off after 3-4 times of open and close for RAM upgrade and adding additional SSD into my system. As a result they switched in my old cover on new computer - this wasn't very big deal for me anyways since I just wanted computer to work normally. The computer worked flawlessly... for few months.

 

The computer stopped detecting my drives (but still boots into BIOS no problem) This time I couldn't RMA through NCIX because of their replacement policy has been ended long time ago and all I got was Asus's RMA service. I headed over to Asus's website and filled out the form since I had a free year of accidental warranty. The service was great. In fact, it was one of best things ever happened while trying to RMA anything to any companies that I dealt with. They paid for shipping company who picked up the computer from my house, fixed the computer, and sent the computer as soon as possible - one of painless RMA experience ever despite of everyone's reaction in some google forums regarding how bad Asus's RMA service is.

 

After 3-4 months of usage... My computer stopped posting. All I did was setting boot priority in BIOS to USB so that it boots into Windows installer. (I was planning to reinstall the OS as a new fresh start for University) After F10 (saving the current settings), the laptop never posted after that. Pulled the internal battery out for troubleshooting, leaving it for a week without any power - never worked. I finally decided to call Asus again for help, but this time, I was out of any sort of warranty. Still, I was willing to pay to get my laptop fixed no matter what. I decided to send the computer in original packaging with set of untouched original manuals / disks (because I didn't want them to be misplaced in my room) On Nov 12th, they finally "received" the item that should have been arrived atleast 1-2 days before.

 

Basically:

 

Nov. 12 - They notified me that they received the item.

Nov. 17 - They finally contacted me about parts that they need replaced.

             - They mentioned that they need graphic card to replaced to 670M (The current system is 670MX) I emailed about this regarding keeping the current card and just change out the motherboard.

Nov. 18 - They replied to me around 24hours later that they can't do that because apparently that doesn't meet their specifications.

             - I asked them if I could buy the specification for ones that I can use with 670MX, because I was willing to pay to keep the performance of my current set up. (I never got this reply back)

             - Send them my credit card info so that they can just get it over with.

 

They wanted to change out the video card as well because that didn't meet their specifications. I paid:

 

$76 for Graphic card (670M) [Part number: 60-NLEVG1001-D01] - Paid for this, and they didn't bother replacing it.

$109 for motherboard [Part number: 60-NLEMB1101-C04]

$40 for labour

$30 for freight - This is a big problem too. They shipped with worst packaging ever with no original box or stuff that was inside

 

     

 

 

I wouldn't care less if the computer was actually safe, but it was different story. First I slowly pulled out the laptop out from the box and powerbrick and powercord just fell out and hit the wooden floor from the packaging which was just lodged into the packaging of laptop which wasn't even protected with single bubble bag or anything. Just one elastic band that held those together. The lousy packaging was still impressed me how my laptop was still in single piece when it arrived. I took out my laptop from the air-sealed bag and instantly noticed that one of the feet is gone. I wonder just how is it possible to lose one... I was literally dumbfounded. Now my laptop sits lopsided when it was placed down on my glass table.

 

 

I opened my computer and instantly noticed that bottom frame of the screen has been dislodged from either rough shipping or magical repairman's skill. The screen frame never snapped in fully.

 

 

Lovely fingerprints of repairman's all over the internals of my laptop... lel

 

 

    

Thank god the computer now boots, so I took out original HDD and replaced with my SSD as boot drive which I have been using on other laptop without any problems. I placed original HDD as a slave drive (storage drive). After installing and troubleshooting, I can safely say that second SATA port is DOA. I tried many other 2.5mm drives including SSD/SSHD/HHD. None of them worked. Since I am one of those power-users, atleast I had a HDD Caddie to replace out the DVD drive with Hard drive. It is a really bummer to not utilize / populate the SATA port. 

 

 

Asus used UPS to send my computer back. It mentioned that the item will the delivered EARLIER THAN 12PM. They couldn't keep that promise at last.  :mellow: 

 

 

After few hours of tinkering... I noticed that Asus LIED to me. The betrayal was just too strong for me to withstand, so that is why I am sharing with this on the page. Oh, btw do you guys remember I mentioned that they charged me $76 for new graphic card (670M)? Well one that I am using currently is still equipped with is same old 670MX. THEY DIDN'T FREAKIN' CHANGE THE VIDEO CARD! I just lost myself after finding out that.  :angry: 

 

In total, I went to NCIX once to replacement, sent to Asus two times to get my laptop back to "normal."

 

I am utterly utterly utterly - I need to say few more to express my current feels towards Asus - UTTERLY UTTERLY disappointed. Never going to deal with them anymore. Never... EVER...  :angry:  :angry:  :angry:  :angry:  :angry: 

[Interfectorem]

Isn't the first time I've heard shit about Asus' customer service.

[Jerakl]

Isn't the first time I've heard shit about Asus' customer service.

I've heard about it before.

[mlbguy4life]

asus has bad support services, i thought everyone knew that

[Williamchan87]

It depends on which service centre it gets sent to, ASUS USA is not as good as ASUS TAIWAN and ASUS CANADA

[BetaGlitch]

asus has bad support services, i thought everyone knew that

First time RMA through ASUS very painless and fast. Add that was when Accidental Warranty was still valid.

It depends on which service centre it gets sent to, ASUS USA is not as good as ASUS TAIWAN and ASUS CANADA

This was ASUS CANADA

[projectmayhem]

 Ouch. Sorry to hear about your bad experience.

Thankfully I haven't had to deal with anything like this to date.

[Syntaxvgm]

Isn't the first time I've heard shit about Asus' customer service.

I used to hear A LOT of negatives. There was a period where a lot of people shipped the item, and ASUS would claim they received the item damaged, and would attach a picture with maybe a broken corner with obvious plier marks on it. ASUS has always had pretty notably bad customer service at times. Unfortunate thing about them is, their products are really good, but customer service is a bad experience usually. 

Now this is NOT asus, but it would look something like this, but with plier marks 

[Syntaxvgm]

I found one I was talking about I believe, but the images are gone. 

http://www.overclock.net/t/1283674/hosed-an-asus-rma-story-update

They even took minor blemishes from normal wear and tear and deny

http://www.overclock.net/t/1229386/another-asus-horrid-rma-thread

[p5ych00n5]

Sorry to hear of your problems, I've had a few "Top Tier" products from a lot of vendors and ASUS have been the least troublesome.

[Guest]

Well it could be worse - you could have an Asus motherboard and need to install Windows to update the BIOS..

[Nomy]

Damn sorry to hear that. I really hope I never get to experience something like this, it would really make me doubt future sales.

(got a system full of Asus parts so let's hope they don't die on me too soon so I won't have to find out how "good" their service is myself)

[Dabombinable]

I've had bad experiences with their ultrabooks. Helped my Mum pick one out (we went with Asus as my grandmothers old 2006 A3H was still kicking and fully user serviceable), brought it home and started to set it up. We followed all of the on screen prompts to get windows 8 set up, and everything seemed fine until about halfway through the setup, when it started lagging and acting eratic, after half an hour we managed to get it to the start screen. But it was still having issues with lag, the touchscreen refused to work and the desktop was black as if it were a pirated copy of windows. We did 3 factory resets to no avail with the exact some problems happening until the 4th reset, in which the computer decided to work again. That wasn't the end of it however as windows now refused to be registered at all. We contacted microsoft and it couldn't even be activated over the phone, they told us to contact asus since it was a OEM modified version of windows. After which we got told that microsoft could fix it, and things kept going back and forth. She ended up having to spend an extra $200 dollars to get windows 8 re-installed, she'd have used 7 but Asus refused to supply the correct drivers. After their constant screwing around we can no longer recommend asus to anyone, and tell anyone to steer clear unless they have extra money to spend on getting things sorted.

[p5ych00n5]

Well it could be worse - you could have an Asus motherboard and need to install Windows to update the BIOS..

 

News to me

[Misanthrope]

Well it could be worse - you could have an Asus motherboard and need to install Windows to update the BIOS..

 

Wait what? Is that actually a thing!?

[Guest]

Wait what? Is that actually a thing!?

Yeah,

 

For their low and mid range boards, you can use the BIOS utility it the BIOS, you need to use the one in Windows

[SSOB]

That sucks! Can you please put this for extra dramatic effect

 

/RANT/ 

[spwath]

That's why I don't buy Asus products anymore. I stick to smaller company's

[Darkman]

Asus is one of those companies where if you have a problem with a product, you shouldn't risk buying another from them... Its really irritating to know that good companies do this, but life is not fair.

[TetraSky]

I gave up trying to RMA stuff to Asus when was quoted an absurd amount to repair a cpu socket (bent pins), sure it was my fault, but charging $130 for it + the cost of shipping to them, was cheaper to just buy a new motherboard.

 

The best RMA experience by far for me was Logitech, no need to send anything, they sent me a brand new controller free of charge after I explained my case.

[Spev]

Damn, I just ordered an Asus motherboard, hope it doesn't have any issues...asus seems like a pretty popular and reliable brand. They have good motherboards and GPUs that all have great ratings. Good products bad customer service? Idk.

[Victorious Secret]

To be fair, ASUS is not responsible for UPS not making their 12PM delivery. That is UPS being UPS, which is being a bunch of Grade A assholes. I paid for priority next morning to get my item to a different city and UPS still cocked that up. Cocked up to the point that I could've driven down and back and it would've cost me less money. 

[ROK]

Typical asus. Took me 10 months of back/forth to finally get them to send me a functional board.

[Opask]

I gave up trying to RMA stuff to Asus when was quoted an absurd amount to repair a cpu socket (bent pins), sure it was my fault, but charging $130 for it + the cost of shipping to them, was cheaper to just buy a new motherboard.

 

The same thing happened to me with some bent pins in one of my USB 3.0 headers. Sent it to Asus and thy wanted the retail value of the board to fix it. Like WTF if it actually mattered i could have just got a brand new board.

[DaddyKool]

Well i've been quite lucky with my one issue i had with my monitor. My MX279 had pixelation isssues after about 5 months of usage. I sent it back to Asus, and in about 2 weeks i got an email from them saying that they could not fix it,. They said they'll send me a new one and i received it a week later.