Yet Another ASUS RMA Screwage

marshac

American Hero
Joined
Mar 25, 2003
Messages
2,551
So I was using my computer one night and it just died- literally just turned off. My P8P67 EVO mobo died. No problem I thought, ASUS is a good company and this RMA will be no problem- boy was I wrong Long story short, they refused to honor the warranty stating that I had bent the socket pins- no way this is possible since the system was working fine for months leading up to when it finally died. When the board came back, sure enough, pins were bent. I've read stories about companies bending the socket pins to dishonor warranty RMAs, but never expected this kind of crap from ASUS.

Cliffs-
1. Computer died after months of problem-free computing
2. Socket pins intack
3. Motherboard sent to ASUS for RMA
4. Warranty claim denied because the CPU socket pins were bent
5. Motherboard sent back to me. CPU socket pins bent.

Anyone know if Gigabyte is any better with RMAs?
 
Raise hell if you have to.

If you had packaged the motherboard properly along with the plastic socket cover, there's no way that the pins could be bent while in transit. Meaning that either the carrier opened up the box and bent the pins, or Asus did it themselves, or a pack of angry dogs took the cover off, bent the pins, and used their paws to package the thing together before it got to Asus.
 
Exactly, until then, it's pretty hard to know that who's at fault.

I would normally agree, but in this case the computer died while the system was in-use... so any bent pin would not be the cause of the motherboard failure and would be purely secondary to any packaging/shipping/sabotage insult.
 
Boy, that sucks! I had a terrible time w/ Asus RMA last year as well. My gtx570 DCII was DOA. Took over 9 weeks to get a card back in my hands. The first two weeks were spent establishing that the card was in their possession. They wanted "proof" b/c they had no record of receiving it. Fortunately, I had my delivery confirmation receipt to support my claim.
 
I keep hearing about these "bent pins". I have never used an Intel system. Are the pins on the motherboard, and the CPU has holes, and you put the CPU onto the pins? In AMD systems its the other way around right? It seems like it would be better to have the pins on the CPU, since CPUs so rarely break down.
 
LGA Land Grid Array, been that way for a while. The CPU has flat pads and the "pins" are little springy grasshopper legs, veeeeery delicate
 
USPC280235.jpg


How do you accidentally bend those pins, especially when a normal person grabs a CPU by the edges?
 
Don't you put thermal paste on the pins to keep the bottom cold?


You are a lucky person if you haven't ever had to deal with customers who have actually done this.

Haven't seen it on the LGA sockets yet, but back in the day when everything was PGA, I came across this a few times.

Person puts TIM all over the socket, then installs the CPU in the socket, then puts an even higher amount of TIM on top of the processor.
 
One thing I'd like to point out here is that the covers that go on the CPU sockets can bend pins if not replaced over the socket correctly. Kyle and I had this issue with a few of those covers. Fortunately we were always able to bend the CPU socket pins back and had no trouble afterwards. I've also noticed that the design of the CPU socket covers ASUS uses today isn't what they used a few months ago.

I don't know if you put that cover back on the CPU socket when you sent it back, but if you did this may be the cause of the bent pins.

I keep hearing about these "bent pins". I have never used an Intel system. Are the pins on the motherboard, and the CPU has holes, and you put the CPU onto the pins? In AMD systems its the other way around right? It seems like it would be better to have the pins on the CPU, since CPUs so rarely break down.

The pins are on the motherboard in the CPU socket. The CPU simply has contact points on the bottom. There are no holes on it. And I prefer this over the pins being on the CPU. CPUs are easier to drop and often times the cost of the CPU far outweighs the cost of the motherboard. Since going to the land grid array.I've actually experienced fewer bent pins than I did back in the CPU days. Seems CPUs often had bent pins depending on how they were shipped, etc.
 
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One thing I'd like to point out here is that the covers that go on the CPU sockets can bend pins if not replaced over the socket correctly. Kyle and I had this issue with a few of those covers. Fortunately we were always able to bend the CPU socket pins back and had no trouble afterwards. I've also noticed that the design of the CPU socket covers ASUS uses today isn't what they used a few months ago.

I don't know if you put that cover back on the CPU socket when you sent it back, but if you did this may be the cause of the bent pins.

Sounds plausible for sure.
 
Sounds plausible for sure.

I've seen three types of these covers. One that goes in the CPU socket like a CPU. These were always fine. I've never had issues with them. Then there is a type that I see used all the time now that clips on over the CPU socket, but has a relief in the middle which keeps anything away from the pins. This is what seems most current, and isn't problematic. Then I've seen another type that goes over the retention mechanism and clips on over parts of the socket exterior, but there are portrusions on the plastic plate which can hit the pins. These suck.

I've seen all three designs used on ASUS motherboards. The type that caused us problems I only saw for a short time.
 
What's interesting is that in the case of the OP, its likely something he didn't even think about. Just one of those things people tend not to think about. Not saying he's to blame, but its certainly a factor that could have caused the RMA issue.
 
What's interesting is that in the case of the OP, its likely something he didn't even think about. Just one of those things people tend not to think about. Not saying he's to blame, but its certainly a factor that could have caused the RMA issue.

Kyle and I ran into two or three boards in a row with bent pins and we scratched our heads for a while before figuring it out. We then noticed the cover design had changed and we stopped putting them back on. This stopped our problems immediately. Now I only replace those covers when they are designed correctly. No problems since.
 
I like Asus boards but I see a ton of people have issues with them with bent pins. Some have no resolution and have to keep their paperweight.
 
I like Asus boards but I see a ton of people have issues with them with bent pins. Some have no resolution and have to keep their paperweight.

Well it's pretty easy to bend those pins if you aren't careful. And a lot of people make mistakes with boards, especially when they don't build systems but every few years when technology changes significantly. ASUS is also one of the top sellers of boards out there and physical damage for most things in the world isn't covered under warranty.

See the correlation? I'm not saying this explains 100% of cases but I'd wager it explains a lot of them. And if people are putting those socket covers back on when RMA'ing the board I'll bet they are screwing up the sockets. I think this is why those covers have changed recently.
 
USPC280235.jpg


How do you accidentally bend those pins, especially when a normal person grabs a CPU by the edges?

In addition to what Dan said, there was a period of time when LGA775 first came out where I would have customers come back with a single, solitary pin bent back on itself. Almost like when you crook your finger. I believe one of the guys who built computers for us back then also ran into that once or twice. It's almost like the pins weren't always lined up right, and sometimes one would be enough out of whack that installing the CPU would cause the pin to bend back on itself in a strange way. Haven't seen it since 1366 came out, so not entirely sure what the case was. And then, you know, there's the guys who manhandle the CPUs like they'll run away if you let them...

That said, I preferred the ZIF sockets and having pins on the CPU. If you had a razor blade and about 5 minutes, you could get about any CPU to work again as long as the pin didn't break off. I've saved more than a few CPUs where the builder forgot to lift the latch on the socket and then bolted down the heatsink on top. :p
 
Other than the issue with the bent pins on recent boards with the socket covers, I've never had a single bent pin on any LGA style socket. And again the ones I did have an issue with I figured out the cause of. CPUs with pins on them getting bent on the other hand is something I've seen more times than I could ever count.
 
What's hard for me to believe is how any company can dispute a claim when you have photos of the item you are sending or receiving.

It's just criminal to treat your customers as such.

That linked post is a great example. Customer Induced Damage.....what a farce.
 
That linked post is a great example. Customer Induced Damage.....what a farce.

The worst part is that he (and others here) felt it necessary to photograph EVERY step of the RMA process believing (apparently justifably so) that failure to do so would result in a denial of their claim. Can you imagine if auto or utility warranties were so easily voided? "What? You didn't pre-wash your dishes? I'm sorry, but that's customer-induced damage and isn't covered..."

My State's attorney general has been pretty awesome in the past- I wonder if this is worth running by his office- unfortunatly I don't have a perfect photographic record or unbroken doccumented chain of custody for my motherboard throghout the RMA process so it would ultimatly come down to "he-said she-said" :rolleyes:
 
The worst part is that he (and others here) felt it necessary to photograph EVERY step of the RMA process believing (apparently justifably so) that failure to do so would result in a denial of their claim. Can you imagine if auto or utility warranties were so easily voided? "What? You didn't pre-wash your dishes? I'm sorry, but that's customer-induced damage and isn't covered..."

My State's attorney general has been pretty awesome in the past- I wonder if this is worth running by his office- unfortunatly I don't have a perfect photographic record or unbroken doccumented chain of custody for my motherboard throghout the RMA process so it would ultimatly come down to "he-said she-said" :rolleyes:

Your case will probably not get much for you in that regard, but will start a trend in looking at how ASUS treats it's customers overall.

The days of the customer is always right are DOA.
 
I keep hearing horror stories about ASUS RMA but I've had no trouble with them at all.
 
I have RMA'd 1 ASUS motherboard at work (where I have had 100s ASUS of boards over the last 15 years). Not to say this was the only ASUS board that died but the first that died and still had a warranty. It was promptly fixed within 2 days of them receiving the board. They did however forget to put back a jumper on the motherboard that was for case entry detection. This caused the board to refuse to start after the BIOS settings were properly set. I figured that out after about 10 minutes of debugging. For an inexperienced user this would have been a much tougher problem and they probably would have wanted to RMA again..
 
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