Asus RMA for repairs under warranty, or lack thereof

So, I'd say about a week and-a-half ago I call up Asus' technical support line to request an RMA on a motherboard I am fairly certain is still under warranty. The conversation goes smoothly, and the support technician informs me that my motherboard is indeed still within the warranty period. I explain the problems, request an RMA, they say that I can send it in for repairs since it's under warranty and they will need 10-14 days to diagnose and/or repair the motherboad. I have no big problem with this, since the board hasn't been working properly for months anyway and as it is not my main system having it out of my hands for up to two weeks isn't a major inconvenience to me.

I receive my RMA number and various information about the RMA process via email, and ship the board out the next week since IIRC I requested the RMA on a Friday and didn't have enough time to ship it out that day.

Yesterday, almost exactly one week after I shipped the board out, it arrives back at my doorstep. So, of the 10-14 days Asus was supposed to have it in their possession for diagnostics and repairs they actually had it in their possession for around 5-6.

My first thought was to then check the status of my RMA on their website, since I was wondering what they fixed and/or what was causing the problem. So, I go there, put in my RMA no., and guess what, no information whatsoever. They didn't even acknowledge that my board was received by their facility, and yet here it is back at my doorstep. Call up the Asus support number again to see if I can get verification on what, if anything, was fixed. Phone rings, they put me on hold for 15-20 minutes while I wait on the next available technician, and they force me to listen to the latest spiel from their marketing department about how great their products are. Finally, as I'm about ready to hang up and call back someone answers the phone, and I ask them what the status is on my RMA and give them my RMA number *sounds of keys clicking on a keyboard heard in the background* and he replies "we have not yet received your motherboard." To which my retort is, I already shipped it out and it just came back to me with your company's return address on it. So, what was fixed?," I ask. Technician replies back, "I don't show any records for your RMA stating what was done. Are you sure you sent it out?" Me-"Yes, I have the receipt with the tracking number right here in front of me." Technician-"What was the tracking number, I'll look it up to see if we received it?" So, I give him the number, he confirms they received it, and says there's nothing else he can do unless there is a problem with it. I ended up looking in the box, and sure enough it's the same exact motherboard I sent out, looking the same as when it left, though there are noticeably more fingerprints on the backside of it now.

Today I tested it, and guess what, same old song and dance. It's doing exactly the same messed up junk it did when I sent it out, the LAN port doesn't work and can't identify or connect to a network and the BIOS clears its settings every time I turn off and/or unplug the computer. Seems like they kept it for 5-6 days, did nothing with it, and then just sent the same broken motherboard back to me.

At least the folks they have answering the phones are nice and polite though, that's the one saving grace.

Now I'm told I have to request another RMA on a product that wasn't fixed (or perhaps even looked at) the first time. Frankly, I hope they just replace it rather than fixing it, since given that it's spent more of it's time broken than it has in working order odds are good that even if they repair it I'll probably end up having to send it in for repairs again at some point. As long as the replacement is of equal or greater value I don't care what it is so long as it has similar features to the one I have now and is compatible with my CPU and other components.

Did you read this?

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=702168

My friend Dino is experiencing the EXACT same issue with Asus. What the!

Pinky said:

Did you read this?

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=702168

My friend Dino is experiencing the EXACT same issue with Asus. What the!

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No, hadn't seen that.

I'll take a read through it now.

Holy hell! Looks like the same song and dance with the same exact dance partner! Talk about deja-vu'. A shame a great motherboard company such as Asus is pulling this stunt.

Hope you get your problem sorted out soon.

i havent touched an asus mb for 7-8 years because of the way they treat RMAs. it seems they havent changed, sad. dont be surprised if they send you someone elses headache as a replacement.
do you guys think talking to sales will get you anywhere? maybe they can authorize a nib replacement vs a clunker they dig up in one of their warehouses.
good luck.

maxfly said:

do you guys think talking to sales will get you anywhere? maybe they can authorize a nib replacement vs a clunker they dig up in one of their warehouses.
good luck.

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I'm honestly not sure if you're being serious or sarcastic.

Well, finally received my second RMA number and various information via email the day before yesterday I believe it was.

Took them four business days to send it out to me, when it was supposed to only take one to two at most.

Supposedly they actually had an identical model of motherboard in whatever warehouse they were looking in and will be cross-shipping it to me in exchange for my broken one. I just hope they don't send me a refurbished one, because I have had terrible luck with refurbished components. At least the person from Asus support said it's still covered under the original warranty, in case the replacement is DOA or just defective in some way.

Wish me luck, hoping the second board works better than the first.

They must have some real morons working over at Asus.

Called on the phone to check the status of my RMA and found out they had lost all of the tracking information I gave them for my package, cancelled my Advanced RMA and replacement of my defective board and they have now downgraded me to the regular RMA where they take the board and stare at it but fix nothing.

I now expect to have to file a third RMA for the same motherboard and the same problems.

Somehow every technician I talk to always says the same thing "I can't do anything to help you." Then why are they there?

Their tech support and RMA system seems to be completely useless.

I wonder if you can report a company to the BBB for utter incompetence.

Tech Tweaker said:

I wonder if you can report a company to the BBB for utter incompetence.

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Yes, but if they're paying their BBB dues the charge won't stick.
I tried that at one point with a laptop repair company that took a dremel to my laptop's case (and motherboard) after they forgot to put a connector in.

I had a similar situation with asus's lack of "customer support". They are a total joke, and could care less about you and your money.
I did in the end get my second rma board (was a b2 to b3 replacement) but it took almost 2 months if I recall the days correctly. I just went and bought a gigabyte board, and told thier customer service to take all the time they wanted. but to also watch their sales drop by at least 1 customer-and hopefully several more from forums like these-until they can figure out what "customer service" is.

Better Business Bureau is a joke. They have no power whatsoever, and as suggested above may even be corrupt/self-seeking. I'd say file a complaint with your State's attorney general.

I've had lots of issues with Asus in the past.. not even letting me RMA a board prior. Thankfully the last time it was much better and quicker though still hesitant to buy another board from them for a while. Think the last one took only 2 weeks, which was far better than the 30-45 days they quoted me. Seriously if a PC is down for that long for some people... just doesn't cut it.

Made another call to Asus today, and they have no idea what the status on my RMA and/or my motherboard is.

All they know is that it is somewhere in the repair department, don't know if anyone has looked at it, or if anything has been fixed or replaced, but it is in the department that does that. I was assured though that I would receive word back with a status update within twenty-four hours.

Somehow I doubt that, and I'll probably have to call back again to find anything out.

Tech Tweaker said:

Made another call to Asus today, and they have no idea what the status on my RMA and/or my motherboard is.

All they know is that it is somewhere in the repair department, don't know if anyone has looked at it, or if anything has been fixed or replaced, but it is in the department that does that. I was assured though that I would receive word back with a status update within twenty-four hours.

Somehow I doubt that, and I'll probably have to call back again to find anything out.

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Same exact thing here. I was told today that the Supervisor was "working on the case" and that I would receive an email today about an update. I'm going to have to call them back tomorrow and light a fire under their butt

Called again today, spoke to an "Albert," or at least I think that's what he said, I can't hardly understand most of the support personnel I've spoken to due to heavy accents (I have nothing against them because they have an accent, I just can't understand them). He says my motherboard's status is still unknown, multiple requests for status updates have now been sent to the Asus repair facility (wherever that is), but no one has replied. Status update request priority has now been escalated to urgent from whatever their standard messaging protocol is (I think I'd prefer Defcon 1, it's probably higher priority). The support representative says he expects a status update to be forthcoming by the end of the day today or sometime tomorrow morning (they must have the support office based on the west coast of the US or something, because I can call in after 6PM in my time zone and still get an answer).

I very much doubt there will be any status update within the next 24 hours unless I call them and complain further, after all they didn't respond to the last three status requests, so I don't expect their level of incompetence (or laziness?) to change.

I am really getting annoyed by the fact that most of the support personnel I speak to take time out every few minutes while I'm on the phone with them to tell me that I haven't followed proper procedure and claim that the hold up in the processing of the RMA is somehow my fault. The usual excuse is that I never called to provide the tracking information on my package, I call bull*&%# on that one, because I know I called in to provide it the very same day I shipped the package. It's not my fault that their RMA system lost the related status update to my case information.

I think I'll just start calling in every day to request my RMA's status, with any luck I might actually get a working motherboard back.

I don't know what could be taking so long, I sent the motherboard in three weeks ago, and Asus' very own RMA email and their support staff say it only takes a maximum of 10-14 business days. From the rma email they sent me:

Asus RMA email said:

RMA process is approximately 10 business days (excludes ALL holidays, weekends, and transit time)

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I'm in a bad spot with Asus support now as well, sent in a B2 P67 motherboard to be swapped out for a B3, at first they were willing to do a cross-shipment but then upon checking their inventory they didn't have any boards to send me. So then I proceed to send my board in, it arrives and the status doesn't change for 5 days. Then yesterday I get an email saying they can't swap it out because of a cut in a trace on the backside near the RAM slots. To be honest, I was not away of the trace issue before sending it in. They want $133 just to fix it, not even replace the board.

I know they just scrap the old B2 boards when sending in for a B3, so it really irks me they are refusing to do the swap even though they are just gonna junk the board anyways

B2->B3 revision exchanges were only for like 6 months or so or so they told me when I tried to exchange my maximus IV extreme.

bmwbaxter said:

B2->B3 revision exchanges were only for like 6 months or so or so they told me when I tried to exchange my maximus IV extreme.

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Really? Because when I initially requested the RMA they said due to it being a B2 to B3, they would cross-ship so I didn't have any downtime I used this link here to verify it was a B2.

See here check out the second paragraph. this is the doc they referenced.

bmwbaxter said:

See here check out the second paragraph. this is the doc they referenced.

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Hmm, interesting. Well that's not the reasoning they gave me, instead it appears to be a tiny scratch on the backside of the board exposing some traces. I'll be sticking to Gigabyte and MSI then, no invoice needed and better RMA service in my experience than Asus. I never use the companies that require registering the product or needing an invoice for RMA.