Death to Bad Service! My Experience with Evga.

I saw that someone had made a thread that said Evga was great. Consider this the opposite of that thread.

***Warning: Rant Below***

Last year I purchased 6800 Limited Edition made by Evga. The story was that the cards actually were failed Ultras. At the price ($330) I couldn't pass it up. When I got the card I was already having some problems with my rig so I couldn't check to see if it worked. I had to RMA this list of things first(listed in no particular order):
Asus P4C800E-DLX: Problem-It couldn't run a Prescott, even after I upgraded the BIOS
Intel 3.2 478 Prescott D0: Problem-Broken pins on arrival
Western Digital 73g Raptor: Problem- The sata connections had broken off(power and data)
Western Digital 250g 7200Rpm: Problem- Wouldn't power up

Well after I got that stuff back it was already June 2005. I had forgoten about the 6800 until summer. Until this point I had a 5600 running. I later found it in my closet and was excited about it. I read on the forums about how it had bad cooling so I took off the stock stuff and threw it back in the closet. I replaced the gauze pads they had for cooling with some AS5 and hooked it up to my watercooling loop. When I startup the computer I get almost no picture. Just a buch of muti colored lines. After several bootups I don't even get the lines. This card I was so happy about had let me down. In order to RMA it I had to reister on Evga's website. That involved tracking down the exact time and place where I had gotten the card at. I had no idea where I let alone when I had gotten it. I ended up calling the credit card company to get the information, not an enoyable thing to do. After registering I decided to just call tech support and see if there might be a way to fix it. It took almost a week for them to decide that I did indeed need to RMA it. The sipping cost I had to pay(both ways! ). I was told I could just send in the card,so I did rather than taking the time to find and put the stock cooling back on. 2 days after USPS says they delivered the package I get a phone call from Evga saying that I had to send in the cooling parts also or pay a $25 fine. I of course had to pay shipping for the items again. So! know Evga has everything they need, but loe and behold there is a problem. They are out of 6800 Limited Edition cards. I had expected this but I got no information on what they would send me instead.

It is now July and I have just gotten the RMA back. Between this time and getting the 5600 had crapped out on me, still don't know what is wrong with it. I discover that I have recieved a 6800 GT. Alright, I had expected an Ulta but this was fine. The thing I didn't like about it was that it only had 1 DVI out. The 6800 Limited Edition had 2 DVI. That was a big reason for why I bought it. I have a bigscreen HD-TV next to my computer that can accept DVI ,and I have a DVI monitor so now I will have to switch cables from one to another if I wan the best quality picture. Rather than hook this card up to the loop or mess with the cooling yet( I'd learned my lesson) I ran it on air. I get the card going and guess what? I can't get into windows and everything I do see is covered in multicolored text and lines. I register this card and call tech support just as before.

On the phone with tech support they tell me either a) the card has bad memory or b) the power supply is bad. Before they will look at my card I have to test with a new power supply. I had been using a Fortron 530W Power Supply, so I was thinking it has to be the card. Fortunately I have a spare Fortron 530. Without it I might still be stuck here. I still get the same problem with the picture. I call them back up and they agree to RMA. At this point I still have to pay for shipping. I send the card out and call them again.

This time I request a card be sent with 2 DVI out and told them about my orginal card. I am told I will have to talk with a supervisor, but he isn't here right. Ask that I be contacted via e-mail instead of by telephone. 3 days later, no call nor e-mail. I call them again and I am told the same thing. The supervisor is there now only I can't talk to him myself. They put me on hold several times. I am told that they are out of 6800 Limited Editions. I had for the last 1/2 hour told this guy about what happned in detail and sat listening to the holding music inorder to get information I alrady knew. Really smart guys huh? Turns out though I can get a card with 2 DVI. For an extra $100. Had this person been in the same room as me I would have killed him with the phone. Since I didn't have any extra money I must go with out.

A few days ago I get the card they sent me. They sent it to me UPS but I couldn't have it because there was no one to sign who was 21 or older. They knew my age and pulled this crap! I had to go down to the UPS store and have the package re-routed to my parents work address so they could sign for it. Had I not the package would have been sent back to Evga. I open the box and discover it isn't even in a retail box and doesn't have any of the stuff that normally gets sent with a vid card(dvi-vga converter, s-video cable, manaul, drivers disk, etc). The icing on the cack was that instead of sending me a card with 1 DVI out, Svideo out, and 1 VGA out as is the standard the card only has DVI out. Now I can't even use 2 monitors at once! I had even gone to the trouble of finding a VGA-DVI converter so I could use both the TV and my Monitor and not switch cables.

Instead of sending the POS back I will just keep it. Everytime I send them a card they send me back something worse. I won't be buying another EVGA product again because of their lack of quality service.

PS The GT I had been sent from the first RMA had stickers on it saying that the card was given the Evga seal of quality. Aparently they seal crap.

Last year I purchased 6800 Limited Edition made by Evga. The story was that the cards actually were failed Ultras. At the price ($330) I couldn't pass it up. When I got the card I was already having some problems with my rig so I couldn't check to see if it worked. I had to RMA this list of things first(listed in no particular order): Asus P4C800E-DLX: Problem-It couldn't run a Prescott, even after I upgraded the BIOS Intel 3.2 478 Prescott D0: Problem-Broken pins on arrival Western Digital 73g Raptor: Problem- The sata connections had broken off(power and data) Western Digital 250g 7200Rpm: Problem- Wouldn't power up

Click to expand...

Dude, you shoulda got a Dell....

You sure seem to be destroying alot of hardware...

WingsofGOD said:

Dude, you shoulda got a Dell....

You sure seem to be destroying alot of hardware...

Click to expand...

I hope you have better luck in the future.

ya i agree....way too many rmas here.....

i would have to suspect user error...

z0n3 said:

I saw that someone had made a thread that said Evga was great. Consider this the opposite of that thread.

***Warning: Rant Below***

Last year I purchased 6800 Limited Edition made by Evga. The story was that the cards actually were failed Ultras. At the price ($330) I couldn't pass it up. When I got the card I was already having some problems with my rig so I couldn't check to see if it worked. I had to RMA this list of things first(listed in no particular order):
Asus P4C800E-DLX: Problem-It couldn't run a Prescott, even after I upgraded the BIOS
Intel 3.2 478 Prescott D0: Problem-Broken pins on arrival
Western Digital 73g Raptor: Problem- The sata connections had broken off(power and data)
Western Digital 250g 7200Rpm: Problem- Wouldn't power up

Well after I got that stuff back it was already June 2005. I had forgoten about the 6800 until summer. Until this point I had a 5600 running. I later found it in my closet and was excited about it. I read on the forums about how it had bad cooling so I took off the stock stuff and threw it back in the closet. I replaced the gauze pads they had for cooling with some AS5 and hooked it up to my watercooling loop. When I startup the computer I get almost no picture. Just a buch of muti colored lines. After several bootups I don't even get the lines. This card I was so happy about had let me down. In order to RMA it I had to reister on Evga's website. That involved tracking down the exact time and place where I had gotten the card at. I had no idea where I let alone when I had gotten it. I ended up calling the credit card company to get the information, not an enoyable thing to do. After registering I decided to just call tech support and see if there might be a way to fix it. It took almost a week for them to decide that I did indeed need to RMA it. The sipping cost I had to pay(both ways! ). I was told I could just send in the card,so I did rather than taking the time to find and put the stock cooling back on. 2 days after USPS says they delivered the package I get a phone call from Evga saying that I had to send in the cooling parts also or pay a $25 fine. I of course had to pay shipping for the items again. So! know Evga has everything they need, but loe and behold there is a problem. They are out of 6800 Limited Edition cards. I had expected this but I got no information on what they would send me instead.

It is now July and I have just gotten the RMA back. Between this time and getting the 5600 had crapped out on me, still don't know what is wrong with it. I discover that I have recieved a 6800 GT. Alright, I had expected an Ulta but this was fine. The thing I didn't like about it was that it only had 1 DVI out. The 6800 Limited Edition had 2 DVI. That was a big reason for why I bought it. I have a bigscreen HD-TV next to my computer that can accept DVI ,and I have a DVI monitor so now I will have to switch cables from one to another if I wan the best quality picture. Rather than hook this card up to the loop or mess with the cooling yet( I'd learned my lesson) I ran it on air. I get the card going and guess what? I can't get into windows and everything I do see is covered in multicolored text and lines. I register this card and call tech support just as before.

On the phone with tech support they tell me either a) the card has bad memory or b) the power supply is bad. Before they will look at my card I have to test with a new power supply. I had been using a Fortron 530W Power Supply, so I was thinking it has to be the card. Fortunately I have a spare Fortron 530. Without it I might still be stuck here. I still get the same problem with the picture. I call them back up and they agree to RMA. At this point I still have to pay for shipping. I send the card out and call them again.

This time I request a card be sent with 2 DVI out and told them about my orginal card. I am told I will have to talk with a supervisor, but he isn't here right. Ask that I be contacted via e-mail instead of by telephone. 3 days later, no call nor e-mail. I call them again and I am told the same thing. The supervisor is there now only I can't talk to him myself. They put me on hold several times. I am told that they are out of 6800 Limited Editions. I had for the last 1/2 hour told this guy about what happned in detail and sat listening to the holding music inorder to get information I alrady knew. Really smart guys huh? Turns out though I can get a card with 2 DVI. For an extra $100. Had this person been in the same room as me I would have killed him with the phone. Since I didn't have any extra money I must go with out.

A few days ago I get the card they sent me. They sent it to me UPS but I couldn't have it because there was no one to sign who was 21 or older. They knew my age and pulled this crap! I had to go down to the UPS store and have the package re-routed to my parents work address so they could sign for it. Had I not the package would have been sent back to Evga. I open the box and discover it isn't even in a retail box and doesn't have any of the stuff that normally gets sent with a vid card(dvi-vga converter, s-video cable, manaul, drivers disk, etc). The icing on the cack was that instead of sending me a card with 1 DVI out, Svideo out, and 1 VGA out as is the standard the card only has DVI out. Now I can't even use 2 monitors at once! I had even gone to the trouble of finding a VGA-DVI converter so I could use both the TV and my Monitor and not switch cables.

Instead of sending the POS back I will just keep it. Everytime I send them a card they send me back something worse. I won't be buying another EVGA product again because of their lack of quality service.

PS The GT I had been sent from the first RMA had stickers on it saying that the card was given the Evga seal of quality. Aparently they seal crap.

Click to expand...

You should have tried the 6800 Limited edition before you decided to replace the TIM on the memory, I can tell you what happened with a reasonable certainty. When you replaced the Thermal pads on the memory and used Arctic Silver 5, some of the paste migrated and shorted out the memory since Arctic Silver 5 is slightly capacitive. Your stating you saw multi colored lines is indicative of the memory being shorted out from a metal based thermal paste, you should have used double sided thermal tape or Ceramique on the memory. I hate to be the naysayer but I am pretty sure this is not EVGA's fault.

PS your expecting to get an Ultra is just plain silly, had you bought an Ultra you would have received an Ultra in return, I know exactly what the 6800 Limited edition was and what it cost, and the Ultra was more money. You recieved a 6800GT which is totally in line with what you originally purchased. Your lucky they replaced the card at all, you damaged the card using a metal based thermal paste on the memory. Your putting a metal based thermal paste on the memory is your fault, not EVGA's.

PS as far as that seal on the EVGA box, it should state, -DO NOT USE A METAL BASED THERMAL PASTE ON OUR MEMORY- But if you do, we are a great company and we will allow the RMA, we don't care that customers void our warranty and hose our Videocards, hell we will just give you another.

I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but you should be ranting at yourself, not EVGA M8... You voided their warranty, you screwed up their card and they replaced it, and unbelievably you are complaining about it.

Yeah, I know it was silly to expect an Ultra. I'm not sure why I did. Wishful thinking perhaps. I checked if some of the AS5 had gone off and it looked fine to me. I would think that they check the card for problems caused by the user before they would send a new one. If I did mess up with that doesn't explain why they sent my a broken card to replace it and then a card with 1 digital out to replace the second.

As to all my RMAs , well what can I say bad luck right?

For some reason this just popped into my head, but it I think it expresses my point. Your car is broken so you send it to the dealer. The dealer says here take this Mustang instead. Sweat a Mustang, but the steering pulls to left so you take it back. This time they give you a Mustang but with no back wheels.

Silversinksam said:

You should have tried the 6800 Limited edition before you decided to replace the TIM on the memory, I can tell you what happened with a reasonable certainty. When you replaced the Thermal pads on the memory and used Arctic Silver 5, some of the paste migrated and shorted out the memory since Arctic Silver 5 is slightly capacitive. Your stating you saw multi colored lines is indicative of the memory being shorted out from a metal based thermal paste, you should have used double sided thermal tape or Ceramique on the memory. I hate to be the naysayer but I am pretty sure this is not EVGA's fault.

PS your expecting to get an Ultra is just plain silly, had you bought an Ultra you would have received an Ultra in return, I know exactly what the 6800 Limited edition was and what it cost, and the Ultra was more money. You recieved a 6800GT which is totally in line with what you originally purchased. Your lucky they replaced the card at all, you damaged the card using a metal based thermal paste on the memory. Your putting a metal based thermal paste on the memory is your fault, not EVGA's.

PS as far as that seal on the EVGA box, it should state, -DO NOT USE A METAL BASED THERMAL PASTE ON OUR MEMORY- But if you do, we are a great company and we will allow the RMA, we don't care that customers void our warranty and hose our Videocards, hell we will just give you another.

I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but you should be ranting at yourself, not EVGA M8... You voided their warranty, you screwed up their card and they replaced it, and unbelievably you are complaining about it.

Click to expand...

I also dont mean to be a jerk either but I was shaking my head when reading this.

NEVER change the cooling on a card before testin it out of the box FIRST. to do otherwise is stupid !! Test the card make sure it works and then change out the cooling.

Secondly NEVER USE AS5 on memory, its really dangerous and it DOES NOT GIVE YOU AN EDGE OVER GOOD THERMAL PADS.

The fact that they even gave you another card is very surprising.

Hardware is so delicate and after handing hardware for a while we tend to get sloppy then by damaging expensive hardware we see what can happen.

BTW EVGA DOES MAKE THE BEST 6800's

ya.. this is the first iv heard bout' bad xperience w/evga

z0n3 said:

Yeah, I know it was silly to expect an Ultra. I'm not sure why I did. Wishful thinking perhaps. I checked if some of the AS5 had gone off and it looked fine to me. I would think that they check the card for problems caused by the user before they would send a new one. If I did mess up with that doesn't explain why they sent my a broken card to replace it and then a card with 1 digital out to replace the second.

As to all my RMAs , well what can I say bad luck right?

For some reason this just popped into my head, but it I think it expresses my point. Your car is broken so you send it to the dealer. The dealer says here take this Mustang instead. Sweat a Mustang, but the steering pulls to left so you take it back. This time they give you a Mustang but with no back wheels.

Click to expand...

My question to you is, Did you put Arctic Silver 5 on the 2nd cards memory like you did with the first, or did you use it as it came?

As it came.

Until you guys told me so I had no idea that you shouldn't use AS on memory. I recently got some ram sinks for the mosfets on my motherboard. Haven't put them on yet but I was wondering if i shouldn't use the Artic Silver Thermal Adhesive that I bought because it is metal based.