phildabill

Hi all!

I bought myself a GA-8ik1100 (stripped down version of the KNXP) about 6 months ago. Last monday when I decided to format my comp, the windows xp setup crashed when copying files. I thought the HD was the problem so I tried installing on another one I had and it still crashed when copying the files. I left only the CPU (p4 2.4c)/mobo/PCI 3d (vodoo banshee)/ram (2x512mb Kingston ddr400)/floppy in the drive and ran memtest 3.1a. Many errors were found in test 3, so I redid the test 1 stick at a time and the same errors were found, but at different locations. Therefore I thought both my ram sticks defectuous. I switched ram sticks from my other comp (Athlon XP 1500/MSI KM2M) and ran memetest on both machine for the whole night. To my surprise, the system with the Gigabyte mobo also found errors in the other ram in test 3 but no errors where found on the MSI system. Then I realized something is wrong with the mobo.

I decided to contact gygabyte by email on tuesday morning. Today is saturday, and still no response. GREAT support gigabyte!. I decided to give them a call. I spent 1h on the line redoing tests to make sure my mobo is defectuous(which is understandable). They asked for my e-mail to send me the RMA request form. It surprised me on tuesday that the RMA form was not on the website, and now I know why. This is taken directly from it:

30 DAYS to replace the product (think of someone running a buisness, where time means money) and, even worst "or a completely refurbished product of the same model". For those who dont understand, this means that if your product cannot be repaired, you will NOT receive a new one, but one that had problems but were fixed.

To make things even better, here is how shipping is handled:

They expect us to pay for the whole shipping process for THEIR mistakes. I am ending up spending around 50$CAN and wating 1 month+ to get my mobo repaired or get a refurbished.

SHAME ON GIGABYTE AND THEIR SUPPORT!

To make a comparison: I bought a defectuous ATI AIW 9700 Pro when it came out. Contacted ATi on sunday, shipped on monday, received new card on friday, and only paid shipping to ATi(+- 7$)! I also had a problem with my MSI KM2M mobo, took 2 weeks for the whole process(it was repaired) and I only paid shipping to MSI(+-10$). A last one, my Western Digital Caviar 80gb died on me last year, it also took less than 2 weeks to get a replacement drive and I laos only paid shipping to WD (+-10$).

This has taugh me NOT to rely only on the "X year warranty" sticker, but to read up on the compagny's info about RMAs. If that info cannot be found on their website, there is a reason (atleast for Gigabyte)!


[COLOR=red] I will never buy another Gigabyte product untill they change that policy![/COLOR]

I hope youguys do not make the same mistake as me and buy a Gigabyte product (because they ARE good products when working).

I suggest we spread this to as many hardware forums as possible to get Gigabyte to change their policy regarding RMA's! I am willing to provide the .doc of the RMA form but I would need a place to host it.

Thanx for taking the time to read the post.


PhilDaBill

No_Style

Everybody has their gripes against a company, mine is against WD. Two of their HDDs of the same brand failed on me. One of them within a year and the other one was a refurbed one of the same model and it failed within a month. I got a Maxtor replacement and I'm very happy with it.

P.S - Did writing all that help you vent? Cuz it sounds like it would help me vent

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Judas

.....i refuse if i can to rely on manufacturer warranty.... absalute refuse because majority of everything i get, the manufacturers are elsewhere in the world... (aside from ATI)..... meaning massive payment for shipping... and you might not even get the damn thing back.... however.... memory wise issues..... i've got a possible solution.... by ANY CHANCE did you select "Top Preformance" when you hit Ctrl+F1 (to get advanced bios options)...... i thought i had no issue with doing this.. then i moved the machine a to a different place and started getting crashes... went to go reinstall.. and failed the same way.... attempted to even lower everything to slow speeds.... even hit the FAIL SAFE settings... but nothing worked.. i was worried i did something to the memory or the mobo... it just so happens with TOP PREFORMANCE ENABLED (you HAVE to manually disable this to disable it completely), it would just keep dieing... i spent days with the machine figureing out what was wrong.... i even went as far as to boot up... go into the bios .. CHANGE one thing at a time... reboot..reboot reboot like crazy...... how annoying it was to find that hitting fail safe or optimal settings in the bios wouldn't reset the "top Preformance" setting to disabled.....grr..... happy now that it's working.... it's even running faster with top preformance off....

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The_Neon_Cowboy

Welcome to DH…


I don’t mean to crap on your thread and you maybe up set but IMO there is nothing wrong with what gigabyte is doing….

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dj_stick

i have had several gigabytw preoducts, no problem with RMA's

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Judas

Neon... you make a simple mistake... $20 USD doesn't add up to $20 Canadian... when we have to ship something.. and usually depending on location... it will indeed cost $50.. actually usually more... if you live in the city... your lucky... IF you have a home adress that isn't a P.O. BOX.. (if you do... your screwed period enless you start making up weird adresses so it ends up at the post office anyways.. which is somewhat ilegal i belive.. but gets the job done most of the time)

All i can say is read what i orginally posted... and in the future.... pay VERY close attention to the manual/warranty liecence contract.... and were you bought it from.. see if you can get some kind of a warranty from them as well.....what you might pay a little extra for.. may end up counting.... as it's better then ending up with a headache and oweing 50+ without no guarantees...

I know your pain... i think majority of people have gone through some form of it.... just some later then others.. which ends up costing them more...

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The_Neon_Cowboy

hardly $50 that appears to be an exaduration
ATM $20 US Dollar = 26.43400 Canadian Dollars

What does he expect tho? Gigabye to eat the expense? lol then they wouldn't make any money and go out of bussiness Nor is it thier fault he lives were he lives... thier products are sold around the world but if they don't have they money they won't open extra warranty centers.... The have to keep thier costs down and a good way is to make you deal with the shipping..

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BWX

I bought a Gigabyte GA-7DX+ about 3.5 to 4 years ago- I abused the crap out of it, OC'ing it to it's absolute limit for the entire time I had it (about 2.5 years), and was doing things like playing games and running benchmarks most of the time.

Last year I upgraded and put the Gigabyte in my mom's PC with the memory and Palamino still in it- It is now at default speed plugging away in a "not well ventilated case" located in a hot room plugging away everyday taking over e-mail, photoshop, and websurfing detail.... I'd say it's a rugged quality product I got my money's worth out of 3x over.

About a year after I had it, I noticed one of the pins in the AGP slot was bent out f position so I contacted the place I bought it from - Royal Computers -and they gave me a bran new one for free. I think I paid for the shipping there- they paid for the shipping back... Maybe you should have contacted the place you bought it from, or only buy from places that offer their own one year warranty with their products..

I never count on the manufacturer's warranty because I know what a pain it is, accept once I had an old Western Digital HD go bad on me- (this this was OLD too)- and I called them up and they sent out a new one and paid for shipping both ways..

Bottom line? Gigabyte makes very high quality products, their RMA and warranty policies are average, and probably a pain in the arse. It sucks you had a bad experience, but they make good stuff, and most of the time if handles properly, the stuff lasts forever.. I will continue to think of Gigabyte as a top notch motherboard manufacturer.

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phildabill

In reply to The_Neon_Cowboy :

What if I ran a buisness with that computer? 2 weeks for an answer and 30 days processing is NOT normal! From my experience I have naver waited more than 3 days for an answer.

The RMA form CANNOT be found on their website, it has to be mailed to you. As for the RMA #, I was olbigated to replay to the mail, I couln'd get the RMA# on the phone (I tried).

What the 30 days mean is that they will take up to 30 days to "fix" your product (I think shipping time is not included, but not certain)

If I bought a defectuous product and it cannot be repaired, they should give me a new one. If that product is no longer produced, then they should gimme a new product equivalant to the old one (like any other buisness does)

ANd for trhe shipping costs:
From here to Gigabyte: 16$CAN
Gigabyte to here: 20$US=27$CAN + 4$ for the international money order
Which gives me a nice total of 43$ to get either my mobo repaired or a refursbished.

I agree with what youguys said, Gigabyte makes greats mobos when they work. Before the problem arose my comp was top notch. But that type of poor support is enough to make me buy from another compagny. Youguys will realise it when you get probs with your gigabyte product.

phildabill

In reply to Judas , I tried what you said, but didnt change anything. Whats weird is that the tech support told me to activate TOP PERFORMANCE to do test on the mobo.

BWX

I would buy Abit mobo's if I were you- they have a great RMA service from what I have heard-- And look at their support forum, it rocks!

http://forum.abit-usa.com/

Any question answered correctly just about instantly, can't beat that.

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Judas

if your benchmarking.. they will tell you to do that.... but i'd suggest you leave the TOP Preformance alone... as it even states in the manual that it may make the system unstable depending on hardware configureations....

As for "if" you were running a bisness.... i have to say (no offence)... that any bisness has to investigate all venues for some form of fallback..... can't be just purchasing some stuff.. having it fail in 6 months and then have nothing to fall back on (having to whipp out another few hundred bucks to get a replacement).... every bisness needs some form of inssurance or guarantee to be able to reliably sit stable as a bisness....

As for neon and the conversion.. your right... but what you usually have to pay for the shipping... it's usually more then doubled for us in the long run... as we don't pay precisely what you guys pay for shipping.... we've got so many bloody policies and protocol to go through.... it always ends up more..... There are only a few cases when the shipping is almsot the same (considering conversion)

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blade5545

If you ran a business and your business depends on that machine then you get a DELL you get warranty from one company on all parts and if you buy it as a business then you can get a warranty that will send a onsite tech the next day with the part. Thats why companies spend extra and buy computers from one computer company you only have contact the them if anything breaks in the comptuer and its next day repair. And yes business does get better tretment, for all the commercials did you know that the consumer market only accounts for 15% of DELL'S profit who do you think they are going to support better?! I'm sorry but that is the risk you take when you run a business on computer that you built, you are your own support dept.

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Dell Inspiron 700m
2 ghz Intel Mobile 2mb L2 cache
12.1 Ultrabrite
1.25 gig ram
80gig hdd
8x DVD-RW
4.5lbs 1.5" thick
5 hours battery

DFI NF4 Ultra - D AMD Winchester 64 3200+ @4125+ 2.62ghz sold
Swiftech H20-120-BB REV. 3 LIQUID COOLING KIT
2x512 OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Dual Channel sold Platinum Rev 2 OCZ POWERSTREAM 520W sold
ATI X700 PRO SEAGATE 160GIG SATA
Windows XP PRO SP2 / PearPC - Apple OS X 10.2

Unknown
"The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself."

Judas

Dell? dell being probably a bit better then any other prebuilt.... but not recommended at all.... I've been able to somewhat work a deal with a few various shops getting very excellent warranty..... i've even landed a contract with a company..... prebuilts don't stand a chance reguardless of what anyone says against any costum built setup that has been thoroughly tested and true...

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blade5545

But you gotta understand most companies dont have time for that, and they also have have to have their employess supported and majority are computer illiterate. Its just like fast food its not neccesarly the best but its the fastest. And lets just say your IT manager and a critical server goes down how many companies do you know which can send a tech with the parts anywhere in country in 4 hours guranteed from the moment they make a call. If your a business its all but speed.

__________________
Dell Inspiron 700m
2 ghz Intel Mobile 2mb L2 cache
12.1 Ultrabrite
1.25 gig ram
80gig hdd
8x DVD-RW
4.5lbs 1.5" thick
5 hours battery

DFI NF4 Ultra - D AMD Winchester 64 3200+ @4125+ 2.62ghz sold
Swiftech H20-120-BB REV. 3 LIQUID COOLING KIT
2x512 OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Dual Channel sold Platinum Rev 2 OCZ POWERSTREAM 520W sold
ATI X700 PRO SEAGATE 160GIG SATA
Windows XP PRO SP2 / PearPC - Apple OS X 10.2

Unknown
"The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself."

Judas

Blade.. i'm not completely disagreeing with you... i'm just stateing there are cases when costum build may indeed be the best solution for the fastest responce time/support (some retail hardware really does have excellent support)... Any problems i've ever encounterd are usually due to it being a prebuilt setup with the most annoying configurations being the limiting factor...if all you do is surf the net and type... then prebuilt may indeed be the best solution.... if you do more... well, your looking for more preforming hardware...

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The_Neon_Cowboy

Again were did they say it would take 30 days? the 30 days you quoted was in fact relateing to the minum warranty period on the product they return to you...

But also you do understand the nearest office is..... in the USA

If you lied in the USA the shipping wouln't be that much of a deal at all. They can't help that you choose to live in canada. You can compair gigbye to a candian basted company becouse thier not in canada...

It can take an item 2 weeks just to get past customs! Don't like it buy only candian products

I'm telling you can get RMA's over the phone... they can't and don't require you to use the web ... a tech guy was just wanting to get you off the phone RMA's take while ... and they likely have quotas of people to help... (especally if your calling long distance, to say the 1-800 line)

Yea, but again it not like you just bought it yesterday and could take it back to the store. You've had it for what 6+ mounths there is a big diffrence there two. Why should they give you a new board for a used one? For all they know you o/c the hell out of it and now it has problems (very common) ...

All you need to care about is the board looks like new, works like new, and doesn't have a problem...

The reseve the legal right to do what ever they want like 99.9999% of electronics co's do.


Ask you self this did you ship them a brand new board? then why should they ship you one....

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dipstick

Doesn't seem like they did anything differently than any other mobo maker would. With any company it would take about a month and you would have to pay for shipping both ways. You are lucky it wasn't Asus you were dealing with lol

phildabill

Just got the reply from Gigabyte:

What I dont understand is that it wasnt stated anywhere that I had to pay IF I was out of my warranty!

Nway, im happy with the result. It was a bit slow but satisfying.

I guess I spoke too fast (as usual :P)!

Now lets hope I get the board back before august 3rd (DOOM III!!!!!!)