- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
This undercover warranty investigation is a one-year follow-up from our series that investigated ASUS for motherboards incinerating AMD CPUs, at the end of which ASUS promised a number of improvements to its then-anti-consumer warranty processes. Spoiler alert: They’re still anti-consumer. We sent our ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme in for warranty repair for issues with the left joystick (“drift”). The device also had a broken microSD card. ASUS then pointed to the world’s tiniest scratch and tried to charge us $200 for it under threat of sending back a disassembled device if we didn’t pay within 5 days. It felt like extortion. If you’re wondering whether ASUS is worth buying, the answer for anyone who values support should be “no.”
We have now tested ASUS’ motherboard and ROG Ally warranty and RMA processes. Both have been anti-consumer experiences.
Are there any brands left that is consumer friendly to buy from these days??
Specifically motherboards or in general?
I’ve heard a lot of good things about Asrock motherboards. And they’re also about the only ones without some recent controversy (for AMD CPUs).In general, I can personally vouch for Noctua.
They sent me a free mounting kit for my then 7 year old CPU cooler when I switched it over to a new PC. I’ve had it for 12 years now.
Edit: Never mind, looks like also Asrock aren’t too great.
I got burned by ASRock years ago, they are literally just Asus but with less quality control
Was it before AM4 by any chance?
It was between 2010-2016, myself and a few of my mates tried them on a few times over the years and they crapped out every time after a couple months. Swore off them for good after that.
The X370 Taichi was considered one of the best boards of the generation, so I’m pretty sure they improved.
Mine’s still going strong in a friend’s computer 7 years later, with a Ryzen 5600.
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I can tell you bad things about a crappy Asrock AM3 board I got a decade ago
Yeah, from what I’ve seen they weren’t great before and have switched things up in recent years.
But I haven’t had any personal experience with their boards.
From what I heard Asrock became a joke quality wise and got the shits about being the lowest quality mainstream manufacturer and did something about it.
Honestly, I’ve had nothing but good luck with Asrock. The few times I’ve needed at MB replacement (one was for a 2 year old board that had a known issue, Intels fault, not theirs) they just sent me a replacement board after I sent mine in.
Its probably been 5 years since I’ve had to use thier RMA process, but I’m still putting Asrock boards in everything I build. I build for pretty much all my friend and family circle (probably 3-8 builds a year) and I don’t know of any that have had an issue so far (they would for sure come back to me for help if they did).
Taichi is such a great enthuaist line and Steel Legend is a great mid range. I’ll always recommend them.
I don’t have much experience with Corsair, but when one of my fans on my AIO went janky, they sent me a label and then shipped me a newer model that looks brand new.
…it’s going in another machine, as my compy now has a D15
'Fraid ASRock isn’t good news either https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy5I2CnM_38
Well damn.
I’ve had good experience with EVGA both times I’ve had problems with their hardware, this year most recently. MSI is supposedly OK too, but I never had to deal with their warranty.
Heard good about EVGA and Sapphire too. However my personal experience with MSI(laptops) have not been great. But shame about Asus as they so much more than EVGA and Sapphire as they only make Graphic Cards AFAIK.
There’s Supermicro and Tyan, but they’re…a different market.
Fair warning, don’t mess with the internals of the device because - as a Chinese company - their warranty is prohibitively anti-repair, but…
OneXPlayer. Specifically the OneXFly. More ergonomic than the steam deck, far more powerful than both it and the ROG Ally, has an SD Card slot that doesn’t fry itself like the Ally, and comes with a decent warranty for what is essentially the Chinese Lamborghini of GamerDecks. Again, don’t try to fix it yourself, it works well but if anything goes wrong (I had to wipe the SSD and didn’t know how to do so without removing it physically) then you’re screwed.
If you have big hands, just buy a Steam Deck OLED. It’s about as good as it gets for customer service to rely on Valve.
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