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.

  • Llamatron
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    421 year ago

    Well shit. There’s a lot of Asus in my PC. Fingers crossed it doesn’t break.

  • Sips'
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    391 year ago

    Are there any brands left that is consumer friendly to buy from these days??

    • @ArtikBanana@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      1 year ago

      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.

          • @bfg9k@lemmy.world
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            31 year ago

            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.

            • exscape
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              41 year ago

              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.

      • pacoboyd
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • @ArtikBanana@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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          61 year 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.

        • @Delphia@lemmy.world
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          51 year ago

          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.

      • @Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        21 year ago

        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

    • @tty5@lemmy.world
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      51 year ago

      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.

      • Sips'
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        41 year ago

        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.

    • Gadg8eer
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      11 year ago

      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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    321 year ago

    im truly dissapointed by asus’ enshittification.

    it used to be THE goto motherboard many moons ago

  • @JCreazy@midwest.social
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    161 year ago

    A year or so ago ASUS repaired my video card for free that I had bought second hand and was a couple years of warranty so my limited experience with their customer service has been pleasant.

    • @vithigar@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Same here. Sent back a ASUS video card for warranty service within the past couple of years. Was updated in a fairly timely fashion that they were able to reproduce my issue and a replacement card was sent to me without fuss. No issues at all.

      Though there was one odd factor where I sent the card back in its original TUF branded box and it came back in a Strix box. That doesn’t really impact the quality of the service though.

  • @Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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    151 year ago

    Having been through warranty hell with ASUS years ago, this doesn’t surprise me.

    Such an unethical company that deserves nothing but hardship and bankruptcy.

  • methodicalaspect
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    131 year ago

    TL;DR: Asus pulls the same crap with warranties today that they pulled 22+ years ago. They should be avoided at all costs.

  • @NekoRogue@slrpnk.net
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    1 year ago

    I’m in the process of investigating a sudden overheating issue in my PC and I see this. I have an ASUS ROG motherboard and a Ryzen CPU. I’m not a hardware expert at all, but now I’m wondering if this is relevant to my situation. I didn’t know about the ASUS/AMD issue.