Maximum PC

My EAH4850, which some of you might remember died last July, died again today. I inspected the card, and I realized that they didn't do anything to it, but somehow it was magically able to run for 7 months before overheating to death, again. I know they didn't do anything, because the exact same thermal compound was in the card as when I sent it, so apparently they had simply changed the fan. Despite discussing it with the representative, and leaving a note in the box when I sent it, the card was still left in the exact same terrible shape it was in.


Well, fortunately I have a 3 year warranty, and the post office has flat-rate boxes, so I can send it for like $5. And therefore, when I get my card back in 10 days, I can use it another 7 months, and then when it dies in August, I can send it back again for only $5. Then I can do it again in February and September. Once the warranty's over, I'm definitely


It's a shame, because it was an extremely powerful card for what I paid ($130, nov 2008), it came factory overclocked, and had no issues for the first 8 months of use. Oh well, looks like BFG/Sapphire/MSI/Realtek has a new customer.



</pissedoffrantingyetstillremainingquitecalmbecauseIhaveawarrantyfortwomoreyears>

Well, it came back. Lucky me, the card was broken, so they sent me a brand new one Hopefully this one doesn't break, but at least I've still got a warranty if it does.

I recently went through a fairly painful, nearly 2 month process with Asus's rma system for a GTX 280. I share your feeling that they suck.

I think it's more that they're good, and they respect their warranties, but they just happen to have an incredibly slow turnaround.

That's a good outlook on their warranty. I'm not sure, but I don't think they have any support in the US and it's all ported through Red China or something. Porting an actual support hub into North America would fix that, but they're not angled that way in their plan...support is about people being happy, and doesn't make sense in their home country. Doing that costs money and may cost face by even imagining a product can fail.

Others in that situation have done well, and there's no reason Asus, Gigabyte, or any of the other big dogs don't realize the human element of their product. They'll get to it, but on their time...it's like they don't realize you already paid for it, it has an issue, and you're out money personally while you wait for the fix.

Actually, my card shipped to Fremont, California. And a rep from there who wrote perfect English emailed me several times to inform me of delays and such.