XFX lies about their warranty

[XFX Tech]

The North American warranty is lifetime lifetime. We still warranty 6800GTs and we haven't made those in a very long time. As long as you or the second owner of the card own it we will warranty it.
All companies say to register your product or your warranty is shorter. Both of the other lifetime warranty companies have the same 30 day registration clause. We are pretty lenient with the registration thing because for a while it wasn't in your face when you opened the box. Now when you open the box it has a big door hanger with all of the registration information and it is more noticeable but I don't know when they will be firm on it so I would recommend registering a product when you get it.

I can't think of a time that we have ever declined any warranty service for not registering.

Again, I am only speaking for North America.

 

[lemonadesoda]

Looking at these three pictures:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_260_Amp2_Edition/images/card2.jpg
and
http://www.overclock3d.net/gfx/articles/2008/09/15222118921l.jpg
and
http://img.techpowerup.org/081113/IMG_1367.jpg

I have to say that all I can see is superficial damage done by waxking as a result of AMATEUR (and I mean a seriously bad job) sticker removal.

It seems that the sticker DOES have to be removed. And that XFX or their OEM have used superglue to hold that sticker down.

IMO, waxking, you should have cleaned up that sticker, ie. removed it 100%, before sending it back.

NOTE in my opinion a sticker like this serves NO VALUE unlike a serial number or product number label. (Thats what I originaly thought was missing).

TIP:

To remove a sticker, go to the local chemist/drug store and buy EUCALYPTUS OIL. Put a little on the rag. It will dissolve the glue on contact and the sticker will come off with ease.

waxking:_ I suggest you do this to your card, and post a cleaned up picture here so we can all see it. If it looks undamaged after removal, then you have a case.

BUT if you used a WET SPONGE or SCRUBBER to try and remove the label, then NO, YOU HAVE NO CASE FOR COMPLAINT.

 

[waxking1]

Looking at these three pictures:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_260_Amp2_Edition/images/card2.jpg
and
http://www.overclock3d.net/gfx/articles/2008/09/15222118921l.jpg
and
http://img.techpowerup.org/081113/IMG_1367.jpg

I have to say that all I can see is superficial damage done by waxking as a result of AMATEUR (and I mean a seriously bad job) sticker removal.

It seems that the sticker DOES have to be removed. And that XFX or their OEM have used superglue to hold that sticker down.

IMO, waxking, you should have cleaned up that sticker, ie. removed it 100%, before sending it back.

NOTE in my opinion a sticker like this serves NO VALUE unlike a serial number or product number label. (Thats what I originaly thought was missing).

TIP:

To remove a stick, go to the local chemist/drug store and buy EUCALYPTUS OIL. Put a little on the rag. It will disolve the glue on contact and the sticker will come off with ease.

waxking. I suggest you do this to your card, and post a cleaned up picture. It it looks undamaged after removal, then you have a case.

BUT if you used a WET SPONGE or SCRUBBER to try and remove the label, then NO, YOU HAVE NO CASE FOR COMPLAINT.

The sticker is not the reason given for denying warranty. They took pictures of the sticker side of the card and emailed them to me saying
it was water damage. Water damage is the official reason that they denied the warranty. Only after I called them did the rep tell me that they could not send this card back for credit with the sticker torn off.

If the sticker had been removed completely with EUCALYPTUS OIL(thanks for the tip, I have never read up on sticker removal and would have probably tried to use alcohol or acetone) they still could not have sent it back for credit.

If this were the case they would have removed it the rest of the way themselves and sent it back. Oh, something is wrong here because people in this thread said they make the cards there. If they make the cards there then why does the condition of the sticker make any difference at all? All I did was peel it off to expose the screws.

I've done some good here. I have made XFX define their warranty publically so that they can't do this again(my objective). They have stated that it is OK to cutout around the screws, but you can't pull the llabel off. What I can't do is make sure they don't claim your card was damaged in a way it wasn't(water damage) in order to deny replacement.

 

[PP Mguire]

Funny thing is, since im actualy on their support forums i have never heard of such a thing from them. And XFX is a branch off of Pine, which is where they have to send their cards back.

 

[FudFighter]

We are sorry that we are not able to warranty the card but the damage is obvious. If there were only holes for the screws or something of that nature it would be fine. There are plenty of people with our products who use after market cooling and we have no issues with that as long as the card is not physically damaged, like knocking a capacitor off, and is in original condition when it is received at our service center. This policy applies to all cards 6 series and above. All cards 6 series and above have a transferable lifetime warranty. This is for cards purchased in US or Canada that are registered within 30 days of purchase. Other regions have other policies but their warranty information is available on our site. If anyone has any questions about our policies or needs tips feel free to PM me.

i dont see any damnage to the card, i see damnage to the coolers back plate from removing a sticker, these are 2 diffrent things, yeah i agree that card looks pretty bad.

are you going to admit XFX put that sticker on to avoid having to rma cards that have had the stock cooler replaced?

ofcorse you wont, because that would be bad PR and could cost you sales.

I can tell you this, its cost you sales from me and anybody I recomend cards to, XFX use to be a brand i recomended for the warr and fact you flat out supported users that wanted to use 3rd party coolers as long as they didnt damnage the card.

That sticker is clearly anti-enthusist, and your new wording to the warrinty of the gtx200 line leads me to belive that XFX is trading on the rep and word of mouth about their warr from older card lines.

I will stick with BFG and EVGA form now on for nvidia cards they dont slap stickers over the back of the card to avoid having to RMA it..........lousy way to treat people who spend good money on your ENTHUSIST products if you ask me.

people pay a preimum for these products and the XFX name expecting that due to past practice to support them even if they replace the stock cooler.

and to OP, googone also works, its made of citrus oil(orange oil) acitone and alch wont remove this kinda sticker most times.

if you really cant get a stuborn lable off Goof-Off WILL remove it, but its STINKY stuff and you need to use a paper core qtip when using it, plastic ones at times melt

 

[PP Mguire]

Look at what everybody else is saying, agreeing with the rma department not taking that card back. I wouldnt either becasue it looks like complete crap. Also, the support tech also said that if you cut out the holes where the screws are cleanly they will replace the card from 3rd party aftermarket coolers.

 

[newtekie1]

i dont see any damnage to the card, i see damnage to the coolers back plate from removing a sticker, these are 2 diffrent things, yeah i agree that card looks pretty bad.

are you going to admit XFX put that sticker on to avoid having to rma cards that have had the stock cooler replaced?

ofcorse you wont, because that would be bad PR and could cost you sales.

I can tell you this, its cost you sales from me and anybody I recomend cards to, XFX use to be a brand i recomended for the warr and fact you flat out supported users that wanted to use 3rd party coolers as long as they didnt damnage the card.

That sticker is clearly anti-enthusist, and your new wording to the warrinty of the gtx200 line leads me to belive that XFX is trading on the rep and word of mouth about their warr from older card lines.

I will stick with BFG and EVGA form now on for nvidia cards they dont slap stickers over the back of the card to avoid having to RMA it..........lousy way to treat people who spend good money on your ENTHUSIST products if you ask me.

people pay a preimum for these products and the XFX name expecting that due to past practice to support them even if they replace the stock cooler.

and to OP, googone also works, its made of citrus oil(orange oil) acitone and alch wont remove this kinda sticker most times.

if you really cant get a stuborn lable off Goof-Off WILL remove it, but its STINKY stuff and you need to use a paper core qtip when using it, plastic ones at times melt

He clearly said that XFX would not have had a problem had the sticker not been completely mangled when being removed. There are far more professional ways he could have done it, including just cutting out the holes where the screws are, which the XFX rep said would have been perfectly fine.

The sticker is not there to prevent people from removing the cooler, or to preven RMAs. It is there to make the card look nicer. If Waxking had not done such an amatuer job of removing the sticker, and taken a little care during the waterblock installation processes, XFX would not have denied the RMA.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

I agree ^^

 

[waxking1]

The sticker being damaged is not the issue, its just a sticker. What does it cost, maybe 25 cents? It was an issue for them because they told me they couldn't turn it back in for credit. I forced their hand on this and they had to save face by saying its OK to cut holes around the sticker. They probably won't be able to get credit from the manufacturer for cards with holes cut around the screws either so at least I accomplised something.

The card is DEAD. What difference does it make what the sticker looks like? It is really absurd.

They shipped the card back to me today by FedX ground. UPS takes a week, I'm not sure how long FedX takes but I will see if I can remove the label when I get it back. That is if XFX didn't do some further damage to my card. I really don't trust them at all at this point.

 

[FudFighter]

dosnt matter, IMHO they wouldnt put a sticker like that on then lie claiming "water damnage" just to get out of replacing the card.

they clearly used that sticker in its current form because it stops the user from replacing the cooler without voiding their warrinty.

if they admited that maby i would have a slite bit more respect for them but they just say its water damnage.........maby the tech support guy should stop drinking soda when hes opening packeges?


yeah the sticker remnants look like ass, and i would have cleaned them off but thats not the point, XFX could EASLY remove the sticker remnants and referb the card, I have worked for companys that referbed tech products, and the sticker has to come off anyway to get to the screws to take the cooler off so you can try and figuar out what blew and replace it, stickers like the one shown do not come off clean by design, they are made to be impossable for the avg user to remove without ruining them.

Its like the stickers we use to put on some of the products we referbed, silver flashy stickers(hologram) that if u try and peel it off "VOID" stays on the sticker OR stays on the item your peeling it off of, this is the same thing.

i can pretty much guarntee you that if he sent a card in with holes cut in said sticker they would say it was damnaged some other way and void the warr, read the 260/280 warr compared to older cards, pretty clear the company policy with these newer cards is to try and avoid having to repair/replace as many cards as possable rather then treat them like older cards where as long as the card itself wasnt damnaged they replaced it.

I have sent back XFX cards with scuffed up stock coolers(SLI issues with dual slot plastic coolers) it wasnt a problem, none looked as bad as that because i removed sitcker resedue and remnants b4 shiping, where this guy didnt(doh!!)

still wont buy XFX again under these conditions, it smells fishy(like week old tuna salid thats been in the sun) that they put that sticker on the way they did and changed the wording of the warr the way they did AND then void warrs for removing said sticker and making a mess doing it.

bfg, rvga, palit, well really anybody else is gonna get my money, they dont make it impossable to change the cooler without "damnaging" the card(because they dont use stickers like that )

 

[FudFighter]

The sticker being damaged is not the issue, its just a sticker. What does it cost, maybe 25 cents? It was an issue for them because they told me they couldn't turn it back in for credit. I forced their hand on this and they had to save face by saying its OK to cut holes around the sticker. They probably won't be able to get credit from the manufacturer for cards with holes cut around the screws either so at least I accomplised something.

The card is DEAD. What difference does it make what the sticker looks like? It is really absurd.

They shipped the card back to me today by FedX ground. UPS takes a week, I'm not sure how long FedX takes but I will see if I can remove the label when I get it back. That is if XFX didn't do some further damage to my card. I really don't trust them at all at this point.

dont blame you, xfx use to be one of the top companys i sent people to for nvidia cards due to the kickass warr and support, to me this is a clear case of making an item impossable to do any "mods" to even a small "mod" like putting better thermal goop on the stock cooler, they then use the sticker as an EXCUSE not to warrinty cards, dirty pool if you ask me.

why not just change the warr to flat out say that if you do anything more then plug the card into the system its warr is void, or that as soon as you plug the card in the warr is void?

your selling enthusist cards to ENTHUSISTS, by definition these are the kinda people who want to beable to swap the coolers and at the very least replace the stock goop/thermal pad with some as5/asc/mx2

as i said, xfx wont be seeing my money again, and will be refering to this situation as a reasion not to buy future xfx products due to "dirty pool" i see them playing to avoid fixing/replacing cards that die.

 

[OzzmanFloyd120]

I just wanted to let everyone know about the XFX warranty and my experience with them.

I bought an XFX 280 GTX XXX about a month ago and installed an EK waterblock on the card. In order to install the waterblock, I had to remove the label on the back of the card. The label is a thick plastic laminate covering all the screws. I had a feeling when I peeled the label off that I may be voiding my warranty and was willing to take the risk.

I later found out that XFX honors warranties even after using aftermarket cooling solutions. This is the Catch22, you can use a waterblock or aftermarket cooler, but you can't damage the label to take the card apart. After I confronted them with this, they then lied and claimed I sent the card back to them wet.

Anyway I just wanted to warn everyone about the XFX cards. If you ever plan on taking one apart for any reason, they will void your warranty. They are liars. The real problem is that once you damage the label, they can't return it to their suppliers for credit. I believe the card was designed this way intentionally so to avoid any warranty claims after taking the card apart.

If you think you may ever want to do any aftermarket cooling or replacing or the thermal compound, then you should purchase from EVGA.

Wow, you're the ONLY person I've ever heard complaining about XFX, and to be honest like everyone is saying that you knew that you were voiding the warranty putting that cooler on the card. Truth be told most manufacturers don't honor their warranty once you put an aftermarket cooler on the card because it's too easy to damage the silicon that the GPU is made out of.
I've owned four XFX cards in my life and had to RMA two of them, and they honored the RMA even though I KNOW that I'm fully responsible for the reason they died (Overclocking) which according to their user agreement voids the warranty. Two other friends have fried cards by pushing the pci-e bus too far and by volt modding and still RMAed their cards without problems as well.
XFX is very VERY lenient with the double lifetime warranty. You must have seriously did something bad to those cards outside of that label for them to refuse the RMA

 

[FudFighter]

Wow, you're the ONLY person I've ever heard complaining about XFX, and to be honest like everyone is saying that you knew that you were voiding the warranty putting that cooler on the card. Truth be told most manufacturers don't honor their warranty once you put an aftermarket cooler on the card because it's too easy to damage the silicon that the GPU is made out of.
I've owned four XFX cards in my life and had to RMA two of them, and they honored the RMA even though I KNOW that I'm fully responsible for the reason they died (Overclocking) which according to their user agreement voids the warranty. Two other friends have fried cards by pushing the pci-e bus too far and by volt modding and still RMAed their cards without problems as well.
XFX is very VERY lenient with the double lifetime warranty. You must have seriously did something bad to those cards outside of that label for them to refuse the RMA

read the full thred, they USE to be leniant, and they also here and on their own forums say changing the coolers 100% fine/supported, most card makers today are realising that they need to allow it or people will go with somebody who will.

XFX changed the warr policy for the gtx260 and gtx280 cards to allow them to void for any reasion AND put a THICK HARD TO REMOVE sticker on the card, simply to give an excuse to void warr.

oh and re-read the linked 8 series info, overclocking is supportd as is cooler replacement, just nothing that mods the card itself(no volt mods exct)

clearly u didnt read the whole thred, but who can blame you its all of what 4 pages :O

 

[waxking1]

XFX may be a fine company to deal with except for the GT200 series with this label. Also if you don't plan to modify the card in any way their warranty is probably fine. All I know is that one of their support techs flat out lied to me. They also let this damage to the card(not label) talk keep going without saying a word. I know they are now monitoring this forum and Xtremesys forum and on the other forum I asked XFX_tech to explain if there was any damage to the card other than the label, but never a word.

I'm the one that posted the pictures, why would I bother to post these pictures if I had damaged the card. I also agree that it is fine with me if they don't want to honor the warranty if someone adds a waterblock or aftermarket cooler, but then they shouldn't pretend like they do and say it won't be covered if you open the card.

EVGA will honor their warranty even if you have installed alternate cooling. They also do not make the card where you have to damage something to get it apart and they have a 90 day stepup. If XFX does not change some of their practices, I'm sure they are going to lose more of there business to EVGA. They have already lost mine and I buy new cards and Motherboards on a regular basis.

 

[mep916]

I read your thread at XS, and I don't believe that they received the card wet. The condition in which you returned the card, at face value, looks bad, but they should swallow their pride, IMO, and grant you a RMA. I own a XFX GTX 280, and while I probably won't WC this card, I'm dissapointed that they haven't been more understanding and worked with you on this issue.

In the past, I owned an eVGA 680i mobo running 2X eVGA 8800 Ultras. When I felt my 3DMark06 scores were low (LOL ), they allowed me to RMA the board no questions asked. eVGA support, for me, has always been awesome, so I'm a bit suprised that XFX is being so subborn, especially since this issue has been pretty well publicized throughout the enthusiast community. I'm not yet at the point where I would totally write off XFX, but i would be happy to see some type of leniency in this case, if that makes sense.

 

[OzzmanFloyd120]

read the full thred.

Don't assume things, I have read the whole thread. Don't base your judgement based on which post I've decided to quote, I used the most relevant one.
And SERIOUSLY did you look at the picture of his card? I'm not surprised in the least that there could be water damage to it. If he did THAT BAD OF A JOB removing a sticker then imagine how leaky his loops probably are. Water cooling isn't something that amateurs should do, and no offense waxking, but judging based on what that card looks like you're not very seasoned.

Something that did come to mind though after reading the thread is that you never described exactly what happened to the card that damaged it, all you said was "OMGZORZ! XFX ARE TEH LIARZ!!!!1!!!one" Please explain to us exactly what happened before the card died, because for all we know your waterblock may have in fact leaked on the card causing it to short.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Also was it an ek block? they are know to make the cards bend breaking the traces and killing it.There are threads on it over at [XS] if you search.

 

[waxking1]

Sure I'll explain what happened. The card was working with the air cooling. I installed a watercooling block and leak tested. No leaks in my system anywhere. When I reinstalled the card it no longer worked. I got a long beep code and no video. I took the waterblock off and reassemble the card and tried it again in this machine(790i MB) and another machine with an ASUS MB and it was still dead.

There is a thread about this on XS forums if you do a search in the WC section on my same username, you will find it. I wasn't planning on even sending the card back, but more than one person in that thread suggested I RMA the card, what did I have to lose. I told XFX that I installed a WB on the card before I sent it back and they still issued the RMA. In honesty the most likely cause of the cards death was a short but I don't know this for a fact. It could be a hairline crack put in the circuitboard when disassembling. Heck, the card could have just died for no reason.

I think XFX should just come out and say, "Your warranty will be void on the GT200 series card if you disassemble the card". Problem is that they can't do this because other companies allow it. Now they pretend they do and I've called them on it, so now they say you can cut holes around the screwholes and its OK. Don't damage the 25 cent label or your warranty is void. What a joke.

Here's a quote off the other forum that XFX tech wrote and he's catching a bit of flak for. Its rather amusing. He kind of put his foot in his mouth.

" Originally Posted by XFX Tech View Post
We would never be able to use that cooler on a card for any other customer."

 

[FudFighter]

I dont see XFX admiting the truth, that would cos them sales.

and the quote from XFX Tech is utter BS, they could use it on a card that was sent back from RMA, more then once i have gotten cards back that where repaired, bad/missing "pretty" stickers, scuffed lables or coolers, "blah" solder jobs on replaced componants, never bothered me really as long as the card WORKED.

and wax, i have been there, once took a cooler off a 9800, replaced the stock crap goop, put cooler back on and it wouldnt work, after testing the RMA tech found that a cap on he cpb(little sold square one) had gone out, he replaced the cap, and sent the card back, a 5cent cap took out at $140 card, i gathered problems like that where not super rare.

had they simply checked the card out after removing the cooler, found they couldnt fix it and said "you broke it by XXX" that would have been FINE, its the saying they got the card wet and that it was water damnage(clearly its not)

reps need to learn not to lie.

honestly Wax if you are gonna get another nvidia card, evga or bfg, if you deside to try an ati card, powercolor asus or palit(much shorter warr then the other 2 in my exp)

Palit I like BUT the warr they offer is so damn short compared to what im use to seeing, the one thing that makes me shy away on pricy cards.

 

[Tatty_Two]

And MSI for NVidia cards.......some of the best overclocking cards I have ever owned.

 

[FudFighter]

msi are ok, only problems i have had is SLOW rma, took them 3x as long to rma my 1900xtx as it took bfg to rma my 8800gt........thats with my paying for over night shiping to them.....

 

[technicks]

My local hardware shop has a warning on all XFX cards because their experience is that XFX has very shitty rma service.
But i also have read numerous threads of US citizens who claim that their rma is vey good.

 

[Tatty_Two]

msi are ok, only problems i have had is SLOW rma, took them 3x as long to rma my 1900xtx as it took bfg to rma my 8800gt........thats with my paying for over night shiping to them.....

Lol, i didnt have to pay for shipping and they sent me a replacement card before I sent them the faulty one!

 

[PP Mguire]

My local hardware shop has a warning on all XFX cards because their experience is that XFX has very shitty rma service.
But i also have read numerous threads of US citizens who claim that their rma is vey good.

Thats becasue XFX has different RMA departments for the US and the other side of the giant pond. This guy clearly has only had a bad experience and like anybody else only wants to bash a good company for messing up his own card and not taking the care and time to remove said sticker properly.

 

[newtekie1]

The sticker being damaged is not the issue, its just a sticker. What does it cost, maybe 25 cents? It was an issue for them because they told me they couldn't turn it back in for credit. I forced their hand on this and they had to save face by saying its OK to cut holes around the sticker. They probably won't be able to get credit from the manufacturer for cards with holes cut around the screws either so at least I accomplised something.

The card is DEAD. What difference does it make what the sticker looks like? It is really absurd.

They shipped the card back to me today by FedX ground. UPS takes a week, I'm not sure how long FedX takes but I will see if I can remove the label when I get it back. That is if XFX didn't do some further damage to my card. I really don't trust them at all at this point.

It doesn't really matter what reason you claim they said for denying the RMA, the only thing that matters is that YOU voided the warranty so they have every right to deny any RMA on the card. They never lied about their warranty, as you claim.

Furthermore, the completely amatuer way you removed the sticker gives a good example of how the rest of the installation processes went. If you used absolutely no care when removing the sticker, chances are no care was used the rest of the process either. And judging by that, I wouldn't be surprised if something you did killed the card anyway.

dosnt matter, IMHO they wouldnt put a sticker like that on then lie claiming "water damnage" just to get out of replacing the card.

they clearly used that sticker in its current form because it stops the user from replacing the cooler without voiding their warrinty.

if they admited that maby i would have a slite bit more respect for them but they just say its water damnage.........maby the tech support guy should stop drinking soda when hes opening packeges?


yeah the sticker remnants look like ass, and i would have cleaned them off but thats not the point, XFX could EASLY remove the sticker remnants and referb the card, I have worked for companys that referbed tech products, and the sticker has to come off anyway to get to the screws to take the cooler off so you can try and figuar out what blew and replace it, stickers like the one shown do not come off clean by design, they are made to be impossable for the avg user to remove without ruining them.

Its like the stickers we use to put on some of the products we referbed, silver flashy stickers(hologram) that if u try and peel it off "VOID" stays on the sticker OR stays on the item your peeling it off of, this is the same thing.

i can pretty much guarntee you that if he sent a card in with holes cut in said sticker they would say it was damnaged some other way and void the warr, read the 260/280 warr compared to older cards, pretty clear the company policy with these newer cards is to try and avoid having to repair/replace as many cards as possable rather then treat them like older cards where as long as the card itself wasnt damnaged they replaced it.

I have sent back XFX cards with scuffed up stock coolers(SLI issues with dual slot plastic coolers) it wasnt a problem, none looked as bad as that because i removed sitcker resedue and remnants b4 shiping, where this guy didnt(doh!!)

still wont buy XFX again under these conditions, it smells fishy(like week old tuna salid thats been in the sun) that they put that sticker on the way they did and changed the wording of the warr the way they did AND then void warrs for removing said sticker and making a mess doing it.

bfg, rvga, palit, well really anybody else is gonna get my money, they dont make it impossable to change the cooler without "damnaging" the card(because they dont use stickers like that )

Again, if he would have used a little care removing the sticker, or simply cut out the holes for the screws, XFX would probably not have had an issue with RMAing the card. Either way though, something he did likely killed the card, so XFX shouldn't have to replace the card anyway.

Sure I'll explain what happened. The card was working with the air cooling. I installed a watercooling block and leak tested. No leaks in my system anywhere. When I reinstalled the card it no longer worked. I got a long beep code and no video. I took the waterblock off and reassemble the card and tried it again in this machine(790i MB) and another machine with an ASUS MB and it was still dead.

So you killed the card when installing the waterblock. See, an amatuer job of removing the sticker, and an amatuer job installing the waterblock. XFX had ever right to deny the RMA. Next time, use a little care when doing something like this.

If you would have used a little care and not done such an amatuer job removing the sticker, XFX probably wouldn't have had an issue with replacing the card that YOU broke. As it is, you are not entitled to a replacement at all, so you shouldn't really be bitching that you didn't get one. However, XFX would have taken the hit had you taken a little time to do the job right.