Why I'll Never Buy Anything Gigabyte Again.

[PP Mguire]

I've had so many bad experiences with Gigabyte that I've been avoiding them for years.

 

[hat]

Lol, sounds like an old HDD

I wish brands could stay consistent, seems companies are always going up and down...

 

[dorsetknob]

TheMailMan78

At the risk of being censured not every quote means you support the views of the original quotee

for Example and only for example
quote "There is no God but what man creates" often credited to chairman Mao does not mean that your a commie or even an athiest

 

[avatar_raq]

I vowed not to buy anything Gigabyte again, back in 2007 iirc. I still have bad taste in my mouth from my old GB 8800 GT (factory overclocked) that crashed my PC in older games (like oblivion) and wasn't replaced by their local distributor either. I needed to dial it back to nvidia stock clocks to minimize the crashes. Piece of garbage.

 

[hat]

I find that becoming an increasingly bad problem, overclocked cards unstable out of the box... And it's gotten worse with GPU boost. Not saying GPU boost is a bad thing, but there could be better quality control. Of course, like any other production environment, things are probably rushed as much as possible to get the most product out, just doing it more instead of doing it better.

 

[Bansaku]

This is after sending the card in, they returned it like this:

I contacted them showing them the video and they said I could ship it back again and they'd fix it. I asked them to pay shipping to send it to them, as well as to overnight it both way, since I've already paid to ship it to them once and waited 2 weeks while they had the card. Nope, no chance they would even pay for the shipping to them. What an absolute crock of shit!

The fan sounds like during transport on a slow boat from China, the temperature caused the oil/grease to be compromised, thus causing the rattle. Don't blame Gigabyte for this problem, chances are it was perfect when it passed QC. Not to mention, as others have stated, lube would be a simple fix. Why send an otherwise 100% working GPU back, again, for something so minor?

Also, try loosening/tightening the screws on the shroud/fan; Maybe it is a tension issue?

 

[Bill_Bright]

I vowed not to buy anything Gigabyte again, back in 2007 iirc.

Wow. Talk about holding a grudge? And note it is likely misdirected too since NVIDIA made the card, and the drivers. And local distributers are private companies, only responsible for the first 30 days for returns.

I note too that overclocking a card (or CPU, motherboard, or RAM) is a "marketing" gimmick - not a "design feature". Designers design to specs and/or the capacity (physical limits) of the materials. Marketing weenies "fluff" up the capabilities. And marketing strategies change all the time.

This reminds me of the guy who has sworn off all Samsung SSDs because a few in one line had problems, even though Samsung readily acknowledged the problem and quickly released a firmware fix for it.

Or the guy who swore off Maxtor drives because his failed a month after the 3 year warranty ran out promising to only buy Seagate! HeHe!

Until Man can create perfection 100% of the time, there will always be samples that fail pre-maturely.

 

[Ferrum Master]

It is just doing that at certain low RPM. It is a design flaw. My 2 months old card sometimes already does it...

I kind of rarely see that, as most of the time the fans don't spin at all. And the noise gets absorbed in my define R5 case, when open, the rattle is like toothpain reminding me of 740Euro bill...

As I said. The partner RMA service, that has the contract with GB, can do limited set of repairs based on the claimed fault. If it is in the fault matrix, then gigabyte pays, if not, they won't do charity. I believe separate fans are not even available outside the fab.

 

[newtekie1]

That is not a reason to avoid Gigabyte - though certainly you can be upset with them. The repair center was most likely some 3rd party contractor who plugged it in, saw that the fan worked and sent it back out.

And note too that sticking your finger in a fan could be considered abuse.

I might be tempted to not buy a Gigabyte graphics card, but that would not stop me from buying a Gigabyte motherboard - especially since they replaced one for free for me that was 4 years old - a year out of warranty.

It isn't just the sending the card back, that can happen. They didn't hear the noise, fine, I can deal with that. Though I still think for the cost of a fan, if a user says the fan is noisy, just replace it.

The part I can't deal with is the total lack of customer service, requiring me to spend my money a second time to ship it back to them. Making no offer to pay for return shipping, and no offer to expedite the process. On top of that, there is the terribly slow customer service. I bought the card June 22nd. It started to fail in Nov. I started the RMA process Nov. 20th. The RMA wasn't even approved until Nov. 28th! I shipped the card Nov. 30th. They received the card Dec. 7th. They didn't ship the card back to me until Dec 15th! They had the card for over a f'n week, and didn't do anything with it. Then they shipped it back UPS Ground, from CA, so I didn't receive the card until Dec 21st.

the bearings warbling, its worn, perhaps some sewing machine oil might help it

That's another annoyance, I just bought the thing in June.

The fan sounds like during transport on a slow boat from China, the temperature caused the oil/grease to be compromised, thus causing the rattle. Don't blame Gigabyte for this problem, chances are it was perfect when it passed QC. Not to mention, as others have stated, lube would be a simple fix. Why send an otherwise 100% working GPU back, again, for something so minor?

Also, try loosening/tightening the screws on the shroud/fan; Maybe it is a tension issue?

I don't really care that it went bad, I care that they won't fix it. Why should I have to fix their faulty product?

And if I took the fan off, they'd probably say I voided the warranty, because that is the feeling I get from Gigabyte. They'll do anything they can to get out of fixing their faulty shit.

 

[eidairaman1]

It isn't just the sending the card back, that can happen. They didn't hear the noise, fine, I can deal with that. Though I still think for the cost of a fan, if a user says the fan is noise, just replace it.

The part I can't deal with is the total lack of customer service, requiring me to spend my money a second time to ship it back to them. Making no offer to pay for return shipping, and no offer to expedite the process.

id request a fan sent or try an aftermarket cooler

 

[FordGT90Concept]

This is after sending the card in, they returned it like this:

I contacted them showing them the video and they said I could ship it back again and they'd fix it. I asked them to pay shipping to send it to them, as well as to overnight it both way, since I've already paid to ship it to them once and waited 2 weeks while they had the card. Nope, no chance they would even pay for the shipping to them. What an absolute crock of shit!

That's what I sent my PowerColor R9 290X back for. One of three fans "groaned" for lack of a better word.

I still haven't gotten it back...it's been over a month. Not too pleased with PowerColor at this point...

 

[jboydgolfer]

That's what I sent my PowerColor R9 290X back for. One of three fans "groaned" for lack of a better word.

I still haven't gotten it back...it's been over a month. Not too pleased with PowerColor at this point...

seriously!? support is SO hit or miss, when i had the same issue, they sent me a entire shroud, no charge, i didnt even provide proof of purchase. just stated the issue, and an old powercolor support guy (since left the company) replied asking for my address, and sent it to me. Maybe thats why he doesnt work there anymore .

 

[TheMailMan78]

TheMailMan78

At the risk of being censured not every quote means you support the views of the original quotee

for Example and only for example
quote "There is no God but what man creates" often credited to chairman Mao does not mean that your a commie or even an athiest

Better dead than red.

 

[MxPhenom 216]

TheMailMan78

At the risk of being censured not every quote means you support the views of the original quotee

for Example and only for example
quote "There is no God but what man creates" often credited to chairman Mao does not mean that your a commie or even an athiest

Wtf did you just say?

 

[Jetster]

Ive never had anything from Gigabyte break

 

[PP Mguire]

seriously!? support is SO hit or miss, when i had the same issue, they sent me a entire shroud, no charge, i didnt even provide proof of purchase. just stated the issue, and an old powercolor support guy (since left the company) replied asking for my address, and sent it to me. Maybe thats why he doesnt work there anymore .

This is why I always purchase eVGA and have mainly stuck with Nvidia for the past few years. Always top notch support. They were even going to replace a P55 board that I admitted to frying with phase change cooling.

 

[xvi]

If they're going to leave you high and dry, might as well mod it for better performance.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

This is why I always purchase eVGA and have mainly stuck with Nvidia for the past few years. Always top notch support. They were even going to replace a P55 board that I admitted to frying with phase change cooling.

I had an EVGA 8500 GT (multiple blown caps) and 8800 GT. Both died. They refused to honor the lifetime warranty on the 8500 GT because I didn't register it with them. They sent a 9800 GT to replace the 8800 GT and it still works. The 8500 GT left a sour taste in my mouth for EVGA. The fact both failed inside of a year left me wary of NVIDIA hardware.

 

[Mussels]

pretty sure i made a thread (or just bitched on GN) when it took about 5 tries to get a working 280x back from gigabyte.

the only fix was giving me a 290 in the end.

 

[PP Mguire]

I had an EVGA 8500 GT (multiple blown caps) and 8800 GT. Both died. They refused to honor the lifetime warranty on the 8500 GT because I didn't register it with them. They sent a 9800 GT to replace the 8800 GT and it still works. The 8500 GT left a sour taste in my mouth for EVGA. The fact both failed inside of a year left me wary of NVIDIA hardware.

To be fair, the lower end 8000 series was pretty terrible. I had 2 8600GTs die on me but they were free so I didn't care. I believe the 8800GS I had I sold on here....maybe. Been too long I can't remember. My 280s on up were all brilliant though, and almost each GPU from Nvidia being eVGA besides the lone Gigabyte 580 I had. The last 280 I had that died I still have. It's not technically dead but the caps are so loud and it gets so hot just idling it's pretty much dead. I use it for my dead hardware Christmas tree.

 

[flmatter]

Nope, no chance they would even pay for the shipping to them

I assume you meant "wouldn't"

, I care that they won't fix it

And I am going out on a limb here but which is it? They will fix it but you have to pay shipping or they will not fix it period. Your first post says one thing and now another post something else. If I missed something then I apologize. I understand your anger from the first. I am just trying to figure out which is it, they will not pay for shipping to fix or they will not fix it period?
Apologies in advance if I danced around the fire naked with gasoline.

 

[RCoon]

pretty sure i made a thread (or just bitched on GN) when it took about 5 tries to get a working 280x back from gigabyte.

the only fix was giving me a 290 in the end.

The problem I have with Gigabyte is that their support is rarely English as a First Language. That means when you send them an email explaining a problem, they go galavanting onto something unrelated and simple which they don't think they need to fix. After several emails back and forth, I tend to just go to the chip manufacturer. In the previous case, I called NVidia, who then called Gigabyte and leaned on them heavily to sort their crap out. I got nowhere until somebody else with weight stepped in. Communication with Gigabyte is just super crappy, and their RMA form is unfathomably badly designed.

 

[RejZoR]

I work with a lot of RMA cases (electronics retailer) and what I've noticed is that people don't tell much informations about the malfunction unless you pull the data out of them by asking them like a detective.

The reason I say this is because people in most cases just say "It doesn't work". You send it to service center (in Europe, stores are obligated to do this if customer wants us sending the stuff to service center), they plug the device in, it starts and they send it back because the "It doesn't work" isn't true. This is especially the case for malfunctions that appear over time and not right away (because the device has to warm up for it to show the fault or something similar). Service center plugs device in, tests for 15 minutes, all is well and they send it back. But they'd have to run it for 2 hours for the fault to show up. So, it's critical to describe issues as detailed as possible so you don't waste time sending stuff back and forth several times because the service center didn't have enough info to properly test the malfunction.

In this case, you should specifically state that fan is making noise when in horizontal, facing down position. They'd spot the issue right away. But like some said, they test it in test benches that are in most cases motherboards placed horizontally, meaning the graphic card was vertical and most likely not making any noises. I know it's impossible for customers to know how they test, but it's better to write down excessively detailed description of a malfunction than too little detailed.

So make sure to describe in details:
- what happened (what is the malfunction)
- how it happened (what were you doing when it happened)
- when it happens (is it constant, does it happen after specific time, under other specific conditions etc)
- describe in what position (because components can even be facing up with cases that have inverted vertical motherboards placement)

You can even write down something that isn't even listed above, but you think it might be relevant.

Just an advice for the future.

 

[vega22]

i have had a couple of returns/repairs with gb and they have been great. ok i had to cover the shipping but they have repaired items out of warranty for the cost of shipping too. not everything as some parts they have ceased to carry, but it is still worth asking about.

best way i have found to try and shame companies into doing the right thing is to attack them about it on social media.

 

[tabascosauz]

So make sure to describe in details:
- what happened (what is the malfunction)
- how it happened (what were you doing when it happened)
- when it happens (is it constant, does it happen after specific time, under other specific conditions etc)
- describe in what position (because components can even be facing up with cases that have inverted vertical motherboards placement)

You can even write down something that isn't even listed above, but you think it might be relevant.

Just an advice for the future.

I respect that GB has been giving OP an extremely hard time in his RMA and often times customer support for these companies is woefully subpar, but I think that rather than shaming these companies openly, more of us should try to take a positive approach. Things go bad all the time regardless of brand (Asus gets a lot of shit recently but no company is that much different) and by exhausting all the possibilities in troubleshooting, you do yourself a favour by making the manufacturer's life easier.

Just laying out every related issue and fact and occurrence can help out a manufacturer not only in helping you troubleshoot but it also goes a long way in building a healthy relationship. Consumers' Rights go a long way nowadays in making sure that companies treat you well but if you send a scathing email straight outta the gates on why a fan has broken after 6 months, chances are that any rep is not going to take too kindly to that. Some things don't seem big enough to even mention but giving it a quick mention makes your case more complete and also stops them from making unhelpful canned suggestions.

I had a RMA with Kingston that didn't end up being an RMA in November. I sent a very long email detailing how I analysed and tried to solve the issue on my own, and every possibility I could think of. In the end, I got a quick, frendly response and rep told me to send it in to a depot nearby first chance I got. Didn't come to that because evidently I hadn't exhausted all the possibilities and it turned out to be a GPU issue and not the RAM kit, but I told them when I found out and with another actually-not-canned-and-still-friendly response from them the entire procedure was wrapped up amicably.

Now, I'm not saying that every case is like mine and every manufacturer is the same, nor am I suggesting that I even had to go thru the hardest parts of the RAM process. But although companies should always treat their consumers well and put them "first", they also don't have to treat you like family if you start things off with a direct " your products suck if they start being partially defective in 3 months, rethink your strategy as you're a pile of rubbish, I'm buying x and never from you again". Some reps are assholes and will continue to not care/be rude after you are being positive throughout, but I trust that not every rep is like that.

Some have good social media presence too, so if you mention to them/remind them there politely (perhaps with a little bit of force), they will rather quickly get to opening a case with you.